Moz Domain Authority 2.0: Stronger, Sharper, Scarier

In February this year, Moz announced that certain technical changes are likely to be made, and a New Domain Authority will be coming to place. Ever since, SEO professionals and bloggers have been keen to know about the new Domain Authority, which will change the way search engines operate. And, finally, it has arrived!

Domain Authority (DA) refers to a ranking score for search engine ranking and has become the standard in the industry to measure the strength of a domain, relative to ranking. DA is calculated by analyzing a number of factors. This includes the number of total links and the root domains, expressing it as a comprehensive DA score which ranges between 1 and 100 and determines how a site is likely to rank in the SERPs.

SEO experts use this score to track the ranking strength of a site and compare websites over a period of time. However, you should note that DA is not a metric that Google uses to determine the rankings in the search results. Eventually, it does not have any effect on the SERPs.

How does Moz Calculate Domain Authority?

While calculating the Domain Authority of a website, Moz considers more than 40 factors. Sites with the greatest number of high-quality inbound links enjoy the highest Domain Authority. In case the website is new and has a few or no inbound links, the DA is one.

The Domain Authority scale used by Moz is logarithmic. This indicates that it becomes increasingly difficult to improve the score when the DA is higher. This indicates that it will be easier to increase the Domain Authority from 30 to 40, as compared to increasing it from 60 to 70.

Besides, when a website with high authority gets a large number of backlinks, your Domain Authority may decrease, although the number of backlinks to your site remains the same.

So, what is changing in the New Domain Authority?

Have a look at the technical aspects that are likely to change in the New Domain Authority.

The Training Algorithm

Previously, the training algorithm was based on a complex linear model. With the new changes coming in, the Domain Authority will be based on a neural network. This model comes with a number of benefits, and the structure will be much more nuanced. This mechanism will be more efficient in detecting the manipulation of links.

The Training Set

In the past, SEO experts used to rely on training Domain Authority against a huge set of search results that have not been manipulated. Across the industry, this used to be the standard mechanism. However, Moz has come up with a way, which can lead to its improvement fundamentally. This is likely to increase the reliability of the Domain Authority. Particularly, the New Domain Authority is better at understanding the websites, which fail to rank for any keywords. Eventually, it will foster a better understanding of SEO.

The Model Factors

Moz has announced that they have come up with certain improvements in the factors on which Domain Authority is based. Previously, the link count used to be a major area while determining the Domain Authority. In the New Domain Authority, Moz integrated the complex link distributions, based on the traffic and quality, along with their proprietary Spam Score. Besides, other factors have also been included in this mechanism.

The Backbone

The new Moz Link Explorer is the leading link index of the industry. Moz has come up with a great statistical work that involves more than 35 trillion links. This is likely to change the SEO standards in the industry to a significant extent.

What do the Changes Indicate?

The SEO metric will become more trustworthy, as compared to the past, with the improvements in Domain Authority coming into place. It will become easier to improve the correlations, eliminate spam, and bring about updates in the Domain Authority, according to the changes made by Google.

This necessarily implies that people will be able to observe the changes in the DA at the time of launch. Moz has staked the new model to the present DA. The changes will be minimized, however, with all the improvements taking place, certain fluctuations in the DA scores will be evident.

However, it should be noted that DA is not an absolute score, but a relative one. Bloggers and website owners need to use the DA as a relative metric. Unless you compare your Domain Authority to other sites, it turns out to be meaningless.

Even if your website ranking improves or drops, it should not bother you. However, you must look out whether or not the rank improves or drops in relation to the competing websites. This is actually something that digital marketers should look for.

When the new Domain Authority is rolled out, check out your scores as well as those of your competitors. Their scores, too, are likely to be influenced in a similar way.

How to Interpret these Changes to Stakeholders and Clients?

As the changes in Domain Authority come in, business firms need to prepare themselves on how they interpret the changes to their stakeholders and clients. You may also want to convey the changes to your webmaster.

You must know that the change may appear to be disruptive. However, the new Domain Authority will enable people to make smarter SEO decisions and it is better than the previous system. Eventually, business firms will be able to make intelligent decisions, while coming up with new digital marketing strategies.

Well, with the new Domain Authority taking control of the ranks, the DA should be expected to maintain a pace with Google. Moz will continue to bring about improvements in DA, similar to the changes that Google makes every year in the algorithms.

As a result, DA will be more responsive to the changes made by Google. Even if Google updates the fundamental algorithms like Panda and Penguin, the new Domain Authority will remain useful and relevant.