Domain Authority and Page Authority are scoring systems created by Moz to estimate ranking potential. DA measures the strength of an entire domain on a 0–100 scale, while PA scores individual pages the same way. Both rely heavily on backlink profile—number of linking domains, quality of those domains, and the link equity passing through. Neither metric is used by Google. They're predictive tools built on Moz's own crawl data and algorithm. That said, they correlate reasonably well with actual rankings because the underlying signals—authoritative backlinks, content depth, site structure—matter to Google too. A DA 60 site typically outranks a DA 25 site in competitive spaces, all else equal. DA is logarithmic. Moving from 20 to 30 is far easier than 70 to 80. Most local Ottawa businesses sit between DA 15–35. National brands range 50–70. News sites and universities often hit 80+. PA works the same way but resets per page, so your homepage might have PA 45 while a buried blog post sits at PA 18. We track DA and PA across our 500+ domain portfolio, but we don't chase the scores themselves. They're lagging indicators. What actually moves them is the same work that moves Google rankings: earning links from relevant, authoritative sites and building content that attracts natural backlinks. A site that jumps from DA 22 to DA 38 didn't game Moz's algorithm—it built real authority through consistent link acquisition and content. The main limitation is recency. Moz's index updates monthly, so rapid link growth won't show in DA for weeks. Also, DA can't distinguish between spammy and clean link profiles as well as Google can. A site with inflated DA from low-quality directories might still rank poorly. We use DA and PA for competitive benchmarking and quick vetting during link prospecting. If a potential link partner shows DA 8 with zero organic traffic, that's a red flag. But we never treat these scores as goals—they're useful directional signals, not the endgame.