If you have spent any time looking at SEO metrics, you have seen Domain Authority — or DA — appear as a score attached to websites, usually on a scale of one to a hundred. High DA websites tend to rank well. Low DA websites struggle to compete in crowded keyword categories. New websites start with DA scores in the single digits. Established industry publications and major media outlets have DA scores in the eighties and nineties.
Understanding what Domain Authority actually measures, why it matters, and what specifically increases it over time is essential for anyone making decisions about SEO investment and content strategy.
What Domain Authority Is — and What It Is Not?
Domain Authority is a metric created by Moz, the SEO software company. It is not a metric used by Google. Google does not have a Domain Authority score and does not use Moz’s DA in any ranking calculation. This distinction matters because some businesses treat DA as the goal itself rather than as an indicator of something else.
DA is a predictive metric — it attempts to estimate how competitive a website is likely to be in Google search results, based on the factors Moz can observe: primarily the number of unique websites linking to the domain, the authority of those linking sites, and the quality and relevance of the link profile overall. It is a useful benchmark for comparing your site’s authority position relative to competitors and for evaluating the authority of potential link sources. But it is a third-party estimate, not a direct Google ranking signal.
Google’s equivalent concept — PageRank — is an internal algorithm that Google does not publish publicly. The factors that increase Domain Authority are broadly similar to the factors Google uses to evaluate domain-level authority: the quantity and quality of inbound links, the diversity and relevance of linking domains, and the overall link profile health. So while DA itself is not what Google measures, improving it tends to correlate with improved Google rankings because the underlying actions that raise DA are the same ones that build genuine authority in Google’s eyes.
What Determines Domain Authority?
Moz’s DA algorithm weights several factors, but the dominant ones are the number of unique referring domains — unique websites linking to your domain — and the authority of those linking domains. A site with 500 referring domains from a diverse range of relevant, authoritative sites will have a substantially higher DA than a site with 500 links from a handful of low-quality sources. The diversity and quality of the link profile matters more than raw link count.
Relevance also factors in. Links from sites in topically related fields contribute more to a domain’s authority in that topic area than links from completely unrelated sources. A digital marketing agency that earns links from marketing publications, tech media, and business press builds more domain authority in the digital marketing space than one that has the same number of links from unrelated directories.
The off-page signals that determine Domain Authority are the same signals that determine how competitive your site is in Google’s own evaluation — this is why DA, despite being a third-party metric, correlates with actual ranking ability.
Why DA Increases Slowly?
Domain Authority scores are notoriously slow to increase, which frustrates many businesses investing in SEO. There are structural reasons for this. DA is calculated on a logarithmic scale — moving from DA 10 to DA 20 requires considerably less work than moving from DA 50 to DA 60, and moving from DA 60 to DA 70 requires more again. The scale compresses as it rises because the sites at higher DA levels have link profiles that are genuinely difficult to match or exceed.
DA is also a relative metric — it is calculated based on how your site compares to the distribution of all websites Moz indexes. As other websites build links and improve, the relative score adjusts. A site can gain links while its DA stays flat because competitors in the same authority range are building links at a similar rate.
This is why measuring DA month to month is often misleading. The relevant question is not “did our DA go from 28 to 29 this month?” but “how does our DA compare to the sites ranking for our target keywords, and is the gap closing?”
How to Actually Increase Domain Authority?
There is no shortcut. DA increases when the underlying factors it measures improve — and those factors improve through sustained, legitimate link building over time. The specific actions that build domain authority are the same ones that build ranking ability.
Earn Editorial Links From Authoritative Sources
Links from news publications, industry trade journals, respected blogs, and authoritative institutional sites contribute more to domain authority than links from directories or low-traffic blogs. Digital PR — creating content worth covering and distributing it to journalists and editors — is the most reliable path to consistently earning this type of link. A single link from a national business publication can move a DA score measurably.
Build Topical Relevance Through Content
The content you publish determines what kinds of links you can earn and from what sources. A website with deep, expert content on a specific subject earns links from other sites covering that subject. A website with thin, generic content attracts nothing worth linking to. The content investment that builds topical authority is also the content investment that makes meaningful link acquisition possible.
Build a Diverse Referring Domain Profile
One hundred links from ten different domains is a weaker signal than one hundred links from eighty different domains. Diversity of referring domains — getting links from many different websites rather than many links from the same few — is a significant factor in both Moz’s DA calculation and Google’s own authority evaluation. A link building strategy that pursues diverse, relevant sources produces better authority signals than one that concentrates on the same channel repeatedly.
Remove or Disavow Toxic Links
Low-quality links from irrelevant, spammy, or manipulative sources can suppress DA by dragging the average quality of your link profile down. Identifying and disavowing or removing these links — through a backlink audit — can produce a DA increase as the toxic links are removed from Moz’s calculation. Understanding the difference between links that help and links that hurt is covered in detail in our guide to link quality.
Improve Your Internal Link Structure
Internal linking distributes the authority of your domain’s external links across your pages more efficiently. A flat site structure with well-organised internal links ensures that the authority flowing into your domain from external links reaches your most important pages rather than pooling on the homepage. This does not directly increase DA (which is domain-level, not page-level) but it ensures your domain’s authority is fully utilised.
Realistic Timelines
A new domain starting from DA 1 or DA 0 can reach DA 15 to 25 within 12 months through consistent, legitimate link building and content publication. Moving from DA 25 to DA 40 typically requires 18 to 30 months of sustained effort. Moving beyond DA 50 requires a significant, long-term commitment to content and link acquisition that few businesses can achieve in under three to four years.
These are rough averages — competitive categories, aggressive content programmes, and strong digital PR campaigns can accelerate progress. The key is treating DA growth as a long-term indicator of your cumulative SEO investment rather than a metric to optimise in isolation. Build quality content, earn quality links, and DA reflects the progress naturally.