Domain Authority
The domain authority of a website says how important this website is for its subject and how likely it is to achieve good rankings. Basically, Domain Trust, high-quality content, high quality backlinks and a certain age can be seen as important elements of the Domain Authority. In practice, the "authority" of a website is not a generally defined KPI, but is calculated depending on the web analysis tool used. With Indicator Domain Authority, Moz and Ryre for example work with the OPR. The Domain Authority is not to be confused with the Link Popularity
Important factors
There are numerous factors that are responsible for a high domain authority. These are, however, not publicized by Google, just like the other ranking factors of the search algorithm. Nonetheless, after comprehensive observations and experiments, search engine experts agree on certain points. The following aspects are important for the authority of a website:
Domain age
The longer a website exists, the more authority is possibly attributed to it. Content added over the years and the increasing traffic could, therefore, benefit the ranking since the search engines will presume a higher quality of the information. on these pages.
Credibility “inheritance”
The credibility and, hence, authority of a domain can be ranked higher if the domain has multiple backlinks from trusted sources.
Link diversification
Backlinks that point to a domain should originate from different pages. If, for instance, so many links originate from a single page or the same webmaster, the search engine can assume a manipulation. Furthermore, the content relevance between backlinks should also be considered. Many randomly placed links to pages that do not have significant additional information can negatively reflect on the domain authority since these are most likely disadvantageous to the user and could, thus, be considered as spam.
Also important is the time distribution of the links. A natural link collection develops over a long period of time. However, if many backlinks are created within a very short period of time, the search engines may assume the use of Black Hat SEO, for example, through purchased backlinks.
Security
The security of a website can also be incorporated into the domain authority. This includes, for example, whether the URLs are encrypted with https or whether the page has been hacked.
Other possible criteria
There are many other factors that influence the authority of a domain. For instance, websites that integrate blogs, infographics, or videos often enjoy higher authority.
It is quite possible that reviews on sales and recommendation pages also have an effect on the domain authority. Social Signals can also cause a higher domain authority.
Conclusion
Whether one considers the concept of domain authority to be fair or not: for good Search Engine Optimization, a high Domain Authority is important. Ultimately, search engines are interested in only listing trustworthy pages in the index and referring users to URLs of appropriate quality. A high level of trust and a clean backlink structure can be important decision criteria for the search algorithms to classify the authority of the domain.
Web Links
- SEOMoz über Domain Authority
- Scott Willoughby von SEOMoz über Domain Authority
- Brandon Gaille über Domain Authority