How to Increase Domain Authority [And Reach #1 on Google]

Generating organic traffic and improving your spot in Google search results is a key part of online marketing, and working on increasing domain authority (DA) is a good place to start.

Research shows that websites with a higher DA or domain rating (DR), as assessed by Ahrefs, typically achieve better rankings on Google’s first page.

While domain authority doesn’t directly impact your rankings, it does indicate how relevant, authoritative, and credible your website is. These are three ranking factors that Google considers when ranking your site.

Interestingly, the median domain authority currently sits at just 19, based on the performance benchmarks from 150,000 campaigns managed by 7,000+ marketing agencies. This highlights the opportunity for websites that actively build authority.

In this article, we’ll cover what domain authority is, why it matters, how it’s calculated, and what you can do to increase it and improve your search engine rankings.

What Is Domain Authority (DA)?

Domain authority refers to a website metric created by the search engine optimization (SEO) tool Moz, which is a metric indicating how authoritative a website is.

Moz does this by analyzing the site’s backlink profile and assigning it a DA score. Domain authority scores range from zero to 100, with higher scores representing more authoritative websites.

For example, below you can see that Forbes currently has a DA of 94:

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This high-quality website that publishes authoritative content and has traffic that is increasing over time has a lower DA:

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One of the key metrics they use to calculate your DA is your backlink profile, which is a collection of links that point to your website from other websites.

Backlinks are considered a reliable measure of a site’s authority. In theory, this is because reputable websites will only link out when the content is worth linking to.

Technically, if a site has a lot of high-quality backlinks, it means that many different people have vouched that it contains high-quality content.

Having quality backlinks is a vote of confidence for your website, indicating to Google that it’s worth ranking.

Domain authority refers to a website metric created by the search engine optimization (SEO) tool Moz. This metric indicates how authoritative a website is.

Moz does this by analyzing the site’s backlink profile and assigning it a DA score. Domain authority scores range from zero to 100, with higher scores representing more authoritative websites.

One of the key metrics they use to calculate your DA is your backlink profile. This is a collection of links that point to your website from other websites.

Backlinks are considered a reliable measure of a site’s authority. In theory, this is because reputable websites will only link out when the content is worth linking to.

Technically, if a site has a lot of high-quality backlinks, it means that many different people have vouched that it contains high-quality content.

Having quality backlinks is a vote of confidence for your website and indicates to Google that it’s worth ranking.

Moz isn’t the only platform with an algorithm that provides a score based on backlinks. The Ahrefs domain rating (DR) score is a popular alternative for assessing a website’s domain authority.

Here is Forbes’ DR score on Ahrefs:

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Like DA, DR also considers a website’s backlink profile and creates a score that estimates a website's authority out of 100.

There are some differences in how the two scores are calculated, which we explore later in this article.

Moz isn’t the only platform with an algorithm that provides a score based on backlinks. The Ahrefs domain rating (DR) score is a popular alternative for assessing a website’s domain authority.

Like DA, DR also considers a website’s backlink profile and creates a score that estimates how authoritative a website is out of 100.

There are some differences in how the two scores are calculated, which we explore later in this article.

Why is it Important to Increase Domain Authority?

Domain authority isn’t a Google ranking factor, but it’s still one of the best indicators of how well your site is likely to perform in search.

In competitive industries, Google tends to prioritize content from established, authoritative sites. This means if your site has a low DA compared to your competitors, you may find it difficult to rank for high-impact keywords.

DA is based mostly on the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to it. In other words, if other reputable websites link to yours, it’s a strong signal that your content is useful and trustworthy.

Research by Ahrefs has shown a clear correlation between higher domain ratings and better keyword rankings.

For example, Forbes, with a DR of 94 and over 10 million backlinks, consistently ranks for ultra-competitive terms like “Bitcoin” and “student loans.” That doesn’t happen by chance. It happens because the site has built a huge amount of authority over time.

So, while increasing your DA won’t guarantee rankings on its own, it puts your site in a far better position to compete, especially when combined with high-quality content.

What is a good domain authority score?

The highest domain authority score you can get on Moz is 100. In general, the most authoritative sites on the Internet tend to have a domain authority of over 90, while top publications typically score above 70 or 80.

Here are some examples:

• The BBC has a DA of 95 and a DR of 92.

• Neil Patel has a DA of 86 and a DR of 91.

• Ahrefs has a DA of 78 and a DR of 90.

The good news is that you won’t, in most cases, directly compete with the above sites for your rankings. So, what you consider a high authority domain will depend on the websites that currently rank for terms you want to target.

If you are in a competitive niche, such as SEO software, for example, then a DA score of over 80 is considered high DA.

Most of the top-ranking pages come from sites with a domain authority score of above 70. It will be hard to rank at the top of search engine results for this term if your site doesn’t compete on a similar level. In less competitive niches, a high DA site may have a lower score.

For example, the highest-ranking website for the search term “dentist in Edinburgh” has a DA of 18. So, a DA score of 20+ would be considered very high in this local industry.

The key is to look at the top-ranking websites you compete with and decide for yourself what a high domain authority score would be.

How is Domain Authority Calculated?

Ahrefs’ DR score is similar to Moz’s domain authority. It is also a logarithmic score out of 100, and its relevance to other sites in the database is also taken into consideration.

Ahrefs provides more details about the factors it considers in its calculations, and these are the top three influencing factors:

1. The number of websites that link to your domain. Nofollow links, which don’t impact search rankings, are discounted.

2. The DR of the sites that link to your website. A high-DR website link will typically have more impact than links from low-quality sites.

3. The number of sites a domain links to. A link from a site that rarely links to other domains is worth more than one from a site with links pointing to many domains.

Beyond these three factors, Ahrefs also says that:

• You will only see a DR boost the first time a site links to you. Multiple links from a single domain will have the same impact as a single link.

• If a site’s DR increases after linking to you, this improvement will also positively impact your score.

How to Increase Domain Authority

Here are the top strategies we use here at LinkBuilder to earn our clients high-quality links and boost domain authority scores:

Create link-worthy content

Creating content that people want to link to is the first step to better link-building. This content is also known as linkable assets, which, according to over 36% of SEO experts, earn backlinks organically.

People typically link to unique content like:

• Reports or studies.

• Breaking news, where you are quoted as a reliable source.

• Interesting opinions and viewpoints.

• Useful tools.

• Interesting long-form content.

• Statistical roundups.

The SaaS provider Salesforce has developed a linkable asset in the form of a State of Marketing Report. It includes original research, data-backed insights, and has earned over 850 backlinks:

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Your content should be world-class; you can’t just write a blog post. You’ll need to write a very informative post that’s better than anything else out there on the topic. If it isn’t, website owners are likely to link to competing sites over yours.

The ideal scenario is that people will find your content naturally in search results pages and link to it in their articles.

Unfortunately, this isn’t usually the case, especially if you don’t have much traffic in the first place. In this instance, you may have to promote your content via outreach.

Tips for creating world-class content

• Use the SkyScraper technique. Analyze your competitors’ content and produce a piece that is more updated, better, and more comprehensive than theirs.

• Back up any statements you make with real statistics from studies and reports.

• Add something unique. Original insight from an expert in your company adds value to your content, as these are pieces of information that wouldn’t be found elsewhere online.

• Include strong calls to action (CTAs) in your content that drive readers to take the next step.

• Invest in proofreading and editing services to ensure your content is error-free and polished. Spelling and grammatical errors reduce the credibility of your writing.

Connect with website owners

Once you have created great, linkable content, it’s time to reach out to others in your niche and ask them to link to it. Contact other websites and tell them about your site and content.

Below are some of the ways you can realistically earn links through outreach:

You can find the ideal websites to contact, known as target sites, with Ahrefs. Enter your website, or that of another in your niche, into the Site Explorer tool and then click on organic competitors, which will bring up a list of similar sites:

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Then, it’s a case of finding out who runs the website, sending them a message or email introducing yourself, and asking them to link to your content.

Keep in mind that you aren’t the only site performing this kind of outreach. Many webmasters are inundated with outreach requests, so try to make your message stand out by offering something in return.

For example, you can offer to share one of their posts on your email subscribers or with your social following.

👉 Tips for effective outreach

• Personalize every message: Avoid generic templates and instead, reference the recipient’s name, a recent article they published, or something specific about their site. This shows you’ve done your homework and makes your email more likely to be viewed.

• Keep it short and clear: Website owners are busy. Ensure your outreach email gets to the point quickly by mentioning who you are, why you’re reaching out, and what you want them to do. Avoid long paragraphs or excessive detail.

• Explain the value: Highlight why your content is worth linking to. Is it more up-to-date than what they’re currently linking to? Does it offer unique insights, original data, or a comprehensive guide? Make the benefits obvious in your email.

• Offer a value exchange: As mentioned earlier, offering something in return increases your chances of success. This could be sharing their content on social media, mentioning them in one of your blog posts, or linking to an article they’ve published.

• Follow up: If you don’t hear back from the website owner after a few days, send a polite follow-up email, but ensure you’re not coming across as too pushy.

• Use tools to scale your outreach: Consider using outreach tools like Hunter.io, Respona, or BuzzStream to find contact information and manage your outreach campaigns. These are tools that can help you send personalized messages at scale while tracking responses.

Pursue unlinked mentions

Finding unlinked mentions involves looking for instances where a website has mentioned your business but has not added a link to your site.

In this article published by Forbes, the brand Mercedes has been mentioned several times. However, the article doesn’t include any links to the Mercedes website or any of its models. This is an unlinked mention and would be the perfect opportunity for the brand to reach out to the publication to ask for a backlink:

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Get in touch with the people running the publication and ask them to link to you. The owner will often be happy to do so.

While it sounds like a lot of work, much of the process can be automated. Simply set up a Google Alert for your brand’s name. When you receive an email or notification, head to the web page to see if it is linked to you, and if it isn’t, send them a polite email asking for a backlink.

This strategy works best for established sites, so if people don’t already know about your brand, they are unlikely to mention you in the first place.

👉 How to set up Google Alerts

Below is a guide on how to set up Google Alerts to spot unlinked mentions:

1. Visit https://www.google.com/alerts and enter your brand name in the search bar, or use quotation marks for exact matching.

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2. Click “Show options” to see customization settings for your alert. Here, you can adjust how frequently you want to receive notifications, sources, language, and the types of results you want to filter out spammy or irrelevant mentions.

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3. Click “Create Alert” and you’ll get notified when Google finds a new page that mentions your brand.

👉 Tips for unlinked mentions

• Prioritize high-authority or niche-relevant mentions: Not all unlinked mentions are worth pursuing. Focus on websites relevant to your industry or have very high domain authority, as these links carry more SEO value and are more likely to boost your site’s DA.

• Look beyond your brand name: Track mentions of key people at your company, your products or services, and even unique phrases associated with your brand. These also present valuable linking opportunities.

• Time your outreach carefully: If you spot a recent mention, reach out while the content is still fresh and relevant. The sooner you contact the site owner or editor, the more likely they are to update the content with your link.

Fix Broken Links

Broken link building is a strategy where you identify broken links on other websites and offer your content as a replacement.

Ahrefs conducted a study of over two million websites and found that more than 66% of the links pointing to them were lost within a year.

Here’s how to leverage broken link building:

• First, identify relevant websites in your industry or niche that contain broken links.

• Once you’ve identified a broken link, check whether you have content that might work as a replacement or create suitable content.

• Then, contact the website owner, inform them about the broken link, and suggest your content as a replacement.

This strategy is mutually beneficial, as website owners appreciate the help in maintaining their site’s quality, and you gain a valuable backlink.

How to fix broken links effectively

• Prioritize high-value pages: Not all broken links are equally valuable. Focus on pages with high domain authority, strong traffic, or topical relevance to your content.

• Check the original broken content: Use the Wayback Machine to view the original version of the dead link. This helps you understand what the linked page used to offer so you can better match or improve on that content when suggesting your replacement.

Consider Niche Edits And Paid Links

Niche edits involve asking a website owner to link your article to their existing content. When it works, it’s an easy way to get links to specific content on relevant sites.

A study by Gotch SEO Academy found that 70% of URLs that were part of a niche edit campaign saw keyword ranking and organic traffic growth.

The downside is that if a website owner agrees to do this, they will often ask you to pay for the link.

While paying for links is technically against Google’s Search Essentials (formerly Google Webmaster Guidelines), it is common practice in many niches. It can be tough to see any progress without purchasing links.

Check out our guide on niche edits to learn how to use this strategy correctly.

👉 Tips for successful niche edits

• Target aged content with steady traffic: When requesting a niche edit, look for content that is already ranking well or has built up authority over time. These pages pass more link equity and are less likely to be removed or deindexed.

• Make your content relevant to the page: Ensure the content you’re linking to adds value to the existing article. If it doesn’t fit naturally, Google may remove or flag the link.

• Negotiate smartly: If a site owner asks for payment, ensure the price reflects the site’s authority, traffic, and relevance. Don’t overpay for links from sites with poor metrics or no real audience.

Leverage AI to your advantage

Search is changing fast. With the rise of generative AI tools like Google’s AI overviews, Bing Copilot, and even third-party AI browsers like Perplexity, traditional rankings are no longer the only goal.

These tools often pull content from top-ranking sources to generate instant summaries that answer users’ questions directly in search results, often without them clicking on anything. In fact, in 2025, 60% of searches are completed with AI overviews without users clicking through to other websites.

If your site isn’t ranking high, you’re not just missing out on page-one traffic; you’re missing the opportunity to be cited in AI-generated responses.

To earn a spot in these AI overviews, your site must demonstrate credibility, authority, and topical relevance, all of which are closely tied to your domain authority.

The good news? AI isn’t just changing search. It’s also a powerful tool you can use to boost your domain authority. Here’s how to increase domain authority using AI:

Scale high-quality content

As we’ve covered above, a super effective way to increase domain authority is by creating valuable, link-worthy content. But consistently producing that kind of content takes time and resources.

Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Jasper, and Gemini can help you generate blog post outlines, article drafts, FAQ pages, and even topic clusters.

While you should never rely solely on AI-generated content, it can be a great foundation that you refine and enhance with your own insights.

Say you’re running a cybersecurity blog and you want to create a guide on ransomware prevention. You could prompt ChatGPT to generate a rough outline and key points based on recent trends in cybersecurity. Then, you’d layer in your own data, quotes, and first-hand experience to turn it into a comprehensive, expert-level resource that naturally attracts backlinks.

Identify high-impact backlink opportunities

Backlink research is super important to increasing DA, and AI-enhanced tools now use machine learning (ML) to help identify high-authority sites in your niche, spot gaps in your competitors’ backlink profiles, and surface link-building opportunities you might miss manually.

You can use tools like ChatGPT and Claude to analyze exported backlink data and prioritize targets by relevance, authority, and link type.

For example, you could export the backlinks of a top-ranking competitor and feed them into an AI tool that categorizes them by content type, niche, and authority level. This can help you build a shortlist or targets for your own outreach.

Streamline and personalize your outreach at scale

AI can also help you improve your linkbuilding outreach, which is often one of the most time-consuming parts of increasing DA.

Instead of sending generic emails, use AI to draft highly personalized outreach messages based on the recipient’s name, website content, or recent posts.

For instance, tools like ChatGPT can take a URL or LinkedIn profile and instantly generate a relevant, custom pitch.

Spot trending topics before your competitors

AI is good at analyzing large volumes of content to identify emerging trends. Tools like Exploding Topics, Feedly AI, or even ChatGPT with real-time browsing can help you stay ahead of the curve.

When you’re among the first to publish on an emerging topic, you increase your chances of earning natural backlinks from journalists, bloggers, and content aggregators.

Suppose you’re in the nutrition niche. AI tools might surface a new interest in probiotic supplements. You could then create an authoritative guide before it saturates the web, earning links as people cite your post as one of the first comprehensive resources on the topic.

Optimize internal linking

We’ll discuss this in more detail in a bit, but a solid internal linking structure can help distribute link equity across your site, improving the authority of individual pages.

AI tools, such as Link Whisper or custom GPT workflows, can automatically identify internal linking opportunities based on keyword targets, anchor text, and topic relationships.

Audit and improve existing content for linkability

Your existing content may not be attracting backlinks simply because it’s outdated, difficult to read, or lacking valuable information. AI can help you audit older content, highlight gaps, and suggest improvements that make your pages more appealing to link to.

Tools like Surfer SEO, Clearscope, or a simple ChatGPT prompt can analyze your content and compare it with top-ranking competitors, helping you refresh your content to better match search intent and boost linkability.

Let’s say you have a post from 2021 about “local SEO strategies”. An AI audit might tell you that it’s missing recent changes in Google Business Profile features. Updating it with the latest tips and perhaps a new case study can breathe new life into the page and increase the chances it’ll earn links

Create an Internal Linking Strategy

While backlinks are important for improving domain authority and search rankings, having a solid internal link structure in your website content is also essential.

Internal linking can improve SEO performance by 5% to 10% when done correctly, providing a small but meaningful boost in organic traffic and rankings.

An internal linking structure involves inserting links to other parts of your website within your content to drive conversions and sales. This forms part of your on-page SEO.

The benefits of having internal links include:

• Passing link juice from one page to another.

• Keeping your readers engaged.

• Creating a user journey from wherever users land on your website.

• Helping Google understand, crawl, and index your pages.

👉 Tips for smarter internal linking

• Use descriptive anchor text: Choose anchor text, the clickable hyperlinks within website content, that clearly describes the page you’re linking to. Avoid vague terms like “click here”. Instead, use keywords or phrases that help users and search engines understand what to expect from the destination page.

• Link to deep pages, not just your homepage: Many sites overlink to their homepage or contact page. Instead, focus on linking to deeper, high-value content, such as blog posts, service pages, or product categories that benefit most from increased visibility.

• Don’t overdo internal linking: While internal linking is a great strategy, adding too many links to one piece of content can confuse readers and dilute SEO value. Aim for a natural flow, with two to five internal links per 1,000 words as a rule of thumb.

• Keep links updated: Regularly audit your content to identify and update outdated or broken internal links. As your site grows, some URLs may change, and keeping internal links accurate improves both user experience and crawlability.

Optimize On-page and Technical SEO

Domain authority is based on various technical and on-page SEO aspects. For example, site speed, which is how long your website takes to load, impacts your domain authority score.

Working on technical SEO factors, like improving your site’s speed and performance, may improve your domain authority. Better yet, it may also increase the time users spend on your site.

Even a one-second delay in loading speed can mean you lose up to 11% of website views. Customer satisfaction also decreases by 16% if your website takes too long to load.

👉 Tips for strong on-page and technical SEO

• Use keyword-rich, compelling title tags: Your title tag is an important on-page SEO element. Include your target keyword near the beginning of your title tags make it engaging enough to encourage clicks in search results.

• Write descriptive meta descriptions: While these don’t directly influence rankings, they can improve click-through rates (CTR). Write concise, relevant descriptions that summarize the page and naturally include your keywords.

• Optimize images with alt text: It’s a good idea to add descriptive, keyword-relevant alt text to images. This improves accessibility and gives Google more context about your page.

• Keep URLs short and clean: It’s important to use simple, readable URLs that reflect the page topic clearly. For example, yourdomain.com/seo-tips is better than yourdomain.com/123-page?id=98765.

• Use schema markup where appropriate: Adding schema, also known as structured data, can enhance your search listing with rich snippets like star ratings, FAQs, or product details, improving CTR and visibility.

Try HARO

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is a goldmine for link-building.

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It’s not only one of the best ways to get quality backlinks from high-authority websites, but it’s also one of the most effective tactics to get links in general.

The service is a set of daily email newsletters that contain requests from journalists for expert input into their stories. If you’re an expert in a particular niche, answering the request can attract a backlink.

Here’s how it works:

1. Head to the HARO website and sign up.

2. HARO presents you with a list of journalist queries.

3. Search for requests that you can provide an authoritative answer to.

4. Follow the journalist’s instructions when replying to the story and include a link to your website. It can help to set up a bio and profile picture in advance that you can easily share.

5. The journalist will choose the answers they like for their story.

6. When the story goes live, you may get a backlink.

👉 A tip on using HARO

While HARO is easy to use, it is also very competitive, and many people reply to each request.

To increase your chances of being chosen, you should reply quickly and in a way that makes it easy for the journalist to use your quote. Try to keep your answer concise, unless you are specifically asked for more detail.

Take a look at our guide for using HARO to build links for more insight into this strategy.

Guest Posting on High Authority Sites

Guest posting is a strategy that has been around for years. One survey found that 47% of SEO professionals use guest posting as their go-to link-building strategy. If you follow some best practices, it’s an effective way to get links from high-DA sites.

First, avoid spammy sites that would accept any guest blog post in exchange for a fee. Instead, look for quality sites with a high DA, an engaged audience, and real traffic.

Sometimes such sites will have a “Write for Us” or “Contribute” section on their website, but some won’t.

You then need to pitch quality articles that genuinely add value for the website’s readers.

Below is an example of a great guest post. The author has written a post for a high-authority blog, and that includes a link to her business’s website in the copy of the article:

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Here are two examples of high-DA sites that accept quality articles.

➡️ HubSpot

HubSpot, a site with a domain authority score of 92, publishes guest posts for its marketing, sales, service, and website blogs. The company knows that getting input from experts in the field is an excellent way to generate interesting posts for its target audience.

But the site has very strict requirements for the type of posts it allows on its blog. Its marketing blog has a long list of requirements. These state that it typically only accepts:

• Original experiment or analysis posts.

• Canonical posts that go into great depth on a particular topic.

• Graphic posts.

Creating this type of content isn’t easy. But if you can meet these editorial standards, you will get a valuable and authoritative link from a DA 92 site.

➡️ Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur is a DA 92 site that accepts guest submissions in its Entrepreneur Leadership Network section. Like HubSpot, stringent editorial standards apply to the type of articles it will publish.

You can find out more about their publishing guidelines on their website. Articles you submit to this website should:

• Offer a fresh approach to the subject you want to cover.

• Focus on a narrow area or niche.

• Be practical and instructive.

• Not be overly promotional of your business.

➡️ Finding guest posting opportunities

HubSpot and Entrepreneur are suitable for guest posts in the business or marketing niche. You’d need to write an article on these topics. Otherwise, it won’t be accepted.

When searching for opportunities, consider the top publications that cover your industry and research whether they accept submissions.

Then, think about story ideas that will resonate with the site’s audience and pitch them to the publication. This is another scenario where AI could be helpful. Additionally, if there are no specific guest post instructions, consider contacting the website editor or owner.

👉 Tips for crafting an epic guest post

• Be informative and educational. Spend some time doing in-depth research so that you can provide the reader with valuable insights.

• Data-led content is extremely popular and typically performs well. Including some interesting statistics or mentioning your own studies should grab the reader’s attention.

• Keep the website’s audience in mind. You want to create content that will resonate closely with the site’s readership, as this will make them more likely to take action and potentially visit your backlink.

• Follow the format of the website’s posts. The site owner may be explicit about the formatting of the guest post you submit. If not, take time to look at their live guest posts and be sure to format the blog post you submit accordingly.

Target Sites With Decent Traffic

Moz’s DA score considers whether the links come from legitimate sites with real traffic. If they don’t, the algorithm will likely discount them.

There are several easy ways to check whether or not a site is legitimate.

First, use an SEO tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or Ubersuggest to determine whether a site has real search engine traffic.

These tools show approximately how much traffic a website gets each month. At LinkBuilder, we target sites that attract at least 1,000 organic visitors monthly.

As you can see below, this site has some steady traffic that is gradually increasing. They also have a domain rating of 79, which has improved by 15 in the last few months. This would be a site worth targeting:

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Sometimes, a site in a downward spiral will still have some traffic, so look out for the general direction the traffic is heading in. If it recently had a sudden drop, it may have suffered a Google penalty, which can be a sign of a low-value site.

Also, look for the types of keywords a site ranks for. A spammy site may still get traffic from low-value keywords.

You can also check a site’s social media accounts to estimate whether it receives traffic from these channels. Look for active accounts with posts people comment on, like, or share.

The final quality check is simply looking at the website itself. Spammy sites will typically have several signs that suggest that they are low-quality. These include:

• Articles on a large number of seemingly unrelated topics. These often include posts about casinos or gambling.

• Posts that are short or poorly written.

• Many articles are written by a “Guest Author” or users with similar titles, but the site itself creates little original content.

• Articles that include unnaturally placed or spammy backlinks.

Consider Growing Websites

Gaining links from sites that are in their early stages, but showing growth, can be beneficial. If you get the chance to receive a link from a site that appears to be new, then it could be worth targeting them.

Use a tool like Ahrefs to see how a website’s backlink profile is growing over time. If the site shows a growing trend, it could be a sign that it will continue doing so in the future.

Prioritize backlinks from sites that don’t link out much

Ahrefs considers the number of sites a domain links to when calculating DR. So, links from publications that don’t link out much are more valuable than those from sites with similar authority that link to many other domains.

Use Ahrefs’s Outgoing Links and then Linked Domains feature, to see how many domains a website links to.

Claim your listings in online directories

Submitting and claiming listings on reputable directories can increase your domain authority, particularly if you’re a local business like a restaurant or car dealership.

Directory backlinks are trust signals that tell search engines like Google that you’re a real business, which may contribute to your website’s authority.

These links are typically easy to acquire and are considered legitimate by search engines, making them a low-risk way to build backlinks.

For businesses targeting a specific area, directory listings are also a critical part of local SEO.

Being listed on platforms like Google Business Profile, Yelp, Bing Places, and local chamber of commerce websites helps your business rank in local search results, Google Maps, and when people search for “near me” queries.

Here is an example of a business that has a listing on Yelp, which gets them a high-quality backlink to their site and potentially helps them appear in local search results:

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👉 Tips to get the most out of directory listings

• Ensure NAP consistency: Your brand’s Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) should be the same on all platforms. Inconsistent information can harm your local SEO.

• Choose high-quality, relevant directories: Focus on directories with strong reputations, real editorial oversight, and relevance to your industry or location.

• Fill out your profiles completely: Add a description, website link, business hours, and images where possible to increase credibility and engagement.

How to Avoid Attracting Bad Links When Trying to Boost DA

Although backlinks are crucial to increased domain authority, building low-quality links is important to avoid if you want to improve your Google ranking.

You can avoid earning toxic links by keeping a close eye on your backlink profile. If you spot low-quality backlinks, you can contact the website owner to remove the backlink. If all else fails, you can disavow toxic backlinks using Google Search Console.

Check out our complete guide on disavowing backlinks without hurting your website.

How to Check Domain Authority?

There are several other SEO tools you can use for free to check your domain authority. These include Website SEO Checker, SEO Review Tools, and SmallSEOTools. Simply enter the website's URL, and the tool will show you the domain’s authority score alongside other useful information.

A useful option to check domain authority is the Moz Bar Google Chrome plugin. It provides real-time domain metrics as you browse the web.

The tool is free to use, although you’ll need to sign up for a Moz account first. With the Moz Bar, you can:

• See the website's domain authority score. Ensure the tool is active and you’re logged in to your Moz account.

• See the site’s domain authority, page authority (PA), and the number of links each page has in the Google search results. This is an easy way to gauge how difficult it will be to rank for relevant keywords.

Another option is to use Ubersuggest to search for a site’s domain authority. Just head to the tool’s home page, then search for the site you want to learn more about.

It shows you the Moz domain authority score alongside useful information like traffic and the top keywords a site ranks for.

If you want to know the Ahrefs domain ranking of a site, you can find this easily, even if you don’t have a subscription.

You can carry out unlimited searches by heading to the authority checker on their website and entering the URL of the site you want to search for.

The issue with domain authority

People commonly use domain authority to measure the success of their off-page SEO and link-building efforts.

People think that if they are increasing their website authority score, their SEO strategy must be working.

In many cases, this is true. If your site is new or has a lower domain authority, you will likely see results fairly quickly as you build backlinks and achieve a good domain authority score.

But, as your domain authority score increases, so does the number and quality of the links you need to attract to see improvements. This means you could build many links, but not see much improvement.

Another issue is that the scores are relative to other websites, so you may end up in a situation where your DA or DR decreases despite having more links. This happens when other sites build links faster than you do.

So you shouldn’t rely solely on DA to measure whether your search engine optimization efforts are working. Be sure to keep an eye on multiple metrics.

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👀 Other metrics to keep an eye on

• The number of links that point to your site.

• The number of referring domains.

• Your inbound traffic.

• Your Moz Spam Score.

• Your ranking for individual keywords.

• Your average ranking.

• How many broken links you have.

• Search volume and difficulty for the keywords you’re ranking for.

Website owners also use domain authority when deciding which relevant keywords to target.

If the sites that rank for a particular term have high domain authority scores, it may be difficult to compete with them in the SERPs. But if your website has a similar or higher domain authority to those already on the SERPs, you have a good chance of ranking with an optimized piece of content.

Of course, having a good domain authority score is just a guide. Many other factors influence whether a piece of content will rank well on Google. Some other questions to ask include:

• Does your content match searcher intent?

• Is it optimized for its target keywords?

• Do you have internal links pointing to it?

• Have you built external links to the page?

• Is the length of the content similar to other pages in the SERPs?

Is a Low Domain Authority Score Bad?

Having a low domain authority isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it doesn’t mean you won’t rank on Google.

No website starts with a high page authority or a good DR score; it needs to build backlinks first. The only exception is when a site is built on an existing domain that already has links pointing to it.

There are plenty of low domain authority sites that rank for low-competition keywords that bring in more organic traffic. Also, if you want to rank for low-competition keywords, increasing your website’s domain authority might not be a priority.

For example, the site below has a DR of just 1.9, yet it receives thousands of visitors every month, according to Ahrefs:

There are also plenty of examples of high domain authority sites that are low-quality or spammy.

Websites built on expired domains or those that have landed themselves a Google penalty can have high domain scores while being low-quality and having little organic traffic.

When assessing the quality of a website, you should consider several other factors in addition to domain authority, including:

• How the site ranks on Google.

• How much organic SEO traffic it receives.

• Whether or not it has a unique design versus a generic templated layout.

• If it publishes high-quality content.

Domain Authority vs. Page Authority (PA)

Page authority (PA) is a similar metric to domain authority. But instead of ranking the site as a whole, it looks at a single page.

Improving the page authority of an article compared to its competitors can help low-domain-authority sites outrank their competitors.

In fact, Ahrefs found that the number of links pointing to a page was a better indicator of whether a page would rank on Google than DR. Links pointing to a page are a factor Moz uses when considering PA.

As you build your page authority, your domain authority will also typically increase.

How Many Links Do I Need to Increase Domain Authority?

There is no definite answer to this question, as both Ahrefs and Moz use more than just the number of linking domains to calculate their website authority rankings.

🔗 Calculating how many links you need

• The average website with a DR of between six and 10 has around 30 referring domains (RDs).

• The average domain with a DR of between 11 and 15 has 44 RDs. This suggests you need to attract links from around 14 more domains to move into the next bracket.

• The average site with a DR of between 41 and 45 has 263 RDs. This is compared to sites with a DR of between 46 and 50, which have 352 RDs—an increase of 89.

• At the top end of the scale, the difference in RDs between a site with a DR of 91-95 and one with a DR of 96 to 100 is over eight million. This suggests that as you improve your website authority, the number of RDs you need increases significantly

Don’t Get Too Caught Up with Domain Authority

As mentioned above, domain authority is relative, and your score may decrease even after improving your link profile if other sites have built links faster.

But remember that DA considers all websites, not just those in your niche. If you have improved your backlink profile more quickly than your direct competitors, you may still find that you have a DA advantage, even if your overall domain authority score has decreased.

In fact, you can run an excellent link-building campaign but still not see much improvement in these metrics due to external factors.

Ready to Build Serious Authority?

Increasing your domain authority isn’t just about the numbers. It’s about earning trust, credibility, and visibility in your space. But this takes time, strategy, and a whole lot of outreach.

If you’re finding it tough to scale your link-building efforts or get any real results, you don’t have to go at it alone.

At LinkBuilder, we help businesses like yours secure high-authority, relevant backlinks that make a real difference. We know how to craft personalized link-building campaigns that get results.

Contact us today to find out how we can help you acquire powerful links that drive real authority!