Guide

How to Improve Domain Authority: A Practical Guide for 2026

Domain Authority (DA) is Moz’s 0-100 score predicting how well a site will rank. It’s not a Google ranking factor, but it correlates strongly with organic performance. This guide covers what DA actually measures, how it differs from DR, the actions that move the score, realistic timelines, and industry benchmarks.

Last updated: March 2026 · Reading time: 14 min

“Stop chasing a DA number. Build real authority. When we work with a client, we don’t set a DA target. We set traffic and revenue targets, then build the link profile and content depth needed to hit those targets. The DA score follows as a byproduct. We’ve taken sites from DA 18 to DA 42 in 12 months by focusing on earning 15-20 relevant referring domains per month and publishing deeply researched content.”
Hardik Shah, Founder of ScaleGrowth.Digital

What this guide covers

What is Domain Authority and how is it calculated?
What’s the difference between DA and DR?
What factors influence Domain Authority?
How do you improve Domain Authority step by step?
How do toxic links hurt your DA and how do you remove them?
How long does it take to improve Domain Authority?
What is a good Domain Authority score by industry?
Pro tips from our SEO practice
Common Domain Authority mistakes
FAQ

What Is DA

What is Domain Authority and how is it calculated?

Domain Authority is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). It uses a 0-100 logarithmic scale, where higher scores indicate a greater probability of ranking. DA was created as a comparative metric, not an absolute one. A DA 50 site isn’t “good” or “bad” in isolation; it’s useful when compared against competitors in the same niche.

Domain Authority (DA) is Moz’s proprietary metric that scores a website’s ranking potential on a 0-100 logarithmic scale, calculated using linking root domains, total link count, domain age, and dozens of other signals.

Moz calculates DA using dozens of factors, but the most heavily weighted are the number of linking root domains (unique websites linking to you) and the total number of links, combined with the quality of those linking sites. A link from nytimes.com carries far more weight than a link from a brand-new WordPress blog. The score updates periodically based on Moz’s crawl cycles, which means your DA might not change for weeks or even months after acquiring new links. One critical distinction: Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor. Google has confirmed multiple times that it doesn’t use any third-party authority metric in its algorithm. DA is a proxy that correlates with ranking performance, not a direct input. This distinction matters because gaming the DA score (through PBNs or purchased links) won’t automatically improve your Google rankings, and may trigger penalties that hurt them.

DA vs DR

What’s the difference between DA and DR?

Domain Authority (Moz) and Domain Rating (Ahrefs) both measure link profile strength on a 0-100 scale, but they use different methodologies and update at different speeds. Understanding the differences helps you use each metric appropriately.

Dimension	Domain Authority (Moz)	Domain Rating (Ahrefs)
Developer	Moz	Ahrefs
What it measures	Overall ranking potential (links + multiple signals)	Backlink profile strength (primarily links)
Key inputs	Linking root domains, total links, domain age, Spam Score	Quantity and quality of referring domains
Update frequency	Less frequent (depends on Moz crawl cycles)	More frequent (Ahrefs crawls faster)
Scale	0-100 logarithmic	0-100 logarithmic
Best for	Competitive benchmarking, overall site assessment	Link building tracking, backlink quality evaluation
Spam detection	Includes Spam Score as a factor	Doesn’t directly factor in spam scoring

In practice, the same site will often have different DA and DR scores. A site with DA 45 might have DR 52 or DR 38. The numbers aren’t directly comparable across tools. Use DA for benchmarking against competitors within Moz’s ecosystem, and DR for the same within Ahrefs. Don’t mix the two in the same comparison. Ahrefs’ DR reacts more quickly to new backlinks because Ahrefs crawls more frequently and maintains a larger link index (35 trillion known links across 500 million referring domains, as of 2026). If you’re building links actively and want to see results reflected quickly, DR is the more responsive metric. DA gives a more stable, longer-term view.

Key Factors

What factors influence Domain Authority?

DA is primarily driven by your external link profile, but several other factors contribute. Here’s what moves the score, ranked by impact. 1. Number and quality of linking root domains. This is the single largest factor. A “linking root domain” is a unique website that links to yours. Having 100 links from 1 website counts as 1 linking root domain. Getting links from 100 different websites counts as 100. Diversity of linking sources is what DA rewards most heavily. 2. Authority of linking sites. A link from a DA 80 site passes significantly more equity than a link from a DA 15 site. This is why a single placement in Forbes, HubSpot’s blog, or an industry-leading publication can move your DA by 1-2 points, while 50 directory submissions might not move it at all. 3. Content depth and topical relevance. While DA is primarily a link metric, the quality of your content determines whether other sites want to link to you. Sites with comprehensive, original content attract more natural backlinks. Topic clusters and pillar content structures tend to earn more links than isolated blog posts. 4. Internal link architecture. Your internal linking structure distributes link equity from your most-linked pages to deeper pages. A strong internal linking strategy ensures that external link equity flows throughout your site rather than getting concentrated on a few pages. 5. Spam Score and toxic backlinks. Moz’s Spam Score evaluates how likely a site is to be penalized. Sites linking to you that have high spam scores can drag your DA down. Regularly auditing and disavowing toxic backlinks protects your score. 6. Domain age. Older domains tend to score higher, though this is a minor factor compared to links. A 10-year-old domain with zero links won’t have a high DA. But between two sites with identical link profiles, the older domain typically scores 3-5 points higher.

Step by Step

How do you improve Domain Authority step by step?

Improving DA is a byproduct of doing good SEO. There’s no shortcut that moves the score without building genuine authority. Here are the specific actions that make the biggest difference. Step 1: Audit your current backlink profile. Run your domain through Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz Link Explorer. Export your referring domains. Sort by DA/DR of the linking site. Identify your strongest links, your weakest links, and any toxic links that need disavowing. Know where you stand before you start building. Step 2: Start earning quality backlinks. This is the highest-impact action. Focus on tactics that earn links from DA 40+ sites: guest posting on relevant publications, digital PR with data-driven content, broken link building, and HARO/Connectively responses. See our full link building guide for 12 specific tactics. Step 3: Fix your internal linking. Link from your highest-authority pages (the ones with the most external backlinks) to the pages you want to rank. Use descriptive anchor text. Make sure every important page is reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage. A strong internal linking strategy distributes earned authority efficiently. Step 4: Create content worth linking to. Publish original research, comprehensive guides, free tools, and data-driven analyses. Content that provides unique value earns links without outreach. Long-form content (3,000+ words) receives 77.2% more backlinks than content under 1,000 words (Backlinko, 2025). Step 5: Remove or disavow toxic backlinks. Use Moz’s Spam Score or Semrush’s Toxic Score to identify harmful links. Contact the linking site and request removal. For links you can’t get removed, use Google’s Disavow Tool. A clean link profile is as important as a large one. Step 6: Prune thin and duplicate content. Pages with minimal content, duplicate pages, and outdated posts dilute your site’s overall quality. Consolidate thin pages into comprehensive resources. Redirect outdated content to current equivalents. A leaner, higher-quality site signals authority more clearly than a bloated one. Step 7: Be patient and consistent. DA improvements compound over time. A steady cadence of 10-20 new referring domains per month builds momentum. Sporadic bursts of link building followed by months of inactivity produce weaker results than consistent effort at a lower volume.

Toxic Links

How do toxic links hurt your DA and how do you remove them?

Toxic backlinks are links from spammy, low-quality, or irrelevant websites that can suppress your DA and potentially trigger Google penalties. Common sources include link farms, PBNs, automated link building tools, and negative SEO attacks where competitors deliberately point spam links at your site. Moz flags sites with high Spam Scores. If more than 10% of your backlink profile comes from sites with Spam Scores above 60, your DA is likely being suppressed. Semrush’s Backlink Audit tool categorizes links as toxic, potentially toxic, or clean, making the triage process faster. The removal process has two steps. First, manually contact site owners and request link removal. Success rates on removal requests are typically 5-10%, but it’s worth trying for the most harmful links. Second, for links you can’t get removed, compile a disavow file and submit it through Google Search Console’s Disavow Tool. The disavow file tells Google to ignore those links when evaluating your site. We run toxic link audits quarterly for all SEO clients. One client had 3,400 links from a single link farm that was suppressing their DA by an estimated 8-10 points. After disavowing those links, their DA climbed from 29 to 37 over the following two Moz crawl cycles.

Timelines

How long does it take to improve Domain Authority?

DA improvements are not instant. The logarithmic scale means each point gets exponentially harder to earn as you climb. Here are realistic timelines based on consistent effort.

Starting DA	Target DA	Estimated timeline	Monthly effort required
0-10	20	3-6 months	10-15 quality links/month, weekly content publishing
10-20	30	4-8 months	10-20 quality links/month, 2-4 content pieces/month
20-30	40	6-12 months	15-25 quality links/month, ongoing content + PR
30-40	50	8-16 months	20-30 quality links/month, digital PR campaigns
40-50	60	12-24 months	Major publication placements, sustained PR effort
50+	60+	18-36 months	Requires brand-level recognition and ongoing PR

These timelines assume consistent monthly effort. They also assume you’re building quality links (DA 40+ linking sites) and creating content that earns natural links. If you’re only getting links from DA 10-20 sites, the timelines stretch significantly. One important note: your DA can go down even while you’re building links. Moz periodically recalibrates the scale, and if high-authority sites gain links faster than you do, your relative position drops. A DA decrease doesn’t always mean you did something wrong.

Benchmarks

What is a good Domain Authority score by industry?

A “good” DA depends entirely on your competitive environment. A DA 30 is excellent for a local plumber but inadequate for a national SaaS company competing with HubSpot (DA 93). Use these ranges as general guidelines.

Industry / Site type	Typical DA range	Competitive DA
Local businesses (single location)	10-25	25+
Regional businesses (multi-location)	20-40	35+
Niche B2B companies	25-45	40+
E-commerce (mid-size)	30-50	45+
SaaS companies	35-60	50+
National brands	50-70	60+
Enterprise / Fortune 500	60-90	70+
Major media / publications	80-95	90+

The practical benchmark: pull the DA of your top 5 organic competitors for your primary keywords. Your target DA should be within 10 points of the average. If your competitors average DA 45 and you’re at DA 22, you have significant ground to cover before you’ll consistently outrank them.

Pro Tips

Pro tips from our SEO practice

Focus on referring domains, not DA as the goal. DA is a lagging indicator. Referring domains are the leading indicator. Track “new referring domains per month” as your primary link building KPI. DA follows.
One DA 70 link beats fifty DA 15 links. We’ve seen a single placement in a top-tier publication move a client’s DA by 2-3 points. Fifty low-quality directory links often produce zero movement. Invest time in fewer, higher-quality placements.
Don’t compare across industries. A DA 35 law firm competing against other DA 30-40 law firms is in a strong position. A DA 35 SaaS company competing against DA 60-80 competitors is not. Context is everything.
Monitor competitors’ DA monthly. Your relative position matters more than your absolute score. If competitors are building links faster, your rankings can drop even while your DA holds steady.
Consolidate your link equity. If you have 10 blog posts on similar topics each with a few backlinks, merge them into one comprehensive guide. The consolidated page inherits all the link equity and ranks better than any individual post did.

Common Mistakes

Common Domain Authority mistakes

Treating DA as a goal instead of an indicator. DA doesn’t directly affect rankings. Traffic, leads, and revenue are your goals. DA is a useful metric for tracking relative link authority, not a target to optimize for its own sake.
Buying links to inflate DA. Purchased links might temporarily inflate your DA, but they create a fragile, penalty-prone backlink profile. When Google detects the pattern (and SpamBrain is very good at this), the traffic loss far outweighs any DA gains.
Ignoring your existing link equity. Many sites have pages with strong backlink profiles that aren’t linked internally to the pages they want to rank. Run a backlink audit, identify your most-linked pages, and add internal links from those pages to your priority ranking targets.
Expecting quick results. DA moves slowly by design. It’s a rolling average that smooths out short-term fluctuations. If you’re building 15 quality links per month, you might not see DA movement for 2-3 months. That doesn’t mean it’s not working.
Obsessing over DA fluctuations. Moz recalibrates the DA scale periodically. A 2-3 point drop during a recalibration isn’t a cause for alarm. Compare your DA movement against competitors during the same period. If everyone dropped, it was a recalibration.

Related Resources

How to Do Link Building: 12 Tactics

The complete link building guide with 12 proven tactics, tools, outreach templates, and metrics. Read Guide →

Internal Linking Strategy Guide

How to distribute link equity across your site with hub-and-spoke models, anchor text, and siloing. Read Guide →

Complete SEO Checklist

47-point checklist covering technical, on-page, off-page, and AI visibility. Get Checklist →

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Domain Authority a Google ranking factor?

No. Domain Authority is a third-party metric created by Moz. Google has confirmed it doesn’t use DA or any similar “site authority” score in its ranking algorithm. DA is useful as a comparative metric to gauge relative link strength against competitors, but improving your DA score doesn’t directly improve your Google rankings. The underlying factors that increase DA (quality backlinks, content depth) do affect rankings.

What is a good Domain Authority score?

A “good” DA depends on your competitive environment. For local businesses, DA 20-30 is competitive. For national B2B companies, you’ll need DA 40-50. For enterprise brands competing with major players, DA 60+ is the target. The practical benchmark is to compare your DA against the top 5 competitors ranking for your primary keywords.

Why did my Domain Authority drop?

DA can drop for several reasons: Moz recalibrated the scale (affects all sites), you lost backlinks from high-authority sites, spammy sites started linking to you (increasing Spam Score), or competitors gained links faster than you did (DA is relative). Check if the drop coincides with a Moz update, then audit your backlink profile for lost links or new toxic links.

How fast can you increase Domain Authority?

With consistent effort (10-20 quality links per month), expect 5-10 DA points of growth over 6-12 months from a starting point of DA 15-25. The logarithmic scale means progress slows as you climb higher. Moving from DA 40 to DA 50 typically takes 8-16 months of sustained link building and content investment. There are no reliable shortcuts.

Should I focus on DA or DR?

Use whichever tool your team already uses for SEO research. DA (Moz) provides a broader ranking potential assessment. DR (Ahrefs) focuses specifically on backlink profile strength and updates more frequently. Don’t mix the two in the same analysis. Pick one as your primary benchmark and use it consistently. The actions to improve either score are identical: earn quality backlinks, create valuable content, fix technical issues.