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Type in any domain or subdomain and this tool pulls the site's Domain Authority score along with a handful of supporting link metrics — usually Page Authority, a rough backlink or referring-domain count, and a spam signal. It's a lookup tool, not a crawler: it queries link-index data that's already been collected about that domain rather than crawling the site itself in real time, so what you see is a snapshot based on the most recent index update, not a live measurement of the page you just published five minutes ago.
The score itself sits on a 1-to-100 scale, and it's meant to answer one narrow question: based on this domain's link profile, how likely is it to outrank other domains in that same competitive space? It says nothing about content quality, keyword targeting, page speed, or on-site SEO. It's purely a link-authority proxy, and it's worth being precise about that distinction before you start leaning on the number for decisions.
Domain Authority is a metric originally developed by Moz, built on a machine-learning model trained to predict search ranking potential from link-graph data — things like the number of unique referring domains pointing at a site, the authority of those referring domains themselves, the diversity of the link profile, and how "clean" or spammy the surrounding link neighborhood looks. It's logarithmic, not linear, which is the single most misunderstood thing about it.
Because the scale is logarithmic, the jump from a DA of 20 to 30 is meaningfully easier to achieve than the jump from 70 to 80. A brand-new site with a handful of decent backlinks can climb into the 20s or 30s within a few months. Getting from 60 to 70 usually takes years of sustained, high-quality link acquisition, because you're competing against the accumulated link equity of established domains in that same bracket. Free DA checker tools — including this one — typically source or approximate this scoring using third-party link index data, since the underlying calculation depends on a large, continuously updated link graph that only a few providers maintain at scale.
DA was designed to be used relatively, comparing your domain against direct competitors in the same SERP, not as a fixed grade you chase in isolation. A DA of 35 is unremarkable for a site competing against DA-70 publishers, but it's genuinely strong for a local service business competing against other DA-20 to DA-30 sites in its niche. Reading the number without a competitive baseline is the most common way people misuse this kind of tool.
Industry benchmarks tend to cluster loosely into bands, and while none of them are official cutoffs, they're a reasonable mental model for reading a raw score: brand-new or link-poor domains usually sit under 20, small businesses and niche blogs with a modest link history often land somewhere in the 20-to-40 range, established mid-size publishers and well-linked SaaS companies frequently sit in the 40-to-60 band, and only major media outlets, large platforms, and long-established authority sites tend to break past 70. These bands shift by niche — a DA of 45 might be exceptional in a narrow B2B vertical and unremarkable in mainstream news publishing — so use them as a rough anchor, not a rule.
example.com) or a specific subdomain if you want to check a subdomain's own authority separately from the root — subdomains can carry meaningfully different scores than the main domain.| Metric | What it measures | What it's useful for |
|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | Predicted ranking strength of the whole domain, based on its link profile | Comparing your site to competitors; tracking link-building progress over time |
| Page Authority (PA) | Same underlying model applied to a single URL rather than the root domain | Judging whether a specific page is likely to compete for its target keyword |
| Referring domains | Count of unique domains linking to the site (not total backlinks) | Spotting whether authority comes from broad, diverse sources or a handful of repeat linkers |
| Spam score / trust signal | An estimate of how many risk factors (thin content links, PBN patterns, link farms) are present in the linking domains | Sanity-checking whether a high DA is backed by legitimate links or inflated by low-quality ones |
Nobody checks Domain Authority for its own sake — it's almost always a means to a decision. A few of the recurring reasons people run this lookup:
DA isn't the only link-authority score in circulation, and mixing them up leads to confused conversations with clients or teammates who checked a different tool and got a different number. They're not interchangeable — each vendor builds its score from its own link index and its own model, so a domain can legitimately show a DA of 35 in one tool and a comparable-but-different Domain Rating of 42 in another. Neither is "wrong"; they're measuring similar concepts with different data and different math.
| Metric | Provider | Scale | What makes it different |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | 1–100, logarithmic | Predicts ranking potential relative to competitors; the most widely cited "shorthand" authority number in the SEO industry |
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | 0–100 | Weighted purely by the strength of backlinks pointing to the domain, not a ranking prediction |
| Trust Flow / Citation Flow | Majestic | 0–100 each | Splits link quality (Trust) from link quantity (Citation) into two separate scores instead of one blended number |
| Page Authority (PA) | Moz | 1–100, logarithmic | DA's counterpart at the individual-URL level rather than domain level |
If you're serious about competitive link analysis, checking two of these side by side — DA plus one alternative — gives a more honest picture than trusting either score in isolation. They tend to agree directionally (a site strong in one is usually strong in the other) but rarely match exactly, and the gap itself can be informative.
A large gap between two scores is usually a signal worth investigating rather than ignoring. If DA reads noticeably higher than DR for the same domain, that can point to a link profile with a lot of moderately relevant referring domains but fewer genuinely high-authority ones. If it runs the other way, the domain may have a smaller number of very strong links rather than broad diversity. Neither pattern is automatically bad — it just tells you something about the shape of the link profile that the single headline number can't show on its own.
This is the part most free checkers gloss over, so it's worth being blunt about it. A high DA does not mean a page will rank for a given keyword — it's one input among hundreds Google actually uses, and it's a third-party approximation of ranking potential, not a Google metric at all. Google has said repeatedly that it doesn't use DA, DR, or any equivalent third-party score in its own ranking systems; these are industry proxies built by SEO tool vendors to help practitioners reason about link strength, nothing more.
A few concrete limits worth keeping in mind:
Treat the number as a compass, not a scoreboard. A few habits that keep DA useful instead of misleading:
| Situation | How the DA check helps |
|---|---|
| Choosing between two guest-post opportunities | Quick relative comparison before spending time on outreach or content |
| Reporting to a client or manager on link-building progress | A single, easy-to-explain number to track over a quarter |
| Evaluating an expired domain before buying it | First-pass filter, followed by manual backlink review |
| Auditing your own site's competitive position | Benchmark against the sites already ranking for your target terms |
| Screening a large list of potential link partners | Fast triage before manual vetting of the shortlist |
Generally yes, but only relative to competitors in the same space and only when the score reflects real, diverse links rather than spammy bulk links. A DA of 60 propped up by low-quality link schemes is worth less than a DA of 35 built on a handful of genuinely relevant, editorial links.
Different tools calculate authority using their own link indexes and their own scoring models, so exact numbers rarely match across providers even when they're all measuring the same general concept. Look at the trend within one tool over time rather than comparing absolute numbers across different tools.
New domains haven't accumulated enough backlinks yet, and the link index behind the score may not have fully crawled and processed the site's early links. A low or blank score on a new domain is expected and isn't a red flag by itself — it typically rises as legitimate links accumulate.
No. DA is a third-party proxy metric, not a factor Google's algorithm actually uses. Improving it usually means you're earning better, more diverse backlinks — and that link growth can support rankings — but the score itself is a side effect of good link building, not a lever you can pull directly.
It depends on the underlying link index's crawl and update cycle, which isn't continuous. Don't expect the number to move after a single new backlink; meaningful shifts usually show up over weeks or months as the link profile changes at scale.
Check both if the tool provides them. Domain Authority tells you about the site's overall link strength, while Page Authority tells you whether the specific page you'd be linked from is itself well-linked internally and externally — a high-DA domain can still have plenty of weak, poorly-linked individual pages.