Domain authority is simply the likeliness of a domain to rank for a specific phrase by indicating the site’s overall power or influence. The higher your domain rating/authority, the more like you are to rank high for more competitive keywords. It’s on a scale of 0-100, where 0 is the lowest level of power, and 100 is the most.
Keep in mind that Google does not endorse any metrics used to calculate domain rating, and thus it doesn’t have significance to Google itself. However, tools like MOZ, Ahrefs, and SEMRush use this scaling technique to help researchers determine how powerful their site is compared to their competitors.
Domain Rating (DR) vs. Domain Authority
So technically, domain rating was developed by ahrefs to compete with MOZ’s domain authority scale. The two are often used interchangeably because, well…they mean pretty much the same thing. I know more technical SEO experts will be furious at this comparison, but for the average business owner looking to broaden their knowledge, they are pretty much the same thing; they indicate how strong a domain is.
The most important takeaway is the concept of domain strength and influence. So next time someone mentions domain authority or domain rating, just know that they are talking about how strong your site is on average.
Is Domain Authority important for SEO?
Yes, but also no… Sorry :/
It’s important for SEO analysts and marketing agencies since it allows us to measure how strong your website is compared to your competition. For instance, if you have an average (taken by ahrefs, moz, etc.) domain rating of 5 and your competitor has a domain rating of around 15, it means their site is considered, by these tools, NOT Google, to be more influential.
For an average blogger or business owner looking to invest in SEO, it isn’t super important on your end. However, it’s important to understand the concept so that when you speak with your search engine optimization experts, you know what’s going on.
So yes, domain rating is important for SEO in a technical sense, but in terms of overall impact, it has no endorsement by Google.
What is the Fastest Way to Improve My Domain Rating?
If you’re looking to improve and increase your overall domain score, you can do so by increasing the number of high-quality backlinks pointing to your site, emphasis should be placed on high-quality.
You want backlinks from sites that are related to your niche, have a large following, and have a high domain rating. This will boost your overall score.
If you aren’t sure what a backlink is, you can check out our SEO Terminology Basics.
How Can I Get Good Backlinks?
You can either get backlinks organically or by paying for them. There are entire agencies dedicated to just getting backlinks for people, this is called backlink outreach.
This is how I started getting links and followers for my second site KOJII Languages.
- Make a blog about the top people/businesses in your industry.
- Mention the people you want to have a link back to you
- Contact them via email, social media, or call them
- Tell them you featured them in a blog
- Ask them to link back to your site as a favor
Most people will be happy to link back to your article or root domain. They’ll share it on social media and place a link somewhere on their article. The trick is to give before you ask and to make the process easy for them.
Buying Backlinks to Boost Domain Score
You can also buy backlinks from people on Fiverr. Be careful, though, a lot of the time, they are spammy and irrelevant web 2.0s which, if used incorrectly, can penalize your site. There is a trick of pointing these links to silo pages or using a branded anchor text, but this is a more complicated topic for another time.
I would look for high-quality backlinks that are “do-follow”. They usually cost between $40-$100 for a handful of quality domains.
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