Domain Authority
A search engine ranking score (1-100) predicting how likely a website is to rank in search results. Higher authority sites earn more trust from search engines. Built through quality content and backlinks.
Why it matters
Domain Authority helps you gauge how competitive a website is before you spend months trying to outrank it. Bloggers, small business owners, and marketers use it to pick realistic keywords and to judge whether a backlink is worth pursuing. It is not a Google metric, so treat it as a rough compass rather than gospel, but it remains a fast way to size up the SEO landscape.
A concrete example
Say you launch a new coffee blog with a Domain Authority near 1. Rather than chasing "best espresso machine," which is dominated by sites scoring 80+, you target "quiet espresso machine for apartments." Fewer strong competitors means you can actually rank. A useful tip: compare your score against your direct competitors, not industry giants, since relative strength matters more than the raw number.
How to use it
Use it comparatively and loosely: it is helpful for deciding whether a query is realistically contestable for a site like yours, and for spotting that everyone ranking for a term is far more established than you. Treat a large gap as a signal to compete on more specific, longer queries where the incumbents have not written anything specific either.
The common mistake
Treating it as a Google metric. It is a third-party estimate produced by SEO vendors, each with their own model. Google does not publish or use it, so a change in the number is not a change in how you are being ranked.
Related terms
Backlink
A link from one website to another. Search engines treat backlinks as votes of confidence — more high-quality backlinks generally mean higher search rankings. Backlink analysis is a core SEO practice.
SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
The page displayed by a search engine in response to a query. SEO tools analyze SERP features — featured snippets, People Also Ask, knowledge panels — to optimize content for visibility.