Domain Authority is a metric that is very well known throughout the search engine optimization sector, but what exactly is the correct way to utilize it? In this week's Whiteboard Friday edition, we're very happy to welcome Cyrus Shepard as he clarifies what's new with the renewal of the brand new Domain Authority 2.0, and also the way to use the best power to your SEO success.
Let us begin with a definition of exactly what Domain Name Authority really is since there's a great deal of confusion on the market.
Is Domain Name Authority a ranking Element? No, Domain Authority isn't a ranking element. Does Google use Domain Authority in its own algorithm? No, Google doesn't use Domain Authority in its own algorithm. Now Google can utilize some domain-like metrics based on hyperlinks very similar to Domain Authority, however they don't utilize Domain Name Authority itself. In reality, it's best for those who do not bring this up together. They do not often enjoy that very much.
If it is not a ranking variable, if Google does not use it, then what exactly does Domain Authority really do? It does something very, very nicely. It forecasts rankings. That is exactly what it was built to perform. That is exactly what it was created to do, and it does this job very, very well. And due to that, we could utilize it for SEO at a great deal of different ways. So Domain Authority has existed since 2010, about 8 decades now, and ever since that time it has become a remarkably popular metric, abused and used in various ways..
How to Use Domain Authority for SEO
So the question is how do we really use this? We've got this enormous power with Domain Authority that could predict rankings to a certain level. How can we use this for SEO? So I want to go over some general tips for success.
The first suggestion, never utilize Domain Authority in isolation. You always need to use it with other metrics and in context, since it can only tell you so muchbetter.
It's a highly effective tool, but it's limited. For instance, once you're taking a look at rankings on-page, you're likely to need to look at the keyword targeting. You're likely to need to look at the on-page content, the domain name history, other things like that. So never use Domain Authority by itself. That's an integral tip.
Secondly, you wish to remember that the scale of Domain Authority is approximately logarithmic.
It's not linear. Now what exactly does this mean? It's fairly easy to go from a zero Domain Authority or a 1 Domain Authority to a ten Domain Authority. You are able to get a handful of links, and that works pretty nicely. But moving from like a 70 to a 80 is much, much harder. So a DA 40 isn't double a DA 20.
It's actually much, much bigger since you go higher and higher and higher, until you reach 100, it becomes much tougher. Sites like Google and Facebook, they're near the 100 range, and everything else comes in to it. It is almost like a funnel.
Next, remember that DA is a relative metric. When you are using DA, you always need to compare between competitors or your previous scores.
Having a DA 50 does not actually tell you much unless you are comparing it to other DA scores. Therefore, if you are looking in Google and also a site includes a DA of 50, it does not make much sense unless you set it in the context of"what exactly do the other sites have?" Are they 60? In that respect, once you're looking at your own DA, it is possible to compare against previous performance or competitions.
What’s New With Domain Authority 2.0?
So what is new about the new Domain Authority that makes it great and less likely to be abused and gives it many more applications? Before I go into this, a big shout-out to two of the men who helped develop this -- Russ Jones and Neil Martinsen-Burrell -- along with many other smart people in Moz. Some of our research scientists did a huge job of upgrading this metric for 2019.
1. Bigger Link Index
So first issue is the new Domain Authority is based on a new, bigger link indicator, and that is Link Explorer, that premiered last year. It contains 35 trillion links. There are various methods for judging index dimensions, but this is among the biggest or if not the biggest link indicators publicly available that we know of.
Thirty-five billion links, to give you a good idea of just how big that is, if you should count 1 link per second, you'd be counting for 1.1 million years. That's a lot of hyperlinks, and that is the number of links are at the indicator that the new Domain Authority is based upon. Second of all, it uses a brand new machine learning version. Now part of Domain Authority looks at Google rankings and utilizes machine learning to attempt to fit the model in to forecast how those positions are piled.
2. New Machine Learning Model
Now the new Domain Authority not only looks at what is winning in Google search, but it is also considering what is not ranking in Google search. The old version used to just examine the winners. This makes it far more accurate at deciding where you might fall or where any domain name or URL might fall inside that forecast.
3. Spam Score Incorporation
Next the new Domain Authority integrates spam detection.
Spam score is a proprietary Moz metric which looks at a lot of on-page factors, and those are integrated into the brand new metric, making it much more reliable.
4. Detects Link Manipulation
It too, and it is very important, the new Domain Authority finds link manipulation.
It's far better. In reality, Russ Jones, in a recent webinar, stated that link buyers with the new Domain Authority will drop an average of 11 points. Therefore the new Domain Authority is far better at rooting out this link manipulation, just like Google is trying to perform. Therefore it more closely resembles exactly what Google is trying.
5. Daily Updates
Lastly, the new Domain Authority is updated every day. This is a massive improvement. The old Domain Authority used to upgrade about approximately every month or so. * The new Domain Authority is constantly being updated, and our search scientists are constantly adding improvements as they come together.
So it is being updated a lot more often and enhanced much more frequently. So what exactly does this mean? The new Domain Authority is the most precise domain-level metric to forecast Google search results that we know of. When you look at ranking factors that we know of, such as name tags or even generally backlinks, they predict a certain amount of rankings. But Domain Authority dismisses those out of the water at its position potential.
