Reference
What is Domain authority?
Domain authority is a third-party score estimating how likely a domain is to rank, produced by SEO tool vendors. Google does not use it and has said so repeatedly — it is a useful comparative shorthand and not a metric anything is measured against.
Also called: DA · domain rating
What it is actually useful for
- Comparing two sites roughly, when deciding whether a link is worth pursuing
- Tracking your own trend over time, where the absolute number does not matter
- Explaining to a non-technical stakeholder why a competitor outranks you
What it is not useful for
Predicting whether you will rank for a specific query. Relevance, intent match and page quality decide that, and a highly authoritative site still loses to a more specific answer on a long-tail term.
The manipulation problem
Because vendors compute it from link data, it can be inflated by exactly the link schemes that risk a penalty. A site with an impressive score and no real traffic is a common and instructive sight.
Where this is covered in depth
A definition can only go so far. The 35 types of SEO, explained without the padding covers this properly — 6 minutes, free, no email required.
Who wrote this
Anas Bin Masud builds e-commerce sites and does technical SEO for businesses in the UK, Canada and Pakistan. These definitions come from client work rather than from a content brief — where an entry describes a mistake, it is usually one found on a real site. More about how I work.