What is Domain Authority and does it affect SEO?
Backlinks
Domain Authority (DA) is a third-party metric from Moz, not a Google ranking factor. It predicts how likely a site is to rank compared to competitors, based on link profile strength. In practice, SEO teams use DA (or alternatives like Ahrefs DR, Semrush Authority Score) to evaluate link opportunities and track progress.
Reality in 2025: Google doesn’t use DA, but stronger backlink profiles + topical authority do influence rankings.
For example, a DA 80 news site link usually drives more impact than a DA 10 blog. Use DA as a relative benchmark, not a success metric.
Always pair it with real KPIs: impressions, conversions, and traffic.
Further reading: