The SEO Analysts at Saltbox are often asked about domain authority—for good reason. It’s perhaps the most important metric for determining your domain’s SEO success. 

However, there’s a lot of confusion out there regarding what domain authority is and how businesses can improve their own. 

What is domain authority, and why is there so much confusion about it? Let’s dive in.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain authority is the underlying framework that search engines use to decide how important your site’s pages are—before anyone reads them. Basically, it provides Google with a quick map to determine whether your content should rank on the first pages of search engines, or the 100th. 

The metric itself has been a tricky and hotly debated topic for years. Much of this has been due to Google insisting there’s no such thing as “domain authority.” (There is. Google has just decided to cheekily call it “siteAuthority.” Same thing, different name.) 

“Domain Authority” is technically a third-party metric, as Google doesn’t release information about its site authority for sites. As such, sites like Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush make calculated guesses on how they think Google evaluates your domain authority, typically based on the number of authoritative backlinks your site has received. 

However, just because it’s a third-party metric doesn’t mean domain authority doesn’t matter. It’s a great way of estimating how Google views your site, as a Google data leak suggested the search engine also uses similar metrics to determine site authority. 

What Domain Authority is so Important

Your content can perform well without strong site authority. That said, it’s a much bigger hurdle. 

In fact, for certain keywords, there’s likely no beating out the high domain authority pages on search engines. It doesn’t matter how exceptional or comprehensive you make your content. Other pages simply will have too much of a head start.

For that reason, the best SEO strategies will use tactics to boost your domain authority alongside content marketing that aims to drive organic sales. 

This is especially important for new, developing domains.

How to Increase Domain Authority Fast

The fastest way to reliably increase your domain authority is to seek DoFollow links from authoritative domains on pages that drive organic traffic. It’s for this reason many businesses seek to gather backlinks from established news sites, as even a couple of backlinks from Forbes or Techcrunch can rapidly improve authority for all the pages on your site.

Some businesses will use a reporter outreach program, where they will contact reporters (often through HARO or Featured.com) to offer expert advice in hopes of being quoted and receiving a backlink. This can be an effective, though work-intensive strategy.

But the most reliable means of gathering backlinks is by producing unique, exceptional content that naturally receives backlinks from authoritative sources—and everyone else—simply because of its quality.

Backlink acquisition via content involves researching the right keywords, assessing content gap opportunities, and proper execution to provide valuable insights in a clear, concise, and helpful manner. 

It’s not easy, but that’s why agencies like Saltbox are here to help.

Other Domain Authority FAQs

Domain Authority vs Domain Rating: What’s the Difference?

Domain Authority and Domain Rating are essentially the same thing, just different names provided by different SEM tools. 

Semrush (Authority Score), Ahrefs (Domain Rating), and Moz (Domain Authority) all use slightly different means of measuring their authority ranking, but they all track the same concepts.

What’s the Best Domain Authority Checker?

Since Google hasn’t released its metrics for how they determine site authority, there’s no simple, clear-cut way to determine which third-party service is the best authority checker. 

Different SEOs have different preferences for their SEM tools. However, as long as you’re continuing to use the same tool, you should be able to gather valuable insights about growing or declining authority over time. 

How Domain Authority is Calculated:

Like Google, third-party tools tend to be fairly secretive about the exact formulas for determining their domain authority metrics. However, they all prioritize DoFollow backlinks from high-authority domains.

Saltbox: Helping Businesses Boost DA—and Conversions

Digital marketing can come across as an abstruse combination of terms and strategies—but it doesn’t have to. At Saltbox, we pride ourselves on communicating complex SEO strategies in easy-to-understand ways, allowing your team to understand the clear, actionable steps to find success on search engines.

Interested in learning more about Saltbox’s SEO solutions? Contact our team today.