What Is Domain Authority — and How Do You Actually Raise It?

You'll see "DA 40" or "DR 55" thrown around constantly in SEO. Here's what those scores actually are, what they're worth, and how to move yours.

What it is

Domain Authority (DA) is a 0–100 score created by Moz that predicts how likely a site is to rank. Ahrefs has its own version called Domain Rating (DR); Semrush has Authority Score. They're all third-party estimates built mostly on one thing: the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing at your site.

Two things to be clear about:

1. Google does not use DA or DR. These are SEO-vendor metrics, not a Google ranking factor. Google has its own internal signals.
2. They're still useful — as a rough, comparable proxy for "how strong is this site's link profile." When you're evaluating a potential link partner, their DR is a quick sanity check.

What actually moves it

Since these scores are built on backlinks, raising them comes down to earning more, better, and more relevant links:

• More referring domains. Links from 50 different sites are worth far more than 50 links from one site. Breadth matters more than volume.
• Higher-authority sources. A link from a strong, relevant site moves the needle more than a dozen weak ones.
• Relevance. Links from sites in your topic carry more weight than random ones.
• Time. Authority compounds. A two-year-old site with steady link growth will almost always out-score a two-month-old one.

What does not move it: on-page tweaks, meta tags, posting frequency, or buying a thousand spammy links (which can actively hurt you).

The realistic way to raise it on a new site

A new domain often starts at DR 0–5. The path up:

1. Claim the easy links first — profiles, directories, relevant listings. Gets you off zero.
2. Earn relevant in-content links steadily — a few new referring domains a month beats a one-time spike. Link exchanges with topically relevant sites are one of the most reliable ways to add referring domains without buying links. (Here's how that works safely.)
3. Create things worth linking to — a free tool, original data, a definitive guide. These earn links passively for years.
4. Be patient and consistent. Authority is a trailing indicator. Do the right things for six months and the score follows.

Don't optimize for the score

The trap is chasing DA/DR as a goal in itself — which leads people to buy links and game metrics. The score is a symptom of a healthy backlink profile, not the cause of rankings. Build relevant links because they bring traffic and rankings; the number will rise on its own.

If adding relevant referring domains is your bottleneck — and for most new sites it is — that's exactly what Backlinkster is built to make repeatable: get matched with relevant site owners, swap one verified link at a time, and watch your referring-domain count climb.