Written by Admin Alex · Fact-Checked by M.Ali · Info Verified September 2026
Published: September 26, 2026 · Last updated: September 26, 2026
TL;DR: Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) are Moz metrics, scored 0 to 100, that predict how well a site or a single page is likely to rank in search results. Neither one is a Google ranking factor. They are useful as a rough, third-party compass for comparing your own progress over time or sizing up how tough a niche is, not as a number Google itself ever calculates or uses.
Type “DA” or “PA” into any SEO tool and you’ll see a score sitting next to a URL. It looks official, it looks like it came from Google, and neither is true. Both metrics were invented by Moz, a third-party SEO software company, to estimate ranking potential from the outside, using signals like backlinks that Moz itself can crawl. Google has said plainly, more than once, that it does not use DA or PA anywhere in its ranking systems. So what are they actually good for, and why do so many marketers still check them?
What Domain Authority (DA) measures
DA is a site-wide score from 1 to 100 that estimates how likely an entire domain is to rank well, based mostly on the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to it. A brand-new site typically starts near 1. Wikipedia and Google itself sit close to 100. The scale is logarithmic, which matters in practice: going from DA 20 to DA 30 is a realistic few months of consistent link building, but going from DA 70 to DA 80 takes vastly more authority, because each additional point gets harder to earn than the last.
What Page Authority (PA) measures
PA works the same way but scores a single URL instead of the whole domain, from 1 to 100. A high-DA site can still have individual pages with low PA if that specific page has few or no links pointing directly at it. This is why a thin, three-paragraph page on a DA 90 site can sometimes get outranked by a genuinely useful, well-linked guide on a DA 25 site. The page’s own authority, not just the domain’s reputation, plays into it.
Why neither one is a Google ranking factor
Google’s own algorithm relies on hundreds of signals, including things Moz cannot see from the outside, like click behavior, content quality assessments, and Google’s own link graph. DA and PA are Moz’s attempt to approximate a slice of that from public data, mainly backlinks. That makes them a useful comparative tool for SEOs sizing each other up, but a poor stand-in for “will Google rank this,” which is why a page can have a high PA and still rank on page three, or a low PA and land at position one.
A real example: checking before you compete
Say you’re deciding whether to target a keyword. You pull up the top 10 results in an SEO tool and see DA scores of 22, 31, 18, 45, 27, 19, 33, 24, 29, and 20. No score above 45. That’s a strong signal the ranking pages are winning on content quality and relevance, not raw domain muscle, which means a smaller or newer site has a genuine shot. Compare that to a SERP where seven of the ten results sit above DA 70: that’s the moment to either bring something genuinely different to the page or look for an easier keyword instead.
Related: once you’ve sized up the competition, see our plain-English guide to prompt engineering for writing sharper research and content prompts, and our roundup of free AI tools for small business if you’re building out content on a budget.
Bottom Line: DA and PA are compasses, not scoreboards. Use them to track your own progress over months and to gauge how contested a topic looks, but never let a single number talk you out of a keyword that a closer look at the actual search results says is winnable.
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