Domain Authority is a proprietary score from Moz (0–100 scale) that predicts how well a site might rank. Google has explicitly stated DA is not used in their algorithm. Google doesn't have access to Moz's data, and they build their own authority signals from scratch using factors like link quality, content relevance, user behavior, and E-E-A-T assessments. That said, DA correlates with rankings in many cases because Moz designed it to approximate what Google values. Sites with strong backlink profiles, clean technical foundations, and established topical authority tend to score well on both DA and Google's internal metrics. If you're acquiring links from DA 60+ sites in your niche, you're probably getting links Google respects too—not because of the DA score itself, but because those sites legitimately have authority. The confusion happens because SEO tools need shorthand metrics. Moz's DA, Ahrefs' Domain Rating, and Semrush's Authority Score all serve the same purpose: quick heuristics for link prospecting and competitive analysis. We use DA at Ottawa SEO when evaluating link opportunities or diagnosing why a competitor outranks a client, but we never optimize for DA directly. The practical takeaway: don't chase DA as a goal. A site can manipulate DA through link schemes while getting penalized by Google, or have modest DA but dominate a local niche because of relevance and user satisfaction. Focus on what actually moves rankings—high-quality editorial links from relevant sites, strong content that satisfies search intent, technical excellence, and genuine authority in your subject matter. If DA rises as a side effect, that's fine, but it's the outcome, not the target. When we build links for clients in Ottawa or across Canada, we evaluate prospects on editorial standards, topical alignment, traffic quality, and whether the link makes sense to a human reader. Those factors predict ranking impact far better than any single third-party score.