Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important factors in getting information into the right hands (or the right eyes and ears) on the Internet. As with any aspect of the digital world, SEO changes constantly, and it can be difficult to remain up-to-date on all of those changes – especially while you’re trying to run a business or further your career. Regardless, you need to keep up on what’s new in SEO, how it can work for you, and what it means for your business. One of the biggest changes this year is the introduction of Moz’s updated ranking score, Domain Authority 2.0.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score created by Moz. DA’s purpose is to predict how a website will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). DA scores go from one to 100 – the higher your score, the greater your website’s ability to rank is.
Domain Authority works by evaluating key factors and adding them up for one overall DA score. The final score can be used to compare websites or to track the ranking strength of a website over a period of time. You can see how useful this SEO tool might be when trying to predict website rankings for the future! DA evaluates many factors, a couple of which include the number of total links and linking root domains.
Moz recently announced an updated version of DA – Domain Authority 2.0. Let’s take a look at the changes.
How Are Domain Authority & Domain Authority 2.0 Different?
The original Domain Authority is Moz's most valued metric set. Its scoring system is highly authoritative in the SEO world. The changes in 2.0 are essentially technical data updates that affect the way it calculates and collects data – and how this data influences a website's Domain Authority scores.
Here are some of the main changes in Domain Authority 2.0:
- Training Set – In the past, Domain Authority was trained against a large set of unmanipulated search results. Moz has updated this methodology to make Domain Authority 2.0 reliable and better at understanding websites – especially those that don’t rank for any keywords at all.
- Algorithm – Moz has switched Domain Authority’s algorithm from a complex linear model to a neural network. The new algorithm offers many benefits, including the ability to detect link manipulation.
- Model Factors – The ranking factors behind Domain Authority have been greatly improved. Moz has integrated a Spam Score and can now look at link counts and distributions of links based on traffic and quality.
- The Foundation – Moz’s new Link Explorer serves as the cornerstone of Domain Authority 2.0. It includes over 35 trillion links and is based upon statistical work by Neil Martinsen-Burrell, Chas Williams, and more.
Domain Authority 2.0 was created to give users a more trustworthy score. These updates will also allow Moz to update Domain Authority to fit any changes that Google makes.
Domain Authority & SEO
Domain Authority uses a 100-point logarithmic scale to score, so growing a score from 20 to 30 is much easier than growing one from 70 to 80.
If you’d like to determine where your site falls on the DA scale, note that you can view a website’s score by using any of the following:
- MozBar
- Link Explorer
- Keyword Explorer SERP Analysis
- Other SEO tools
If your website has a lot of external links of high quality, it will most likely have a high DA score. Websites with a small number of inbound links will have lower DA scores. If you’re just launching your website, you’ll always start with a score of one – that way everyone starts on even footing.
How to Use Domain Authority 2.0 to Help Your SEO
High website ranking is not the only important part of having a great website; you can use DA to target your audiences and improve your own website’s ranking in a few ways you might not have thought of. For example, you can look at the DA scores of your competitors to determine where to set the bar for your company. Be sure that you’re using DA as a comparative score, rather than an absolute score – this will give your research the flexibility to see a group of the highest-ranking sites instead of just the one at the top.
DA is a fantastic tool that can be used with other tools you already use. Think of it as yet another way to make sure your business’ website is ranking well – and a way to set the bar just a little bit higher in the future.
Looking to boost your Domain Authority ranking? Our expert SEO team can help. Contact us today to get started.
Daniel Hamilton
