Website Authority Checker: Check the "Authority" Of Any Domain (2024)

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What is “website authority”?

“Website authority” is an SEO concept that refers to the “strength” of a given domain.

Some people call this “domain authority,” which is not to be confused with the Domain Authority (DA) metric from Moz. When we talk about domain authority, we’re talking about a general SEO concept that’s synonymous with “website authority.”

Here at Ahrefs, we have a website authority metric of our own called Domain Rating. It runs on a scale from zero to a hundred. The higher a website’s Domain Rating (DR), the stronger and more authoritative it is.

The free tool above shows your website’s “authority” as calculated by Ahrefs (i.e., Domain Rating).

How we calculate our Domain Rating (DR) score

Here’s how we calculate this metric in simple terms:

  1. Look at how many unique domains link to the target website;

  2. Look at the "authority" of those linking domains;

  3. Take into account how many unique domains each of those sites link to;

  4. Apply some math and coding magic to calculate “raw” DR scores;

  5. Plot these scores on a 100-point scale

Domain Rating doesn’t take into account any other variables like link spam, traffic, domain age, etc.

Learn more about Domain Rating here.

Why the “authority” of your domain matters

Google representatives consistently deny the use of "domain authority" as a ranking factor. But according to Google’s John Mueller, they do have a sitewide score that "maps to similar things."

Plus, when we studied the correlation between Domain Rating (DR) and keyword rankings for 218,713 domains, we found that the two correlate well.

Website Authority Checker: Check the "Authority" Of Any Domain (1)

This makes Domain Rating (authority) a useful metric by which to estimate a website’s ability to get organic traffic from Google.

Disclaimer: This is a correlation study. It does not prove causation.

What is a good Domain Rating (authority) score?

Generally speaking, the higher the "authority" of your domain, the better.

But it’s important not to judge Domain Rating in absolute terms. That’s because Domain Rating is a relative metric by definition. It’s not possible to say that a Domain Rating of 30 is good, or 50, or 60, or 70. It’s all relative.

Here’s a general rule of thumb:

Your Domain Rating (authority) is good if it’s higher than or comparable to similar sites.

How to improve your Domain Rating (i.e., "authority" score)

Getting backlinks from more unique websites (referring domains) is the only way to improve your website’s Domain Rating (authority) score.

But improving your site’s "authority" should never be your primary goal.

You should instead focus on earning backlinks from strong pages on reputable sites in your industry to the pages that you want to rank in Google. That’s because there’s a clear correlation between the number of referring domains to a page and the amount of organic traffic it gets.

Website Authority Checker: Check the "Authority" Of Any Domain (2)

The correlation between referring domains and search traffic (~920 million pages studied).

Furthermore, we found that the number of referring domains to a page is the strongest correlating backlink factor as far as rankings are concerned.

Website Authority Checker: Check the "Authority" Of Any Domain (3)

How to use “website authority”

Here are two good uses cases:

1. Benchmarking against your competitors

If your website "authority" is higher than that of your competitors, then your site is stronger than theirs in terms of "link popularity."

For example, ahrefs.com has a Domain Rating of 88. Moz.com has a Domain Rating of 91.

That’s because it has more backlinks from websites with strong link profiles, which leads to a higher "authority" score (as measured by Ahrefs).

TIP. If two websites have the same Domain Rating, then you should use Ahrefs Rank (AR) to judge their relative strength.

Comparing your Domain Rating to other websites in your industry can tell you whether your competitors are doing better or worse than you. If they’re doing better, then you may want to analyze their backlink profile in Ahrefs Site Explorer for untapped link opportunities.

2. Vetting link prospects

Google cares more about the "strength" of the linking page than that of the linking domain. Still, pages on high "authority" domains tend to be stronger than those on low "authority" sites.

For that reason, Ahrefs’ Domain Rating is a good proxy by which to judge the relative quality of link prospects.

Still, never judge the quality of a website on site-wide "authority" alone.

You should also consider the following:

  • Do they have high-quality backlinks?

  • Do they have lots of pages? (fewer is usually better)

  • Do they link out to a lot of websites? (again, fewer tends to be better)

  • Are they publishing high-quality content?

  • Is this website likely to still be around in six months? A year? Five years?

  • Does it get any organic traffic? Is this website topically-relevant to yours?

Link Building Guides

How to Increase Website Authority (Domain Rating)

Learn what website authority is, how Domain Rating (DR) is calculated and how to increase your score the right way.

What is a Backlink? How toGet More Backlinks

Backlinks are links from a page on one website to another. Search engines like Google use backlinks to help discover and rank content.

The Beginner’s Guide to Link Building

Everything you need to know about link building for SEO. What it is, how it works, what makes a good link, how to build it and more.

Ready to go pro? Get access to everything Ahrefs has to offer and become an SEO pro.

Website Authority Checker: Check the "Authority" Of Any Domain (2024)

FAQs

How do you check domain authority of a website? ›

Here are the four best SEO tools to check the domain authority of websites:
  1. Moz Domain Authority Checker Tool. Moz Tool To Check Domain Authority. ...
  2. Ahrefs. Ahrefs Tool to Check Domain Authority. ...
  3. Majestic. Majestic Tool to Check Domain Authority. ...
  4. SEMRUSH. SemRush Tool To Check Domain Authority.
Jun 1, 2023

How would you determine the authority of a website? ›

Comment Engagement. Metrics, rankings, and content quality are all important in determining the authority of a website, and so is audience engagement. Websites with a lot of audience interaction have a higher authority than websites that see little engagement from their users.

How do I fix domain authority? ›

How to Increase Domain Authority (5 Ways)
  1. Acquire High-Quality Backlinks from Authority Sites. ...
  2. Create Killer Content That's Link Worthy. ...
  3. Audit Your Site and Remove Bad Links. ...
  4. Optimize Your Website Structure and User Experience. ...
  5. Improve Your Internal Links.
Jul 22, 2024

What should be the domain authority of a website? ›

To rank website domain authority consider that:

Scores between 40 and 50 are considered average. Domain Authority between 50 and 60 must be rated as good. Scores above 60 rate the Domain Authority as excellent.

How do I verify a domain on my website? ›

Add a DNS record to your domain provider's record list to prove ownership. This is required only for Domain property, (example.com) not URL-prefix properties (https://example.com). If you use this method on a URL-prefix property, you will also be auto-verified for the Domain property.

What is an example of a domain authority? ›

Domain Authority is influenced by the number of links to your domain and the authority of those ranks. For example, websites with a . edu domain typically carry more authority than a .com or . net domain.

How is domain authority determined? ›

Domain authority is determined by a variety of factors, including the number and quality of backlinks pointing to the website, the age and history of the domain, the content and structure of the website, and the use of keywords and meta tags.

How do you evaluate a website for authority? ›

Authority/Source
  1. Look for sponsoring information, contact information and legal notices.
  2. To check site ownership, enter the web address in the search boxes on the following sites. Do not enter http://www or https://. ...
  3. To help determine who is behind the web page, look at the domain name in the web address.

Why is it important to check the authority of a website? ›

Website authority is a metric used to gauge a website's credibility, trustworthiness, and rankability. While it provides insights into a website's potential performance on search engine results pages (SERPs), it's essential to note that these metrics are not direct ranking factors used by search engines like Google.

How do I fix invalid authority? ›

We'll walk you through the solutions to fix the NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID error, starting with the easiest.
  1. Clear Browser Cache and Cookies. ...
  2. Adjust the Time and Date Settings on Your Computer. ...
  3. Temporarily Disable Browser Extensions. ...
  4. Update Your Browser. ...
  5. Clear the SSL State. ...
  6. Deactivate VPN. ...
  7. Disable Firewall or Antivirus.
Jun 27, 2024

Why is my domain authority so low? ›

Having lots of low-quality links: If spammy sites link to your domain, it could harm your score. Experiencing domain technical issues: Slow site speed, broken links, or other issues can also lower domain authority.

How do I fix my domain problem? ›

Domain Troubleshooting
  1. Step 1: Check for DNSSEC validation problems.
  2. Step 2: Check the authoritative name servers.
  3. Step 3: Check for delegation problems.
  4. Step 4: Check for large responses.

How do I create a domain authority for my website? ›

  1. Create content that people want to link to. That means something with these three attributes: ...
  2. Pitch authoritative and relevant websites. Having content that people want to link to is great, but nobody can link to content that they don't know exists. ...
  3. Use internal linking to improve the 'authority' of important pages.
Mar 8, 2024

Why did my domain authority go down? ›

Your Domain Authority (DA) may have dropped due to factors like decreased backlink quality, loss of high-quality links, increased competition, or changes in search engine algorithms.

How to find the DR of a site? ›

How we calculate our Domain Rating (DR) score
  1. Look at how many unique domains link to the target website;
  2. Look at the "authority" of those linking domains;
  3. Take into account how many unique domains each of those sites link to;
  4. Apply some math and coding magic to calculate “raw” DR scores;

How do you check a domain name of a website? ›

The ICANN registration data lookup tool gives you the ability to look up the current registration data for domain names and Internet number resources. The tool uses the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP) which was created as a replacement of the WHOIS (port 43) protocol.

How do I find the domain registrar of a website? ›

Go to lookup.icann.org. In the search field, enter your domain name and click Lookup. In the results page, scroll down to Registrar Information.

How to find DA and PA of a website? ›

There are a few ways to check the domain authority (DA) of a website for SEO purposes: Use a free online tool such as SEOmator Domain Authority Checker: This tool allows you to enter a website's URL and see its DA score, as well as other metrics such as page authority (PA) and the number of backlinks.

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