Once I began to take blogging seriously I kept coming across the mysterious term 'DA'. It didn't stand for District Attorney, or Deviant Art, or even Domineering Aardvarks. What it actually stood for was 'Domain Authority'.
So what is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority predicts how well websites rank on search engines, and comes in the form of a score between 1 and 100. The higher the score, the better the website will rank. Examples of websites with a DA of 100 include Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
Page Authority or PA, on the other hand, scores a specific page on the website.
Does my blog have Domain Authority?
The basic answer is: yes. The full answer is slightly more complicated. For your blog to have its own Domain Authority, it has to have its own domain. My domain is babiafi.co.uk, for instance. If your blog address is a subdomain, like babiafi.blogspot.uk, its DA will be 'shared' with the host domain.
When I had that blogspot address my DA would come up as 95 - but that was actually Blogger's DA. I had no Domain Authority of my own. You can find out your DA HERE; you can also download the MOZ toolbar which lets you be nosy and check out the DA of every website you visit. DA is not static either, it is updated roughly every month, when the Mozscape link index is updated.
Why is Domain Authority important?
DA is only a prediction of how well a website ranks and, as the cynical may well point out, is the rather recent brainchild of Moz, a digital marketing company. But - your DA is used in lots of other settings too. It impacts on your Tots100 score, for example, and many brands won't work with a blog which has a DA of less than 25 or so.
How is Domain Authority calculated?
There are over 40 different factors used to calculate a website's DA, but some of the big ones include:
- Age of the domain.
- Domain popularity. I.e. the ratio of links from and to your website.
- Size of the website. The more content there is to be indexed, the better chance a site has of being ranked highly.
- Number and quality of backlinks.
- Moz metrics like MozRank and MozTrust.
What can I do to improve my Domain Authority?
What tips do you have for increasing Domain Authority?
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Brilliant post and lots of useful info. I've heard of DA and knew links were important but great to have it explained clearly and tips to increase it.
ReplyDelete#abitofeverything
Glad it helped! I didn't have a clue what it was when I first heard of it! x
DeleteVery useful Jess, I shall be revisiting this as am having a bit of a session on the blog admin. I am so with you on District Attorney!! Thanks for sharing #abitofeverying
ReplyDeleteThank you! :3 (I watch too many crime shows!)
DeleteFascinating. I vaguely knew what domain authority was, but didn't know my own score until I followed that link. Looks like brands won't be working with me then, haha!
ReplyDeleteLol, plenty of them will! x
DeleteThanks Jess - this was really useful for me! My DA is pretty poor, and I've been trying to work on improving it, but this has been a reassuring read, as most of these things I'm doing anyway, and so it sounds like it's just a question of time more than anything else. My domain is pretty new, so I guess it's just unreasonable to expect a good DA score!
ReplyDeleteGlad it was a help! :D I switched to my own domain in November and it's so hard waiting for my DA to catch up! I'm not a very patient person, lol. x
DeleteSuch an interesting post and now I understand DA much more where I was very confused before. I am only in my second month of blogging so I am guessing that it will take me a while to get my DA score :-/ #bloggersclubuk
ReplyDeleteIt took about two months for my domain to be indexed, but it has gone up in pretty big jumps each month since then. (Fingers crossed it continues! :)
DeleteLOve your infographic I have shared x
ReplyDeleteThank you! :)
DeleteSpot on! Well done on explaining Domain Authority so well, as you say patience and hard work is key and understanding what you are doing #sharewithme
ReplyDeleteThank you! :3
DeleteReally useful. I always get so confused by this :)
ReplyDeleteGlad it helped! :)
DeleteGreat post, Jessica! I am proud to say I do 4 of the 5 on your list. I've only done a few guest posts.
ReplyDeleteFinally DA makes sense!! Thank you.
ReplyDelete:D So glad it was helpful!
DeleteThis is really helpful. Mine dropped by 2 last month and I was gutted.I really hope it goes back up soon!
ReplyDeleteRosie at Damzel In This Dress
Fingers crossed! x
DeleteGreat tips! My DA is really holding me back I think in terms of earning money from my blog so I will put this to good use. Thank you so much for linking up to #FriYAYLinky at wafflemama.uk xx
ReplyDeleteI really want to build mine up to a decent figure this year so I can try and make a go of getting some income from the blog next year. x
DeleteThanks this was a really helpful post. I've only had my own domain since January so it's reassuring to know that even though I'm trying to build my links etc it will take time for my DA to improve. I'll try not to be too downhearted when I check my DA at the start of next month! #KCACOLS
ReplyDeleteYeah, it takes a while for it to be picked up by the system - it should go up in quite big jumps after that though. :)
DeleteThanks. I'd never even heard of it. I have a score of 10. More work and patience needed! #KCACOLS
ReplyDeleteIt will come!
DeleteThis is really interesting. I got a 25, but will be checking back soon. Thanks for the info
ReplyDeleteGlad it was useful!
DeleteReally useful post on a topic that not many of us completely understand. I have the Moz toolbar and find it really helpful to keep an eye on mine. I'd also add that deleting any broken links from your site seems to rally help - I had a purge recently and it went up x #KCACOLS
ReplyDeleteI love the toolbar - mostly because I'm so nosy! x
DeleteThis is such a great post. You explain Domain Authority so well! I remember reading posts mentioning DA & having no idea what that stood for. It can be hard to be patient all right. Your tips are excellent & I am working on them myself since figuring out what DA is. lol Thanks so much for sharing with blogger club uk x
ReplyDeleteThank you, I'm so glad it came across nice and clear! :)
DeleteAhhh great to share the knowledge. Thanks for the clarification and information. Great tips. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me #sharewithme
ReplyDeleteThank you! :)
DeleteGreat post Jess. It really explains very well how all this DA works. It is not easy at all to build your DA but I agree that it comes with time. The longer your blog is out there the better DA you will have. Getting back links are crucial too. We will find out soon what are the new scores for this month. Let's hope we all did all right. Fingers crossed!! Thanks so much for sharing this at #KCACOLS, :-) x
ReplyDeleteThank you! :) I went up 4 to 23, though it still isn't showing up in the toolbar yet. x
DeleteVisiting again from #KCACOLS. I've pinned your blog to my really useful board
ReplyDeleteThank you! :)
DeleteManual linking is very important factor and to be considered by every blogger who posts more often. He needs to spend sometime in each week to update interlinking of his website/Blog.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely, it's really important.
DeleteI love Deviant Art! Oh wait, that has nothing to do with this post... ;P All this was new to me, so thank you for sharing your knowledge! I'm scared to check mine, I just switched off of blogspot recently so it's probably pretty non-existent. And I'm guessing that all the times people linked to me in the past with that blogspot link don't count either?? Dangit!!
ReplyDeleteHehe, so much of my misspent youth was about DeviantArt! It takes a while to catch up when you change from Blogspot to your own domain - it was a month or two before it picked mine up. (And yeah, it's too painful to think about!) x
DeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI am reading a lot of posts regarding domain authority, because i want to improve my domain authority quickly in order to attract advertisers.
Buy I am not finding it easy as I am not able to know, why I am not improving.
Anyways, I have one question, Whether the links from bookmarking sites help in improving domain authority or not?
I have build many links from Bookmarking and Profile sites, whether it helps?
So sorry I missed your comment! It depends whether or not they are follow links, and how quickly they're gathered. If they aren't follow links, they won't count very much towards your DA, and there is a risk if you get lots of profile / bookmarking links all at once it will flag your domain up as spammy. Though, saying that, I just bulk added mine and it didn't seem to do any harm. x
DeleteReally awesome tips to increase DA. I’m sure i have plenty of these to implement.
ReplyDeleteThanks..!
Thank you! :)
DeleteHi Jessica loved the Infographic on your blog. It was very much exciting to read it. Any tips on how to make such beautiful infograph?
ReplyDelete