Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How much does Domain Authority effect the keywords I can rank for?
-
I've been doing some keyword research and i've found a few gems. My site is currently sat at a 18 domain authority up from 12, so it's great to see the improvement. Although I was wondering, if my domain authority is sat a 18, can I compete with keywords that have a difficulty of 50-60?
Any help would be greatly appreciated

Sam
-
DA is a metric by Moz and not by Google. If you want to rank on Google, there are over 200 ranking signals (not disclosed by them even today) to rank for just one keyword on SERP and DA is not one of them. What you should be focusing on is the keyword's relevance and answering genuine user queries around your keyword.
The quality and comprehensiveness of your content along with other signals will determine the keyword ranking and in most cases, if you aim for long-tail keywords with good potential along with in-depth coverage of the topic, you will be able to surpass even higher DA sites without many backlinks on your target page.
Improving DA should be a focus but it should not be correlated to rankings on SERPs in any way.
-
I often hear the question - what is considered a good domain rating (authority)? Generally speaking, the higher the "authority" of your domain, the better. But it is important not to judge it in absolute terms. Because domain ranking is, by definition, a relative metric. You can't say that a good domain rating is 30, or 50, or 60, or 70. Everything is relative. It's important to remember that this score is an evaluation of a third-party service, not a search engine. When you use some DA validation tool, it is always developed by some company and data from different services may differ. I hope I didn't confuse you.
-
Hello sammecooper ,
The Domain Authority (DA) is important, but you should also consider other KPIs when analyzing the bigger picture. In the case of net linking, for example, you need to determine if the site is on the same domain if it receives natural traffic, and if it is ranking for relevant keywords. My recommendation is to never track only one metric
-
@sammecooper Bonjour,
Thanks for your question.
to rank well with keywords even if difficult you have to make back links on DA sites more than 50, you can position well on search engines (from my little experience). -
Of course Domain Authority (DA) is important but you also need to look at the bigger picture based on other KPIs. For example, if you do Netlinking, you need to look at whether the site is in the same field, whether it is getting natural visits and whether it is ranking on interesting keywords. Never watch only 1 metric, that's my point of view

-
Hi @sammecooper! As I'm sure you know, the higher the Keyword Difficulty Score, the harder the keyword will be to rank for. A higher DA does correlate with a higher likelihood to rank BUT when using DA, it's important that you are comparing your site to your true search competitors— sites w/in the same category and of the same caliber. We actually have a video that explains this in more detail if that helps. https://azwa.1clkaccess.in/learn/seo/domain-authority
Personally, I'm a fan of going for low-hanging fruit first: keywords that have lower difficulty and still have decent value. Then, once you've tackled these, you can aim for those harder ones. We have a great resource all about keyword research, The SEO Keyword Research Master Guide that may help you in your quest for keyword gems.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Reverse rankings check
Usually, we will have a set of keywords of which we check rankings for a designated website... however, is there a tool that is able to find all the keywords a website is currently ranking on the top page of Google for?
Keyword Research | | Gavo0 -
Keywords with and without diacritics
Hi, I am trying to make my site to appear in the search results even the searched term have or have not been wrote with diacritics for example: "șarpe" or "sarpe". The language is Romanian. If I seach for "Românul cu maşină, marea victimă" or "Romanul cu masina, marea victima" the first result for both searches is the same. I don't see anything special on their html code and I am wondering how do they did it. Regards, Bogdan
Keyword Research | | RIAdig0 -
The same keyword on multiple pages, but not all (combined with other relevant keywords) for products.
Hi Guys, I want to get an opinion/advice on this. My client has a site that have all their products (I am working on expanding the product descriptions, benefits and how they differ from each other) listed and I just want to know if I can use the term 'gear oil' for example on multiple pages as one of the keywords. The product range (among others like transmission fluid and anti-freeze) is gear oil (with the different types of gear oils available described) and I can't really change what the product is. I do have different variations (such as gear lubricant, automotive gear lubricant, car gear oil etc.) but will it do damage if I use the same keyword (like gear oil) on multiple pages (along with another relevant keyword that does not involve the words gear oil)? Any help on this will be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | annabel.schoeman0 -
Include Location in Keywords?
I understand Google's local search automatically searches keywords with the location you are searching from. For example if I'm searching from Calgary and query "best shoe repair", Google knows I'm searching from Calgary and presents Calgary based results. I'm using Google's new Keyword Planner tool which allows for city based search results, meaning I don't have to include "Calgary" in the keywords I submit. The question I have is should I be attaching "Calgary" to my keywords for on-page optimization, and why or why not? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Keyword Research | | reidsteven750 -
Ignore keywords that have no data in the Google Keyword Tool?
Hello, There are some keywords that have no monthly search data in the Google Keyword Tool. In many cases, this is because there have been very few searches for the keyword. Would you recommend focusing on other keywords that do have search data in the Google Keyword Tool? Perhaps focusing too far out on the long tail of search results can be less productive than focusing on keywords that have proven that at least some people care about them. What do you think? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | nyc-seo0 -
Keywords for fabrication (welding) company??
I've been tasked with finding the keywords for our website. The difficulty I'm finding is receiving help from the fabrication personal to suggest keywords. I'm not sure if its peoples imagination or if there's a general unwillingness. Can anyone make any suggestions here? Is there a fabrication or welding keyword database I can put to them and hopefully get their brains working? Or even a way to see what keywords our competitors use?
Keyword Research | | Resolver1010 -
How can i track keywords history
i need to keep a record for all keywords history , is there any way that we can track keywords history so we can compare each week with the previous weeks ?
Keyword Research | | omarfk0 -
Should we change our site domain name to include our keyword?
Our niche has one keyword phrase that is much, much more active than any other comparable phrase. Let's call that phrase "math problems". Within this phrase, the "math" is absolutely the most important keyword, as it is also used in every spin-off search phrase, like "math answers", "math practice", etc. We've had our domain since 1996, and is currently the company name - "Rocketproblems.com". Over the last year (2010-2011) our SERPs have steadily dropped to the point where we're not getting a sustainable level of business from organic search, whereas in 2009 we were doing fantastic. However, we've also had "Rocketmathproblems.com" since about 2000, just gathering dust. What I've noticed from the top search results is that nearly every domain has either "math" or "math problems" in its URL. Do you think it's worth it to switch to the keyword-rich URL? It is a bit more verbose, and the "Rocketmathproblems.com" v.s. "Rocketproblems.com" example perfectly captures the different feeling. My inclination is that SEO is only becoming more competitive, and if we aren't getting worthwhile business from organic search at the moment then we should bite the bullet and make the switch for the future, along with ramping up our content generation. However, I also noticed that in late 2009 a previous webmaster switched to "Rogermath.com" but switched back within a month when our SERP for the key phrase was a page lower - I gleaned this from a Moz Juicy Keywords Report :). Thoughts?
Keyword Research | | ACann0