What Is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority gets quoted like gospel and misunderstood like a horoscope. It is a useful number. It is also not the number Google uses. Both things are true, and knowing the difference saves you a lot of wasted effort.

The short version

Domain Authority is a third party metric, created by SEO tools, that scores a website on a scale and predicts how likely it is to rank in search results. It is a comparative estimate, not an official Google ranking factor.

How to actually use it

• Compare your score against direct competitors, not against giants

• Track the trend over time rather than fixating on the exact number

• Treat it as a rough proxy for link authority, nothing more

What it is not

Google does not use Domain Authority. It is built by external tools using their own link data. Helpful for a quick read, useless as a target to optimise toward in isolation.

FAQ

Does Google use Domain Authority?

No. It is a third party metric. Google has its own systems and does not publish a single authority score for sites.