A third-party score (0–100) that predicts how well a website will rank in search engines. Not a Google metric, but useful as a relative competitive benchmark.
Domain Authority (DA) is a score from 0 to 100 developed by the SEO tool company Moz, intended to predict how well a website will rank in search engine results pages. Higher scores indicate greater ranking potential. It's calculated based primarily on the number and quality of backlinks pointing to the domain. Similar metrics include Domain Rating (DR) from Ahrefs and Authority Score from SEMrush.
An important clarification: Domain Authority is not a Google metric. Google does not use DA, DR, or any third-party score as a ranking factor. These scores are useful approximations developed by SEO companies to help practitioners compare the relative authority of websites — not official measures of SEO strength. A site with DA 30 can outrank a DA 60 site for specific keywords if its content and technical SEO are superior.
That said, DA is a useful competitive benchmark. If your site has DA 20 and your main competitor has DA 45, you can expect that they'll rank above you for most keywords where content quality is comparable, because they have more link equity built up. Understanding this gap helps set realistic timeline expectations for SEO — closing a significant DA gap takes consistent link-building effort over 12–24+ months.
Domain Authority grows by earning backlinks from credible, high-authority websites. Local businesses can improve DA by getting listed in quality directories, earning mentions in local press, being featured on partner and vendor websites, and publishing content that gets linked to. There are no legitimate shortcuts — services that promise to 'increase your DA' through purchased links risk Google penalties.