This week, Moz announced that it has updated its Domain Authority (DA) score. As we expected, this triggered confusion inside a few segments of the search engine optimization industry. Perhaps more critically, SEOs confuse the DA metric with an inner parameter utilized by Google. This is fueled in no small element by groups and companies that pitch their ability to “improve your Domain Authority.”
DA isn’t always a Google metric. It is a metric that Moz, an SEO toolset company, created. To be clear, Moz has never claimed that Google uses DA. Moz has genuinely said that DA isn’t always a Google metric, and alternatively, the DA score is based on its datasets and algorithms. Moz isn’t always the only organization that gives you its inner link rankings; Majestic, Ahrefs, and plenty of other tool carriers have their rankings.
DA doesn’t affect your Google scores. Since DA isn’t a Google metric, it has zero impact on how nicely or poorly you rank in Google. If your DA score goes up or down, you need not assume your Google scores to observe. Russ Jones from Moz has even asked to add a disclaimer on the DA score in response to the fact that people are asking Google how to improve their DA ratings, which is confusing. In dozens of emails and endless social media posts, we’ve seen CEOs’ specific concerns over DA rating adjustments and how they will impact their Google scores. Googlers are responding to complaints about the alternate in DA scores.
Why so much confusion? In part, emails and posts like the one below say “websites got penalized” using the up-to-date DA set of rules and pitch hyperlink-building services “to enhance your Domain Authority.” This sort of misinformation marketing campaign isn’t always an uncommon tactic.
