Domain Authority: A Better SEO Metric than Page Rank?

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By  •  6 min read

If you are thinking of having your own blog or you’re just starting out, you will eventually realize the importance of domain authority. There have been plenty of SEO experts that are saying Moz’s Domain Authority is a better metric to go off of than Google’s PageRank. You are probably thinking how could something ever be better than what Google has to say since they are the main search engine, but once you understand some of the major aspects of Domain Authority, you might change your mind.

What is Google PageRank and Moz Domain Authority?

These two separate things are metrics that take into account of a lot of aspects of a certain website and then rank them to let them know how well they are doing and where they stand. The more authority you have, the better.

It is important to keep on top of how well you are doing to ensure that your efforts won’t go without reward. Since no one really knows the exact algorithms of search engines, we have to do everything we can to try and see if everything we are doing is working properly. So, by being able to check our authority numbers, we can see how well our sites are.

Update Times

A major aspect of these metrics is that they only update every so often. Google’s PageRank only updates about every 3 months while Domain Authority updates a couple of times a month. This can be a major difference because if you are trying to make a lot of differences to your website in a short period of time, the domain authority will let you know how you are doing sooner.

With PageRank, you will have to wait for the next update, which could be up to 3 months, before you get to see the differences. You could have been working hard for all 3 months, just to find out that it wasn’t working as you had planned.

How accurate are they?

Google PageRank determines their increase and decreases with a scale of 10. This can be a bit hard to gauge whether or not you are increasing rapidly. If you use Domain Authority, you will be using a scale of 100, so it can be much easier to tell how well your efforts are working. You shouldn’t have to guess how well your work is doing.

Also, if you are trying to compare what action helps your SEO the most, then having a scale of 100 will help you tell the difference much easier. That way once you have tested multiple different SEO methods, you can pick and choose which one helped increase your authority the most. It isn’t hard to figure out, you just need to implement a strategy for a little while and then wait until Domain Authority updates to check your authority and move on to the next strategy.

How much Information is provided?

When you get an update of what your current score is, wouldn’t it be nice to see what actually creates it? With Domain Authority, you will be able to get a breakdown of what is making your score. It won’t go into all of the details, but you will still get information such as your links, MozTrust, MozRank, Linking Root domains, and more. This lets you know if a certain area needs more improvement on your end.

PageRank doesn’t give you much information at all. It’s public knowledge that their algorithm takes into consideration of your link-building efforts, but other than that, you’re flying blind. You can always take the advice of SEO experts, but unfortunately, everyone on the internet nowadays claims to be an SEO expert, so how do you know if what they are saying is true? By implementing the technique and seeing if it helps your authority… This brings us right back to how Domain Authority is much more helpful because it updates much faster.

Importance of These Ranks

Google has even expressed to its users that they shouldn’t get fixated on this rank because there are so many variables that go into it. Moz on the other hand approaches their Domain Authority as something that can truly help you and get you ranked higher within search engines. Like I mentioned earlier, it is extremely important that we understand how well our sites are doing, and Domain Authority helps us to do just that. While we might not be able to get much information or many updates from PageRank, we can still keep an eye on that as well, even though it is hardly as helpful as Domain Authority.

Loyal Google Users

While there are millions of people who have become loyal to Google by using their services, PageRank is something that they should be running away from. While it has been a major aspect of how people were able to check how they were doing in the past, it is soon coming to an end unless they make some major changes to it. Google hasn’t said anything about improve their PageRank system yet, so it is safe to say that using Domain Authority will become the new popular way of determining how people’s sites are doing.

You can continue to use all of Google’s other services because they are pretty amazing, just don’t rule out using a different tool just because it’s from a different company. There are plenty of loyal Googlers that are using Domain Authority.

There are plenty of other aspects to Domain Authority, but these are just some of the main reasons why Domain Authority might be a better choice than PageRank. If you are still skeptical about trying something new, then go and check other people’s reviews about how switching over has helped their site gain ranks. It is impossible to know exactly what you are doing right and wrong with updates only happening every 3 months, so why risk your success when you could just give another tool a shot? In the end, it is up to you on which one you want to use, but you can’t deny the proof that Domain Authority it quickly becoming the next major tool to gauge your SEO efforts.

About the Author: Ness is a blogger and has a background in SEO and internet marketing. She likes to share her knowledge by contributing articles on different blogs. Ness loves to connect on social media and would appreciate it if you can have her in your circles.

Servando started Stream SEO in 2012. He is a full-time affiliate marketing expert and blogger. Servando has been able to generate more than 7 figures with various digital marketing strategies. Read more here.