Domain authority checker: measuring the authority of a domain name
The domain authority checker is one of the most searched SEO tools. Yet Domain Authority is not a Google metric: it is a proprietary estimate of the strength of a link profile. Here is how to read domain authority, with which free sources, and why it is not enough.
Test a domain now:
DA, DR, TF, PageRank: what are we talking about?
- Domain Authority (Moz) and Domain Rating (Ahrefs): 0-100 score based on the number and quality of referring domains.
- Trust Flow / Citation Flow (Majestic): trust (closeness to reference sites) versus link volume; a TF much lower than the CF points to spam.
- Recomputed PageRank: several public projects recompute a 0-10 PageRank on a web graph; it is the basis of DomaineScore's authority, completed by popularity rankings and the rank of the link index.
Why authority alone is misleading
A spam network can artificially inflate a DA to 40 or 50. Conversely, a brand-new domain of a serious brand shows 0. Always cross-check authority with the history, the link anchors and the blocklists: that is exactly what DomaineScore's composite score does, where authority weighs only 15 points out of 100.
Domain age checker: does age matter?
The age of a domain (WHOIS creation date, shown by any WHOIS lookup) is a weak signal in itself. What counts is the age of the continuous history: a domain created in 2005 but deleted and registered again in 2023 is, for Google, a 2023 domain.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good domain authority score?
It depends on the niche. Above 30 DA/DR (or 4/10 PageRank), a domain has a real link profile. Compare above all with direct competitors rather than in absolute terms.
Does Domain Authority affect Google rankings?
Not directly: Google does not use it. It correlates with the factors Google assesses (links), nothing more.