It’s time for you to check the Domain Authority (DA) of your website. Moz officially announced that it has rolled out Domain Authority 2.0 on Tuesday.
It seems like Moz’s warning to webmasters has come true. We found that the DA score of many websites was plummeting by almost two digits.
This may cause havoc among a few SEOs who prefer Domain Authority over other metrics that calculate website rankings.
The announcement about the launch of its updated Domain Authority score was made by Moz’s Russ Jones in a blog post titled “A Comprehensive Analysis of the New Domain Authority” on Tuesday.
According to Jones, the new Moz DA is a much-improved metric and has data backed by a much larger link index than before. This could also mean that Moz’s Link Explorer will give you far better insights.
Why did Moz Update its Domain Authority Metric?
The new update came at a time when the Moz Domain Authority metric was under intense debate over its inability to filter out a few blackhat methods. Moz itself confirmed the same while teasing the launch of Domain Authority 2.0.
The new Domain Authority update boasts of its strongest correlations with SERPs and its ability to handle link manipulation.
The new Domain Authority metric is based on Moz’s improved machine-learning model. It now takes into consideration a number of new factors in determining the DA score of websites.
How did the Domain Authority gain prominence?
Moz Domain Authority became a quick successor to Google’s PageRank, which was officially dead by 2013.
The Moz Bar, an extension that provides SEOs with Domain Authority score and a few other features, replaced Google’s PageRank Toolbar as one of the most trusted ranking metrics.
Over the last few years, Moz failed to update the core algorithm that measures Domain Authority.
This coupled with the new Google Algorithm Update made Domain Authority less accurate, prompting a few users to change their preference to Domain Rating, which is a metric followed by AHREFs.
Now, with the new Domain Authority up and running, Moz wants to reiterate its position once again as a leader in providing the most accurate data for the users and SEO agencies that offer guest posting and blogger outreach services.
Sites hit hard by Moz Domain Authority 2.0 Update
This just goes to show that the new Domain Authority is a double-edged sword for SEOs. We have found a handful of websites losing their DA and another batch improving their DA score.
We will be doing a detailed analysis of the sites that got hit and the ones that benefited from the latest Moz DA update soon.
We earlier predicted that the Domain Authority 2.0 may bring with it many ups and downs in the existing DA and PA scores.
Did you lose the Domain Authority of your website? Share your insights, and we might be able to help you get it back with our process-oriented strategy.
Here are a few discussions that are rife in SEO Forums after the launch of DA 2.0
“My DA has gone from 24 to 37. Another site, 24 to 16. No drastic change in rankings, but have been looking at DAs as one of the criteria for getting links from other sites,” says Drukpa via Blackhatworld.
“Hey guys, I have a question about the new domain authority. One of the challenges for us has been a competitor buying bad spamy backlinks to negatively effect us.
With your discover tool we are able to find and submit to google disavow. However the domain authority in Moz doesn’t know not to count those links and actually increase domain authority.
With this update sounds like you might start considering spam score within domain authority.
Will you guys have your own disavow option? or how else can we still get accurate data?,” asks a Moz community member with profile name CbdVapeGenius.
Hi Dileep
The graph posted by you very helpful. According to me which website have relevancy of content, have no big effect on its DA.
thanks for this post.. my site also faced a drop in DA.. i think its all about content and daily updates..
Hi Anidudh,
I don’t think content and daily update will have a direct impact on DA. Improving the link quality might help. Of course, having quality content published will definitely attract quality links. All the best.
Hi Dileep,
Thanks for this informative post.
My site da has been decreased by 6 while I have created profile links mostly.
All content on website is unique.
I don’t know why this happen?
thanks, for this usefull post. it is vey helpfull for us
Same for us, we have seen a drop of almost – 30DA. We have unique content posted almost every other day. What could be the problem?
Hi Amanda,
DA has nothing to do with publishing quality content at least directly. It is more or less the authority that you have built online through quality and relevant backlinks.
Let’s say you have a business with a few service pages and a well-maintained blog section that produces super cool content. You have a great chance to get natural backlinks; this can help in improving your DA. I hope you understood how high-quality content indirectly helps in boosting the DA.
If you have lost 30DA after the update, it may be because of the low-quality sites that may have been linking to your website. This doesn’t mean this your content is poor. You can come back strongly by spreading the word about your content to the relevant audience and related websites, which should in-return get you quality backlinks and ultimately higher DA.
Hope I answered your question.
Hi Ashley. Going overboard with link submission on spammy sites will reduce the DA.
I think the backlinks that you have built are from low authority sites, which may have affected your average Domain Authority. Try undoing them and building high-quality links above 30 DA. Since you have already got a DA of 17 don’t build any links less than 25 for that matter.