I want to preface this article by stating that it could have been written about any SEO tool’s metrics. All the major tools have ways of measuring things that are important to the link builders and SEO professionals of the world.
Domain Authority just happens to be the one that seems to most often be erroneously viewed as being an actual Google metric, at least from my experience.
Domain Authority (DA) is Moz’s way of telling us how well a website should rank, using a 0 to 100 scale. The higher the DA, the better chance it has to rank, theoretically.
We do use various metrics, and we used Moz’s metrics for years. The majority of our clients used Moz so we did, too.
Now most of them don’t, for reasons that I’m not privy to, so neither do we.
We use what makes the most sense for us after all. That’s nothing to do with anything else.
Third-Party Metrics Are Not the Only Indicators of a Site
If you’re going to use a metric, pick one and stick to it, whichever one you prefer.
Just don’t use it as the only indicator of a site.
And please please please don’t confuse it as being an actual Google metric.
In any given month, I’d estimate that 75% of the requests for information that I receive in my Inbox mention Domain Authority.
It varies from “we require DA 50+ links” to “can you guarantee me that all the links will be DA 60 and higher?” – Read more
