Off-Page SEO: What is Domain Authority & Page Authority? How Does It Work?

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). Domain Authority scores range from 01 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to greater likelihood of ranking.

Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on the SERPs.

As of the Domain Authority 2.0 update in early 2019, the calculation of a domain’s DA score comes from a machine learning algorithm’s predictions about how often Google is using that domain in its search results. If domain A is more likely to appear in a Google SERP than domain B is, then we would expect domain A’s DA to be higher than domain B’s DA.

What is Page Authority?

Page Authority (PA) is a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific page will rank on search engine result pages (SERP). Page Authority scores range from 1 to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank. 

Whereas Domain Authority measures the predictive ranking strength of entire domains or subdomains, Page Authority measures the strength of individual pages.

How to check your site’s DA & PA?

Domain Authority & Page Authority metrics are incorporated into dozens of SEO and online marketing platforms across the web. You can find out the Domain Authority of any website using Moz’s Link Explorer or in the SERP Analysis section of Keyword Explorer.