Domain Authority vs. Page Authority: What’s the Difference and How Can You Improve Both?
Domain Authority and Page Authority are two widely used SEO metrics for evaluating the strength of websites and individual web pages. Although they sound similar, they answer different questions. Domain Authority, commonly abbreviated as DA, looks at the overall ranking potential of a domain, while Page Authority, or PA, focuses on the potential strength of a specific URL. Both metrics were developed by Moz and are designed primarily as comparative SEO tools rather than as official Google ranking scores.
Understanding the difference between DA and PA is important because a website can have a relatively strong Domain Authority while some of its individual pages have weak Page Authority. The opposite can also happen. A particular article can attract many strong backlinks and develop substantial page-level authority even when the overall domain is still relatively small. This is why successful SEO strategies should evaluate both the website as a whole and the individual pages that are most important to search visibility.
What Is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is a Moz metric that estimates how likely an entire domain is to rank in search results compared with other domains. It uses a 0-to-100 scale, and the scale is logarithmic, meaning that increasing a score becomes progressively more difficult as the score gets higher. DA is primarily based on link-related signals from Moz’s own index and is intended for comparison rather than as an absolute measurement of a website’s quality.
For example, if one competitor has a considerably stronger and more diverse backlink profile than another competitor, the first site may have a higher DA. This does not mean Google has assigned that website a specific authority score. Rather, DA provides SEO professionals with a third-party way to compare the relative strength of competing domains.
Domain Authority can therefore be useful when analyzing competitors, evaluating potential backlink opportunities and monitoring the broader development of a website’s link profile. However, it should never become the only SEO metric you monitor.
What Is Page Authority?
Page Authority is similar to Domain Authority, but its focus is much narrower. Instead of estimating the ranking potential of an entire domain, PA estimates the ranking potential of a specific URL. This makes it particularly useful when analyzing individual blog posts, landing pages, product pages, category pages or other important URLs.
A page can have a strong PA because it has earned valuable backlinks directly to that URL. Another page on the same website may have a much lower PA because it is new, receives few external links or has not attracted much authority through the site’s internal structure.
This distinction is especially important for content marketers and SEO professionals. If you are trying to improve the visibility of one specific article, examining that page’s link profile can provide more useful information than looking only at the site’s overall DA.
Domain Authority vs. Page Authority: The Main Difference
The simplest way to understand the difference is to think of Domain Authority as a measurement used to evaluate the strength of the entire website, while Page Authority evaluates the strength of one particular page.
DA is useful when you want to answer a domain-level question such as, “How does my website compare with competing websites?” PA is more useful for a page-level question such as, “How strong is this particular article compared with competing articles?”
Neither metric is inherently more important than the other. They operate at different levels and should be used for different SEO decisions.
Are DA and PA Google Ranking Factors?
No. This is one of the most important distinctions to understand. Domain Authority and Page Authority are third-party metrics created by Moz; Google does not publish DA or PA scores as ranking signals.
Google does, however, use link analysis systems, including PageRank, as part of its ranking systems. Google explains that its systems analyze how pages link to one another to help understand which content may be useful for a query. PageRank has evolved considerably since Google’s early days and remains part of Google’s ranking systems, but its current internal scoring is not publicly available as a simple number that website owners can optimize toward.
This means a website should not chase a particular DA or PA number simply because it believes Google directly rewards that score. Instead, DA and PA should be treated as diagnostic and competitive benchmarks while the actual SEO strategy focuses on earning quality links, publishing useful content, improving technical performance and satisfying users.
Why Domain Authority Matters for SEO
Domain Authority can provide a useful high-level picture of your website’s link-based competitive position. If your website consistently earns relevant, high-quality backlinks from reputable sources, its overall link profile can become stronger over time.
DA is particularly useful for competitor research. Suppose your website competes with several businesses targeting similar search queries. Comparing their domain-level authority alongside their referring domains, content quality, rankings and organic visibility can help you understand the competitive environment.
However, a higher DA does not automatically mean higher rankings. Search performance depends on many factors, including relevance, content quality, technical accessibility, search intent and numerous ranking systems. Google itself emphasizes helpful, reliable, people-first content rather than optimization around a single third-party metric.
Why Page Authority Matters for SEO
Page Authority becomes particularly useful when your SEO objective is concentrated on specific URLs. You may have a website with hundreds of pages but only a small number of pages responsible for attracting most of your organic traffic or targeting your most valuable keywords.
Those important pages deserve individual analysis. If an article has excellent content but very few external references, its PA may be relatively weak. If competing pages have earned numerous relevant backlinks, building legitimate links to your page may help strengthen its competitive position.
PA can also help identify strong pages within your own website. A page that has accumulated valuable backlinks can potentially become an important internal authority source, allowing you to strategically link to related pages that need greater visibility.
How to Improve Domain Authority
The most sustainable way to improve Domain Authority is to strengthen the overall quality and diversity of your website’s backlink profile. Instead of trying to obtain hundreds of low-quality links, focus on earning links from relevant and trustworthy websites.
Original research is particularly valuable because other publishers may cite your findings. Detailed industry reports, original statistics, expert studies, useful tools, comprehensive guides and genuinely unique resources can all give other websites a reason to reference your work.
Content quality also matters because websites are more likely to link to resources that provide substantial value. Google recommends creating original, comprehensive and useful information rather than simply rewriting what other websites have already published.
Building relationships with relevant publishers, journalists, industry organizations and subject-matter experts can also create legitimate opportunities for editorial mentions. The goal should be to become a useful source within your industry rather than simply asking websites to place links.
Earn More High-Quality Referring Domains
One of the strongest ways to develop a healthier domain-level link profile is to earn links from different relevant websites rather than repeatedly obtaining links from the same source.
Imagine that one website links to you 50 times. That may not provide the same competitive signal as earning legitimate editorial mentions from several independent and relevant websites. The objective is therefore not simply to increase the raw number of backlinks but to develop a diverse, natural and credible referring-domain profile.
Relevance is especially important. A link from a website that covers your industry or subject can be more meaningful than a link from a completely unrelated website that happens to have a high third-party authority score.
Improve Your Website’s Internal Linking
Internal links are another important part of strengthening individual pages. When you publish a new article, connect it naturally with other relevant pages on your website. Likewise, identify your strongest existing resources and link from them to important pages that need more visibility.
A well-organized internal linking structure helps users discover related information and allows search engines to understand relationships between pages. It can also help distribute internal link equity throughout the site.
However, internal links should always be useful and natural. Adding dozens of irrelevant links simply to influence metrics can make a page harder to use and does not create genuine value.
Improve Page Authority Through Page-Specific Backlinks
If you want to improve the authority of a particular page, focus your link-building efforts on that specific URL. A backlink earned by an article generally provides a more direct page-level benefit to that URL than a link pointing exclusively to your homepage.
Create content that deserves references, then promote it to relevant publishers, researchers, journalists and industry websites. If the resource genuinely contributes something valuable to the conversation, it has a stronger chance of earning editorial links.
Moz’s own material distinguishes Page Authority from Domain Authority by emphasizing that PA allows SEO professionals to evaluate individual pages and that high-quality links to a specific page are important for developing its page-level authority.
Create Content That Naturally Attracts Links
The best way to improve both DA and PA is to create content that people genuinely want to reference. This could include original research, expert interviews, detailed tutorials, industry reports, statistics pages, calculators, tools, case studies and comprehensive educational resources.
A page should provide enough unique value that another website owner can confidently say, “This resource will help my readers.” That is a much stronger foundation for link acquisition than sending generic requests asking websites to link to a page simply because you want a higher authority score.
Google’s current guidance emphasizes original information, substantial analysis, expertise, accuracy and content that users would want to bookmark, share or recommend.
Strengthen Author and Website Credibility
Authority is not only about links. Your website should also clearly communicate who is responsible for its content and why readers should trust the information.
Clear authorship, appropriate author biographies, accurate business information, transparent sourcing and evidence of relevant experience can help establish credibility. Google specifically encourages clear authorship information where appropriate and emphasizes trust as an important part of its E-E-A-T framework.
This is particularly important for subjects where inaccurate information could have serious consequences. Demonstrating experience, expertise and trustworthy sourcing can make your content substantially more credible to readers.
Improve Technical SEO and Page Experience
Technical SEO does not directly turn a low DA into a high DA, but technical problems can prevent valuable content from performing properly. Make sure important pages can be crawled and indexed, use sensible site architecture, maintain secure HTTPS connections and ensure that pages work properly on mobile devices.
Page experience also matters. Google recommends paying attention to Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, intrusive interstitials, excessive distracting advertisements and the overall usability of pages. Google also makes clear that there is no single “page experience signal” that guarantees high rankings.
A technically healthy website gives your content and backlinks a better foundation to work from.
Update and Strengthen Existing Content
Improving authority does not always require publishing something new. Some of your existing pages may already have backlinks but fail to perform because the information is outdated, incomplete or difficult to use.
Review important pages regularly. Add missing information, improve explanations, replace outdated statistics, strengthen sources, fix broken links and make the page easier to navigate. If a page already has valuable backlinks, improving that page can allow you to extract more value from authority it has already earned.
The objective should be substantive improvement rather than simply changing publication dates. Google specifically warns against changing dates merely to make pages appear fresh when the content has not meaningfully changed.
Avoid Buying Artificial Authority
A common mistake is trying to increase DA or PA through large-scale purchased links, automated backlink networks or other manipulative practices. These approaches can produce impressive-looking numbers without creating genuine authority.
The better strategy is to earn editorial links because your content is useful. Google continues to maintain systems that analyze links and policies addressing link spam, which reinforces the importance of avoiding tactics designed primarily to manipulate search rankings.
DA and PA Should Be Used Together
The most effective approach is not to choose between Domain Authority and Page Authority. Use them together.
DA gives you a broader view of the overall strength of a domain and can be useful for competitor comparisons and evaluating potential link sources. PA gives you a more detailed view of individual URLs and can help you identify pages that deserve additional links or internal authority.
For example, imagine your website has a DA that is competitive with other sites in your industry, but an important article has relatively weak PA. That may suggest that your overall domain is reasonably strong but that the specific article has not accumulated enough page-level authority. Your strategy could then focus on improving that article and earning relevant links directly to it.
Conversely, if an individual article has strong PA but your overall domain remains comparatively weak, you may want to build a broader content and backlink strategy so that authority is developed across more sections of the website.
What Is a Good DA or PA Score?
There is no universal DA or PA score that can be considered “good” for every website. Because both metrics are comparative and logarithmic, the meaning of a score depends heavily on the websites you compete against and the difficulty of your market.
A DA that is competitive in a small local market may be inadequate for a highly competitive national industry. Similarly, a PA that looks impressive for one type of website may be relatively weak when compared with pages competing for extremely difficult search queries.
Instead of asking whether your DA is “good,” compare it with relevant competitors and monitor whether your website’s real search performance is improving.
The Metrics That Matter Beyond DA and PA
DA and PA can be useful, but they should not become the ultimate objectives of your SEO campaign. Organic impressions, qualified organic traffic, keyword visibility, conversions, engagement and revenue are generally much more meaningful measures of business performance.
A website can increase its DA without generating meaningful business results. Likewise, an individual page can have a modest PA and still rank successfully for valuable long-tail searches because it satisfies the search intent better than competing pages.
Google’s own documentation emphasizes helpfulness, originality, relevance, expertise, trust and overall page experience rather than optimizing for a single external authority score.
Domain Authority and Page Authority are useful SEO benchmarks, but they should not be confused with Google’s own ranking signals. DA looks at the broader domain, while PA focuses on an individual URL. Understanding this distinction can help website owners make better decisions about competitor analysis, link building, content promotion and internal linking.
The best way to improve both metrics is to build a website that deserves authority. Publish original and useful content, earn relevant editorial backlinks, develop a strong internal linking structure, improve technical performance, demonstrate genuine expertise and continually strengthen your most valuable pages.
Rather than chasing a particular DA or PA number, focus on building a website that people trust and other reputable websites naturally want to reference. Over time, that approach can strengthen your backlink profile, improve individual pages, support broader search visibility and create a much more sustainable SEO foundation.
