Understanding DA Links in your SEO Campaigns

Backlinks are one of the most important factors in what search engines take into account when determining how to rank a website. They’re also one of the most difficult types of links to obtain, requiring a lot of time and effort.

There are many different types of links, and Google’s algorithm does not treat all backlinks equally. The importance of a particular link to your site’s overall search engine rankings depends on a few factors. One key factor is the DA or domain authority of the website that linked to you.

What Are DA links?

Domain Authority was first developed as a metric by marketing company Moz to predict the likelihood of a website ranking at the top of Google’s search engine results. A DA score can range from one to 100. The higher the score, the likelier a website is to rank.

The term DA link means links coming from websites with high domain authority but what constitutes a high domain authority?  That can be subjective. Some might consider a DA of 80 or above high, while others may think the same of websites with a DA of 60 or above. This is sometimes quantified when marketers refer to securing DA60 links or DA80 links, for example. That number refers to the minimum domain authority of the page that is providing a backlink.

Domain Authority is a metric that is well worth knowing in the world of SEO, but it’s important to note that it isn’t actually a Google metric. According to Google, DA is not a ranking factor in their algorithm.  They don’t use the domain authority website to determine how high it should rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs) or how much link equity it should pass to the websites it links to.  However, just because it isn’t internal to Google, doesn’t mean it isn’t very useful. High DA does generally correlate with high Google rankings, so aiming to increase your DA score and obtain DA links—links from high DA sites—will generally correlate with SEO wins for your website.

What about Page Authority?

Domain authority is a website-level ranking, while page authority (PA) is an analogous ranking for specific web pages. For example, a high DA site may have several very high PA pages, in addition to some lower PA pages.  This matters when talking about DA links because DA links from high PA pages are more valuable than those from low PA pages. In other words, it’s not just the website that matters, but the specific page does as well.

What does all of this mean from an SEO perspective?  The aim of all SEO activities, including link building, is to increase the likelihood that your website will appear at the top of Google’s search results when people search for terms related to your industry. The better you can perform in search, the more people can discover your business.

The purpose of link building is to obtain lots of links to your site. Backlinks function as recommendations on the internet, and the more recommendations people have made for your website in the form of links, the more Google can deduce that the content on your site is relevant, interesting, and valuable. Otherwise, why would people cast their vote of confidence for your businesses by providing you with a backlink?

When we receive personal recommendations, the person making the recommendation impacts how highly we value it. If the person is trustworthy and has relevant experience, you’ll value their recommendation more highly. If a dentist and a lawyer recommended electric toothbrushes to you, you’d be right to value the recommendation from the dentist more highly.

The same principle applies to DA links. While Google doesn’t use DA specifically, it’s a proximate value for Google’s ranking factors. Links from high DA sites pointing to your website tell Google that lots of trustworthy sources are recommending you.

All else being equal,10 links from DA70 sites will do more to help you climb the SERPs than 10 links from DA20 sites. It’s like being the most dentist-recommended toothbrush, instead of the most lawyer-recommended toothbrush.

What are the Benefits of DA Links?

Having high DA links in your backlink profile can help you reach your SEO goals faster. They may be more challenging to get, but the results can be well worth it. Consumers rely on search before making purchases, and over 90% say they click on results on the first page of Google. Getting one of those coveted top spots can meaningfully impact your business.

Here’s how getting more DA links can help boost our business:

Faster SEO success – While there’s no doubt that SEO management is a marathon, not a sprint, some things do help move the needle in your favor faster. DA links are among those things. Since they count as a more weighty vote of confidence to Google’s algorithm bots, they’ll help you climb the SERPs more quickly than if you were only building links from low DA sites.

More traffic and conversions – The ultimate goal of all SEO activities is to make your website more discoverable, so more traffic flows to it. Assuming a steady conversion rate, the boost in traffic from DA links to your site means greater revenue.

Reputation boost – Just as search engines “trust” high-DA sites more, so do most people. The people who see you mentioned on a large, reputable site will have a reason to trust your business, even if it’s their first-time hearing about it.

Improve your DA – The higher DA sites link to your business, the more your DA will improve as well. This can help you score more collaborations, guest post opportunities, and more, as others see that your site is highly reputable.

DA Links Best Practices:

Create high-quality content:

• Making fantastic, shareable content will help you earn more links of all kinds, including DA links. Content creation is a key component of any effective SEO strategy, enabling you to work relevant keywords into your site while creating content that others will find worthy of sharing.
• Blog posts, ebooks, ultimate guides, videos, and interactive content like quizzes can all be a part of your overall content strategy.
• One strategy you can use is to search Google for some type of content in your niche and look at the top hit. Then, challenge yourself to make a new, significantly improved version of that content.
• A high-DA website may be more than happy to link to your content if it’s relevant, but they can’t do so if they don’t know about it. Every time you create a piece of content, share it widely across all of your communication channels.
• By writing guest posts on high-DA sites, you can effectively create your own DA links by linking back to your content in the body of the post. Just make sure to do this in a natural way that doesn’t feel spammy.

DA links effectively pass more reputation points to your website than other backlinks do, helping you reach your SEO goals faster.  However, getting DA links takes time, resources, and effort.