What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority is a metric, originally developed by Moz (a similar metric, Domain Rating, is published by Ahrefs), that scores a website from 1 to 100 to predict how likely it is to rank well in search engine results, relative to other sites. It's built primarily from backlink data: how many other domains link to a site, how authoritative those linking domains are themselves, and how that profile compares across the wider web. A well-known national publication might sit near the top of the scale; a brand-new local business website typically starts low and builds up over time.

The most important thing to understand about Domain Authority is what it isn't: it's not a metric Google itself publishes or officially uses, it's a third-party estimate designed to correlate with ranking potential, not a ranking factor Google directly consults. That distinction matters because it's easy to over-index on chasing a DA number as if it were the goal itself, when it's really a rough proxy for backlink strength, useful for comparison, not a target to optimize in isolation.

Where it is genuinely useful is competitive benchmarking: comparing a business's own score against direct competitors gives a rough, standardized sense of how much backlink-driven authority separates them, which helps set realistic expectations. A small local business with a DA of 15 competing against an established regional chain with a DA of 45 isn't going to out-rank them purely through backlinks in the short term, and knowing that shapes strategy: lean harder into local SEO, AEO, and AI citation opportunities where the competitive gap may be smaller and faster to close than on raw domain authority.

Ritam Labs' Competitor Position dimension (D10) includes domain authority style comparison as part of its broader competitive picture, alongside SERP presence and keyword overlap, specifically so a business sees where it realistically stands rather than treating any single score as the whole story.