{"id":41,"date":"2026-09-11T08:55:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T08:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/2026\/09\/11\/what-is-domain-authority-and-why-does-it-matter\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T08:55:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T08:55:05","slug":"what-is-domain-authority-and-why-does-it-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/2026\/09\/11\/what-is-domain-authority-and-why-does-it-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Domain Authority and Why Does It Matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every few months, a Melbourne business owner forwards us a screenshot of a browser extension showing their “Domain Authority” score and asks why it dropped five points overnight. The honest answer often surprises them: Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor, it never appears in Search Console, and Google has said plainly that it plays no part in crawling, indexing or ranking. That does not make it useless. It is a genuinely useful comparison tool, just not for the reason most people assume. Here is what Domain Authority actually measures, why it correlates with rankings even though it does not cause them, and what to focus on instead. The case studies on our results page<\/a> show what actually moved the needle for real Melbourne clients, and it was rarely a Domain Authority score.<\/p>\n

What Domain Authority actually is<\/h2>\n

Domain Authority, usually shortened to DA, is a third-party metric built by Moz, the software company that created it. It scores a website from 1 to 100 using a machine-learning model trained mainly on backlink data, meaning links from other websites pointing to yours. Moz explains the metric in full on its own site, and is upfront that the score is a comparative benchmark rather than an absolute measure of quality. In plain terms, DA is Moz’s best guess at how strong your backlink profile is compared with every other website in its index, nothing more.<\/p>\n

A higher DA generally means more, and better quality, websites link to yours. It does not mean your content is better written, your pages load faster, or Google likes your site more. Those are separate things Google does evaluate directly, and DA is simply not one of its inputs.<\/p>\n

Moz has never published the exact formula behind the score, but it has said the model draws on dozens of signals connected to your link profile: how many separate websites link to you, whether those links are the kind search engines count at all (a “nofollow” link tells search engines to largely disregard it), how authoritative those linking sites are themselves, and how your overall profile compares with sites already ranking well for similar terms. It is recalculated periodically, which is why a score can shift even when nothing on your own website has changed.<\/p>\n

Why it is so often confused with a Google ranking factor<\/h2>\n

The confusion is understandable, because higher-DA sites genuinely do rank higher on average. But that is correlation, not cause and effect. Sites with a strong backlink profile usually also have the things Google actually rewards: established brand recognition, topical expertise built up over years, and content people naturally want to reference. DA is a proxy that reflects those underlying strengths. It does not create them. Google’s own John Mueller has repeatedly and directly rejected the idea that Google uses domain authority in any form, and Search Engine Journal reported on those 2022 statements in detail<\/a>, including Mueller’s comment that “you do not need a DA for Google Search. Google doesn’t use it at all.”<\/p>\n

Not sure whether your own website’s backlink profile is actually a problem or a distraction? Our free 30-minute audit will tell you what is genuinely holding your rankings back, even if you never become a client. Book a free consultation<\/a> and we will show you what to prioritise first.<\/p>\n

Domain Authority, Domain Rating and Authority Score: how they compare<\/h2>\n

DA is not the only version of this idea. Several tools publish their own take on the same basic concept, and Melbourne business owners often see all three without realising they measure similar things differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Metric<\/th>\nBuilt by<\/th>\nScale<\/th>\nUsed by Google?<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Domain Authority (DA)<\/td>\nMoz<\/td>\n1 to 100, logarithmic<\/td>\nNo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Domain Rating (DR)<\/td>\nAhrefs<\/td>\n0 to 100, logarithmic<\/td>\nNo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Authority Score<\/td>\nSemrush<\/td>\n0 to 100<\/td>\nNo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PageRank (public score)<\/td>\nGoogle<\/td>\nRetired publicly in 2016<\/td>\nWas Google’s own metric, no longer published<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

None of these third-party scores talk to each other or use the same underlying index, which is exactly why the same website can show a DA of 35 on one tool and a DR of 52 on another. Neither number is wrong. They are simply different companies measuring backlinks with different data and different maths.<\/p>\n

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A general guide to how Domain Authority scores are typically interpreted. These bands are illustrative, not an official Moz classification, and vary by industry.<\/em><\/p>\n

What actually correlates with strong rankings<\/h2>\n

Backlink data does matter, just not as a direct Google ranking input called “Domain Authority”. Backlinko’s large-scale analysis of 11.8 million Google search results, last refreshed for 2026, is one of the most cited studies on this, and it found that the number of unique referring domains linking to a page correlated with higher rankings more strongly than almost any other factor measured, with the average result in position #1 holding 3.8 times more backlinks than the average result sitting in positions #2 to #10<\/a>. That is a genuinely useful data point. It just describes backlinks and referring domains directly, not a proprietary score built on top of them.<\/p>\n

\"Bar<\/p>\n

If a competitor with a lower DA than yours keeps outranking you, the DA number is not the mystery to solve, the gap in real backlinks, content depth and technical health on the page in question is. If that sounds like your situation, talk to our Melbourne team<\/a> about what is actually driving the gap before spending another dollar chasing a higher score.<\/p>\n

What this means for your SEO budget, and what goes wrong<\/h2>\n

Chasing a DA number directly is one of the more expensive mistakes a Melbourne business can make with its SEO budget<\/a>. Buying links purely to move a score, rather than to genuinely earn coverage, wastes money and can attract a Google penalty if the links look manipulative. A more sensible approach costs a similar amount, usually $1,000 to $3,000 a month for an ongoing authority-building program depending on competitiveness, but spends it on content worth linking to and genuine outreach to real publications, which raises DA as a side effect rather than the goal itself. Expect early movement in referring domains within two to three months and a meaningful shift in rankings for competitive terms over six to twelve months. Anyone offering to raise your DA by a set number of points on a set date is describing a link-buying scheme, not SEO.<\/p>\n

The most common mistake we see Melbourne businesses make is checking DA obsessively while ignoring the technical basics that let the site convert the traffic it already has. A site with a DA of 45 and fast, well-structured pages will usually outperform a DA 60 site that takes eight seconds to load. The score is a symptom to read occasionally, not a dashboard to check daily.<\/p>\n

We have seen this play out with real clients. A Melbourne trade business with a modest DA in the low 30s, but fast pages, clear service information and consistent reviews, regularly outranks a competitor sitting in the high 40s whose site takes over six seconds to load on mobile. The number on the browser extension told the wrong story entirely. Judging two competitors by DA alone would have pointed the client in exactly the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

Common questions<\/h2>\n

Can Domain Authority go down even if I have done nothing wrong?<\/strong> Yes. Moz updates its index and model regularly, and DA is always relative to every other site it measures, so if competitors gain strong links faster than you do, your score can drop without your site losing a single backlink.<\/p>\n

Is a low Domain Authority a reason a new website will not rank?<\/strong> Not on its own. New sites naturally start with a low score and can still rank for specific, well-targeted local terms well before their overall authority catches up, particularly with the on-page and content fundamentals covered in our FAQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Should I pay for a tool subscription just to track Domain Authority?<\/strong> Only if you also plan to track referring domains and link quality alongside it, since the score alone tells you very little about what to actually do next.<\/p>\n

Backlinks do not exist in isolation from the rest of your site’s content either. If duplicate pages are splitting the authority you already have, our guide to resolving duplicate content issues<\/a> covers the fixes. And because content and links tend to be judged together, it is worth checking your site is not competing against itself for the same keyword<\/a> before investing further in link building.<\/p>\n

The takeaway<\/h2>\n

Domain Authority is a useful comparison tool and a poor obsession. Treat it as a rough temperature check on your backlink profile relative to competitors, not a Google ranking factor to chase directly. Focus the budget on genuine content and outreach instead, and the score will follow. Book a free 30-minute audit with a senior Melbourne consultant and we will show you exactly where your real opportunities sit. No lock-in contracts, response within 24 hours. Claim your free audit<\/a>, or read more on our SEO blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Domain Authority actually measures, why it is not a Google ranking factor, how it compares to Domain Rating and Authority Score, and what to focus on instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26,25,7,6],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technical-seo","tag-backlinks","tag-domain-authority","tag-seo-melbourne","tag-technical-seo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dooda.com.au\/bestseoagencymelbourne-com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}