Domain Authority (DA) is a metric created by Moz — a third-party SEO software company — that estimates how well a website is likely to rank in search results. It’s scored on a scale of 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating stronger predicted ranking ability. A brand new website has a DA of 1. The New York Times has a DA of around 95. Most local business websites sit somewhere between 10 and 40.
Here’s the important clarification that many business owners don’t hear: Domain Authority is not a Google metric. Google does not use Domain Authority in its ranking algorithm. It’s a third-party approximation of what Google might think about a website’s authority — useful as a relative indicator, but not a direct input to search rankings.
What Google does use is its own internal assessment of a website’s trustworthiness, relevance, and authority — shaped by the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to the site, the quality of its content, its technical performance, and its engagement signals. Moz’s Domain Authority attempts to approximate this Google signal, but it’s an estimate, not the real thing.
Why It Still Matters as a Benchmarking Tool
Despite not being a Google metric, Domain Authority is genuinely useful as a comparative tool. If your Peninsula plumbing business has a DA of 15 and your primary competitor has a DA of 35, the competitor’s website has likely accumulated more authoritative backlinks and will typically outrank you in organic search for competitive terms — all else being equal. The gap gives you a relative sense of the authority deficit you need to close.
Similarly, when evaluating potential backlink sources — directories, industry websites, local publications — the DA of the linking site gives a rough indication of how much authority a link from that site might pass to yours. A link from a local business directory with a DA of 40 is likely more valuable than one from a newly created directory with a DA of 5.
What Actually Builds Domain Authority Over Time
Since DA is an approximation of Google’s authority assessment, the things that improve DA are the same things that improve your actual search performance:
Earning quality backlinks — from relevant industry directories, local Peninsula publications, satisfied client websites, supplier pages, and community organisations. The Mornington Peninsula Magazine, local business associations, and Peninsula-specific directories are the types of sources that contribute both DA and real local authority.
Creating content others reference — genuinely useful, specific content that other websites in your industry or local area link to naturally. A Peninsula builder whose website includes genuinely useful guides to building regulations, local council requirements, or design trends creates content that architects, designers, and other building professionals might naturally reference.
Removing bad backlinks — low-quality, spammy links from irrelevant sources can suppress DA scores. The Google Disavow Tool allows you to instruct Google to ignore specific links; this also tends to improve third-party DA scores over time.
Time and consistency — Domain Authority builds slowly with sustained, legitimate effort. A two-year-old website with consistent content publication and genuine local backlink accumulation will have a materially higher DA than a two-month-old website with identical content — simply because authority accumulates with time.
At Click Websites, we build websites on domains that are properly configured to accumulate authority — clean technical foundations, correct redirects from any previous domain history, and content architecture that earns rather than manipulates links. Get in touch to discuss your website’s authority profile.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I buy links to increase my Domain Authority quickly?
You can — but it violates Google’s guidelines and the risk is significant. Paid link schemes that lack editorial merit are a Google spam policy violation. Sites caught participating in link schemes can receive manual penalties that suppress rankings for months or permanently. The short-term DA boost from purchased links is not worth the long-term risk to your website’s search performance. Building authority legitimately is slower but sustainable and risk-free.
What’s a good Domain Authority score for a local Peninsula business?
For most local service businesses, a DA between 20 and 40 is competitive within the local market. The relevant benchmark isn’t an absolute number but how your DA compares to your direct local competitors. A DA of 25 may be excellent in a low-competition niche and inadequate in a highly competitive one. Check the DA of the businesses currently outranking you for your primary keywords — that’s the target to aim toward, not an abstract number.
My DA is low but I’m ranking well locally — is that normal?
Yes — particularly for local searches where geographic proximity and Google Business Profile quality carry significant weight. A local business with a DA of 15 can outrank a national brand with a DA of 60 for suburb-specific searches because local relevance signals (correct GBP category, review volume, local content, proximity) outweigh general authority for those specific queries. This is part of what makes local SEO accessible to small businesses — you don’t need to out-authority national brands to outrank them locally.
How often does Domain Authority update?
Moz updates its DA metric periodically — approximately monthly, though major recalculations happen less frequently. Because DA is calculated across the entire web simultaneously, a site’s DA can change due to changes in Moz’s index of the web rather than changes to the site itself. This is another reason not to treat DA as a precise or real-time measure — it’s a directional indicator updated on a lag, not a live performance metric.
Are there other domain authority metrics I should track?
Ahrefs has a Domain Rating (DR) metric, Semrush has an Authority Score, and Majestic has Trust Flow and Citation Flow. All of these are third-party approximations of Google’s authority assessment — none of them is Google’s actual metric. For practical local SEO purposes, tracking changes in your own metric over time (using any consistently applied tool) is more useful than comparing metrics across different tools, which use different data sources and calculations.
Should I buy an aged domain with existing DA for my new business?
Occasionally worthwhile — but only if the aged domain’s existing backlinks are relevant to your new business category and location. An aged plumbing industry domain with legitimate backlinks from plumbing directories and local business sites has genuine value for a new plumbing business. An aged domain from an unrelated industry has little relevant authority to transfer. And any aged domain should be purchased only after a thorough backlink audit to ensure it doesn’t carry a penalty history that would suppress rather than accelerate your new site’s performance.
