The Continuing Myth of Domain Authority

[djbaxter]

Brands Value Domain Authority Because They Mistakenly Think Google Values It​

by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable
April 29, 2021

There was an interesting thread on Twitter about DA, Moz's domain authority metrics. In short, a blogger named Chloë wanted advice on getting her blog's "domain authority up." John Mueller of Google made a joke that DA is not important and Google doesn't use it but she came back and wrote "it is the most important metric for brands, it's the first thing they ask for, and if it's high enough they ask for your stats."

The truth is, this metric is only important to brands because these brands mistakenly think and believe that Google on some level values domain authority. In fact, most of these brands think DA is a Google metric and you and I know it is not. Even if you think DA is a good comparison to Google's PageRank, does that even matter these days?

The truth is, not only is it a mistake to think Google uses or values DA, but it is very harmful to the brand and the publisher to think this way. Why? Because the only reason this is valued at all is for the purpose of paying for links, which is directly against Google's webmaster guidelines.

Truth is, the whole thing around this makes me sad. It makes me sad that (a) bloggers are chasing down ways to improve their DA (b) when Google doesn't even use DA and (c) when the only purpose around getting higher DA is to get a do follow link (d) which is against Google's webmaster guidelines anyway. It is just so circular and backwards and even more so, it is like I am trying to educate the wider SEO space about the flawed logic here and of course, this is a niche blog, so they don't see it.

I've written about the topic numerous times:

• Google Can't Get Away From PageRank, Blame Moz Domain Authority
• Moz Updated Domain Authority (DA) & Some SEOs Are Freaking Out About Their Google Rankings
• Poll: Is Moz Domain Authority Helpful Or Hurtful To SEOs?
• Moz upgrades controversial 'domain authority' metric

Read more...​

 

[zach.todd]

I have to admit that I find the confusion over DA confusing.

There seems to be a strong reaction when the topic of DA comes up (so much so that I have to wonder if Chloe was trolling) -- saying the metric is useless, etc.

Is Google using DA? Absolutely not, that wouldn't make sense.

I don't think the metric itself, at least as a rough approximation or directional signal, is useless. I'm just curious if there really are so many people that think Google itself uses DA somehow.

 

[djbaxter]

Well I still see people on other forums posting about DA as important or even critical for SEO and despite Dr. Pete's disclaimer's they are responsible for a lot of that.