Domain and Page Authority Checker

What This DA Checker Measures

Domain Authority (DA) is a 1-to-100 score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to appear in search engine results. The scale is logarithmic: climbing from 20 to 30 takes far less effort than climbing from 70 to 80. Brand-new domains start near 1. Small business sites with moderate backlink profiles settle around 20-40. Established industry authorities reach 50-70. Major platforms like Wikipedia and government portals exceed 90. Enter any domain above and this DA and PA checker returns both the domain-level score and the page-level score for the specific URL, sourced from the Moz link index that maps trillions of pages across the web.

Domain Authority vs Page Authority

A DA PA checker evaluates two distinct metrics. Domain Authority reflects the aggregate link strength of the entire root domain - every page, every subdomain, every backlink combined into a single number. Page Authority (PA) evaluates one specific URL. A brand-new blog post on a DA-80 news site might carry a PA of only 12 because that individual page has attracted few links of its own, even though the domain overall is very strong. Use DA when benchmarking an entire website against competitors or evaluating a domain as a link-building prospect. Use PA when assessing the competitive strength of a specific ranking page that currently holds a position you are targeting.

DA Is Not a Google Ranking Factor

This is the most common misconception in SEO. Google does not use Moz's score. Google has its own internal link-quality signals (including an evolved version of PageRank that is still used but no longer publicly visible) that correlate with DA because both systems measure many of the same link-quality indicators. A site with DA 50 does not automatically outrank DA 30. The score is most useful for two purposes: tracking your own domain's authority trajectory over time, and filtering link-building prospects. A backlink from a DA-70 publication is generally more impactful than one from a DA-15 directory, though topical relevance and editorial context matter as much as raw authority numbers.

How the Score Is Calculated

The single most important input is the count of unique linking root domains - not total backlinks. One hundred links from a single site carry far less weight than ten links from ten different domains because each unique domain represents an independent editorial endorsement. Link quality matters: a single link from a DA-90 news outlet contributes more than hundreds of links from DA-10 directories or blog comment spam. Anchor text relevance, the linking page's own PA, topical alignment between the two sites, and the link's position on the page (editorial in-content links outperform sidebar and footer links) all feed into the algorithm. Toxic or manipulative links can drag the score down if Moz's spam-detection models flag them. Lost links (when linking pages are removed or go offline) reduce DA over time, which is why authority building is an ongoing process, not a one-time project.

Free DA Checker vs Paid Tools

This free DA checker returns the current Moz DA and PA for any URL without requiring an account. Paid platforms (Moz Pro, Ahrefs with its Domain Rating metric, Semrush with its Authority Score) offer historical tracking, bulk lookups, backlink profile analysis, and competitor comparison dashboards. If you need to check DA for a single domain or a short list, the free tool here is sufficient. If you need to monitor dozens of domains over months, compare link profiles in depth, or run a bulk DA PA checker across thousands of prospects, a subscription tool provides the automation and historical data that a single-lookup tool cannot.

How to Improve Domain Authority

DA rises when high-quality, topically relevant sites link to yours and falls when those links disappear or when Moz recalibrates its algorithm. Effective strategies include publishing original research and data studies that attract citations, creating comprehensive evergreen guides that become go-to resources in your niche, building tools or calculators that naturally earn links from people who find them useful, guest posting on reputable industry publications, earning mentions through HARO (Help A Reporter Out) and direct journalist outreach, and producing visual assets (infographics, data visualizations, interactive maps) that other sites embed with attribution. DA cannot be improved overnight by any legitimate method. A new domain might need 6-12 months to reach DA 20 and several years to cross 40. Services selling rapid DA increases almost always employ link-scheme tactics that create short-term gains followed by penalties.

Competitor DA Comparison and Strategy

Track DA for your site and your top 5-10 competitors monthly. If your score is climbing faster, your link acquisition efforts are working. If a competitor's DA jumps suddenly, investigate what content or event generated the new links - that insight often reveals replicable opportunities. Use the Moz Link Explorer or Ahrefs' equivalent to identify domains that link to competitors but not to you: each one is a concrete outreach target where relevance is already established. The gap between your DA and the average DA of pages ranking on page one for your target keywords indicates how much link-building work remains before you can realistically compete for those positions.

Frequently asked questions