Domain authority and page authority are similar, but represent two different measures.
If you’re interested in search engine optimization (SEO), the collection of strategies intended to help your website rank higher in Google search, you need to familiarize yourself with the concept of “authority.” Simply put, “authority” is a measure of how trustworthy your website appears to be, as measured by Google and other search engines.
This is important because Google tends to favor sites with high authority scores. Assuming your website content is in line with the searcher’s query (a factor referred to as “relevance”), Google will rank sites and pages according to how much authority they have.
We can think of “authority” in terms of domain-level trustworthiness (Domain Authority, or DA), and page-level trustworthiness (Page Authority, or PA). So how exactly do these work, and how can you improve your scores?
Domain Authority vs. Page Authority
As you might expect, DA refers to the amount of authority of your entire site. The higher it is, the higher all your pages are going to rank for relevant queries. However, Google also keeps a measure of individual pages’ authority; in other words, regardless of how high or low your DA is, some of your pages may be more likely to rank highly than others.
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t publish exact authority scores, so we have to use third-party estimates. We also don’t know the precise formula for how authority is calculated, but we do know some of the high points.
For starters, if you want to have a high-authority domain or page, your backend code needs to be polished, your site needs to be fast-loading and fully functional, and it needs to be stocked with high-quality written content.
Aside from onsite optimization basics, the most important thing you can do is build links. Google evaluates online authority based on the number and quality of links pointing to your individual pages (for PA), and your domain overall (for DA). Without a diversity of high-quality, authoritative links, it’s nearly impossible to cultivate the authority necessary to climb the SERPs.
If you’re interested in learning more about authority, link building, and SEO, reach out to Quez Media for a free consultation today!
