Domain Authority and Page Authority are two phrases that have become commonplace in the SEO world, and that are therefore often floated around by SEO analysts. This is because these terms were originally coined by Moz.com as a means of measuring how well Moz believes a website will rank in a list of search engine results. Although both of these scores are calculated in a similar manner, it is important to note that they are not interchangeable. To clarify, a site’s Domain Authority refers to the ranking of the actual domain of the URL in the search result rankings, and the Page Authority refers to one specific page within the site – instead of the entire website as a whole. Nowadays, these terms are used by SEO experts and beginners alike, as they offer a very useful starting point for SEO analysts when they’re trying to determine which aspect of a website would be most beneficial for them to start with when they’re trying to help improve the site’s overall strength.

Since Domain Authority and Page Authority are evaluations of two different aspects of a website, each scoring system is useful for different reasons. Page Authority is important when a client wants to increase traffic to one particular page on their website – for example, if they want to increase the sales of one particular product or service that they provide, rather than striving to attract more traffic to their website as a whole. In comparison, a site’s Domain Authority is especially useful when you’re comparing two different websites overall, or evaluating how strong your website will likely be over time. Moz.com combines a variety of their other metrics – including the number of links that a website has in total, a site’s MozRank, among many others – in order to calculate one overall score, known as a site’s Domain Authority. A site’s Domain Authority – or DA, as it is typically referred to – is measured on a scale from 1 to 100, with 100 being the best score a website can receive, and 1 being the absolute lowest. Because of this, the higher your score becomes, the more difficult it also becomes to increase your score; it’s therefore a lot easier to increase a score when it’s closer to 1 than it is when it’s closer to 90 or 100. Since a number of different factors are involved in calculating this score, it’s also very difficult to increase a score overnight, since many different aspects of the website need to be improved before the overall score will change. This is because Moz developed this method for calculating these scores as a means of mimicking how Google’s algorithm analyzes over 200 different factors in order to calculate how a website ranks on the search results page, in response to a specific query. Therefore, the most effective way for you to improve your overall DA score is by first shifting your focus to improving the site’s overall SEO.

There are a number of different toolbars that you can use in order to see what a website’s current DA and PA rankings are. One of these toolbars is MozBar: a free, easily installable plugin developed by Moz.com themselves. Another useful, downloadable toolbar that calculates a site’s DA and PA for you is called SEOQuake. All of these toolbars are admittedly similar in nature; deciding which one is best for you is therefore a matter of personal preference.