Article

Emma Hull
Emma Hull 8 April 2019

Domain Authority 2.0: What's New?

This blog post looks at all of the changes to domain authority 2.0 and how it has affected different domains.

Domain authority, or ‘DA’ to most digital marketers, is a ranking score created by SEO giant Moz to determine the authority of a web page. Since 2004, Moz has been at the forefront of SEO developments and essentially, the higher the DA, the higher the probability the page will rank on SERPs. However, it is important to remember that domain authority should not be treated as a ranking factor, and rather just a benchmark.

There are three main points to how a website’s DA is formed. These are:

  1. The number of rooted domains
  2. The number of back links
  3. The trustworthiness of inbound links

So, What Has Changed for Domain Authority 2.0?

Back in February, it was announced that a new DA was about to be launched by Moz from March 5th. Moz has updated the way that domain authority is calculated and has added new factors that will improve the scores. These are the changes that have taken place:

  1. Before DA 2.0, domain authority was weighed against a large number of results and the new DA seems as if it will focus on more specific results data. The new metric should be better at understanding sites which only have historic rankings.
     
  2. The changes that have taken place to the training algorithm have resulted in a system better equipped for sniffing out link manipulation.
     
  3. Moz will now streamline a website’s back link portfolio by integrating a spam score, as well as looking at both the quality of the website’s backlinks and also the amount of traffic that it brings in.
     
  4. There is also now a new index tool, which boasts ‘exceptional data’.

How Does DA Relate to SERP Rankings?

Russ Jones, a Moz researcher, proved the strength of the relationship between both the SERP rankings and a site’s listed domain authority. The research collated 16,000 keywords and looked only at the first page of results.

Domain authority, as well as the trust and citation flows from different pages were all collected, with every domain averaged using the Spearman correlation coefficient method. The outcome showed that DA correlated 6% better with SERP rankings than its closest competitor’s metric.

However, what should be noted is that each metric’s goals vary. For example, the domain authority aims to predict the ranking of a domain, while other metrics have different objectives.

Who Has Suffered As a Result of the New Update?

  • Comment spammers – The research showed a 34% drop in comment spamming domains.
     
  • Link sellers – Sites that charge for linking on their domains dropped, on average, a huge 56% decrease in domain authority.
     
  • Auction domains – There was also a hit for auction domains. High-quality auction domains dropped 61%, while mid-quality auction domains dropped by 95%. However, the ones that took the biggest hit were the low-quality auction domains, which took a 98% drop.
     
  • Link Networks – Link farms also saw a 79% decrease.

Will This Affect Your Website?

If your DA has dropped, then there is a high-chance that your competitors have also taken a hit too, so there really isn’t much to worry about. The average drop for a domain to take is just 6%.

The best thing to do to improve your DA would be creating great content and securing high-quality links from trustworthy sites.

Read more: How to Get High Quality Links to your Website

It is important to remember that Google doesn’t look at DA when ranking domains. It is a benchmark score that helps predict rankings.

Please login or register to add a comment.

Contribute Now!

Loving our articles? Do you have an insightful post that you want to shout about? Well, you've come to the right place! We are always looking for fresh Doughnuts to be a part of our community.

Popular Articles

See all
The Impact of New Technology on Marketing

The Impact of New Technology on Marketing

Technology has impacted every part of our lives. From household chores to business disciplines and etiquette, there's a gadget or app for it. Marketing has changed dramatically over the years, but what is the...

Alex Lysak
Alex Lysak 22 September 2020
Read more
The Carrot of a Bigger Market is More Powerful Than the Stick of Legal Action in Driving Web Accessibility Investment, New Research Finds

The Carrot of a Bigger Market is More Powerful Than the Stick of Legal Action in Driving Web Accessibility Investment, New Research Finds

Getting web accessibility right is a massive commercial opportunity. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.3bn people worldwide are living with some form of impairment. The benefits of making it easier for...

Michael Nutley
Michael Nutley 30 November 2023
Read more
It’s Time For Brands to Move From Personalised, to Personal

It’s Time For Brands to Move From Personalised, to Personal

At a time when almost every brand is tailoring content and offers to individual customers based on their demographic data, purchase history, and online behaviours, are these personalisation efforts still adding value?...

Shafqat Islam
Shafqat Islam 27 November 2023
Read more
The 3 Most Important Stages In Your Presentation

The 3 Most Important Stages In Your Presentation

If you want to deliver a presentation on a particular topic and you have to prepare yourself for it you should make sure that you go through several very important stages in order to craft a compelling, persuasive and...

Nicky Nikolaev
Nicky Nikolaev 16 February 2016
Read more
From Success to Setback: Lessons in MarTech Decision-Making

From Success to Setback: Lessons in MarTech Decision-Making

We often talk to clients about the consolidation of MarTech capabilities across vendors, to the point that it’s often not too difficult to pick up a new technology if you’re comfortable working with an alternative...

Andrew Addison
Andrew Addison 29 November 2023
Read more