Comprehensive guide to checking website authority: what to measure, which free and paid tools to use, what scores mean, and how to act on the data.
Website authority is a third-party score (1-100) that estimates how strong a domain's backlink profile is, on the assumption that strong backlink profiles predict ranking ability.
**Important:** "website authority" is NOT a Google ranking factor. Google has confirmed multiple times they don't use any third-party authority metric. The scores are useful proxies, not direct ranking signals.
**The scores are useful for:** - Comparing your site to competitors at a relative level - Tracking your site's link profile growth over time - Filtering link-building prospects (which sites are worth pursuing) - Communicating site strength to non-technical stakeholders - Estimating how hard it will be to outrank a specific URL
**The scores are NOT useful for:** - Predicting Google rankings precisely - Comparing across different tools (Moz DA 50 ≠ Ahrefs DR 50) - Setting absolute targets ("we need DA 60") - Evaluating content quality
See the Best Tools to Check Domain Authority guide for tool comparisons.
**Method 1: Moz Link Explorer (free tier — 10 queries/month)**
1. Go to moz.com/link-explorer 2. Enter the domain 3. View Domain Authority (DA), Page Authority (PA), Spam Score, top backlinks
Free tier sufficient for occasional checks. Sign up with free Moz account for the 10/month limit.
**Method 2: Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker**
1. Go to ahrefs.com/backlink-checker 2. Enter the domain 3. View Domain Rating (DR), backlink count, top 100 backlinks
Free tier provides per-query checking with limited daily usage.
**Method 3: Browser extensions (free)**
- **MozBar** — shows Moz DA/PA in browser SERP overlay as you browse - **SEOquake** — shows Moz, Semrush metrics inline with search results - **Linkminer** — shows Majestic Trust Flow / Citation Flow
Once installed, every Google search shows authority metrics for ranking results — useful for competitor research while doing keyword research.
**Method 4: Free third-party tools using paid APIs**
- Smallseotools.com Domain Authority Checker (uses Moz API) - Prepostseo.com Domain Authority Checker (bulk checking up to 30 domains) - Sitechecker.pro Free DA Checker (Moz DA + page authority + spam score) - Ubersuggest (Neil Patel) — DA approximation, traffic estimates, top pages
**Method 5: For your own site only — free verified site tools**
- **Ahrefs Webmaster Tools** (free for verified site owners) — comprehensive site-specific data including DR - **Semrush limited free tier** — partial site data - **Google Search Console** (doesn't show DA but shows actual ranking and link data — the real signals)
**Moz Domain Authority benchmarks:**
- **DA 1-10:** New site or very limited backlink profile. Normal for sites under 1 year old. - **DA 10-20:** Small business site with limited link investment. Most Canadian small businesses without active link-building. - **DA 20-40:** Established small/mid-business with some link investment. Most active SEO clients fall here. - **DA 40-60:** Established mid-market business with sustained content + link investment. Many B2B SaaS, established service businesses, mid-tier media. - **DA 60-80:** Major brands, established media outlets, large enterprises. Years of investment. - **DA 80-100:** Wikipedia, government sites, top-tier media (CBC, Globe and Mail), major social platforms.
**Ahrefs Domain Rating benchmarks:**
Similar logarithmic scale but different absolute numbers. DR 30 ≈ DA 25-30. DR 50 ≈ DA 45-50. DR 70 ≈ DA 60-65.
**The realistic growth trajectory:**
- DA 0 → 20: 6-18 months with consistent content + link earning - DA 20 → 40: another 12-24 months - DA 40 → 60: another 24-48 months - DA 60+: typically requires multi-year sustained investment, often impossible without category-defining brand or media presence
**1. If your DA is significantly lower than top-ranking competitors for your target queries:**
Focus on systematic backlink building. The top competitors got there with sustained link investment over years. You need the same.
Tactics: original research, expert quotes, HARO/source platforms, resource page outreach, broken-link building, guest posting on industry publications, digital PR.
**2. If your DA is comparable or higher than competitors but you're not ranking:**
The issue isn't authority — it's content quality, technical SEO, or query targeting. Audit: - Content depth and freshness vs. ranking competitors - Internal linking to the underperforming URL - Page-specific authority (PA in Moz; not just domain-level) - Schema markup - Page speed and Core Web Vitals - User engagement signals
**3. If your spam score is high (Moz Spam Score 30+):**
Audit your backlink profile for low-quality links. Consider disavowing toxic backlinks via Google Search Console (use carefully — disavow only genuinely harmful links, not borderline ones).
**4. If you're starting from DA 0-10:**
Don't worry about the score itself. Focus on: - Publishing 2-4 quality posts per month consistently - Building 5-15 quality backlinks per month - Setting up basic on-page and technical SEO - Tracking keyword rankings (which are what matter, not the DA score)
DA will rise as a side effect of doing the right things. Chasing the score directly leads to bad decisions (paying for spammy links, joining link schemes).
**Practical workflow:**
1. **Identify your top 5-10 ranking competitors** for each priority query.
2. **Check each competitor's domain authority** (DA, DR) and the specific page authority (PA) of the ranking URL.
3. **Compare to your own site's authority and target page authority.**
4. **Identify the authority gap.** If competitors are at DA 50 and you're at DA 25, you have a meaningful gap to close (or you need a different ranking strategy).
5. **Check competitor backlink profiles for opportunities.** - Sites linking to multiple competitors but not to you = high-priority outreach targets - Resource pages linking to competitors = potential pitch opportunities - Industry publications featuring competitors = potential placement opportunities
6. **Audit competitor's recent backlink growth.** Sites adding 20+ quality links per month signal active investment. Sites with stale backlink profiles (no growth in 12+ months) are easier to outrank as your authority grows.
**Tool for this workflow:** Ahrefs Site Explorer (paid) or free per-query tools for occasional checks.
Depends on your industry and competitors. A DA of 30 might be excellent for a local business; 50 might be average for a B2B SaaS; 70+ for major media. Compare to direct competitors, not absolute targets.
No. PageRank is Google's internal page-importance metric (no longer publicly visible). Website authority is a third-party proxy attempting to model similar concepts. They correlate but aren't the same.
Yes — multiple free options exist (Moz Link Explorer free tier, Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker, browser extensions, third-party tools using Moz/Ahrefs APIs). Free tiers are sufficient for occasional checks.
Monthly is usually sufficient. Authority scores update slowly (Moz monthly, Ahrefs more frequently). Daily checking provides no actionable insight.
Domain Authority (DA) measures the entire domain's backlink strength. Page Authority (PA) measures a specific URL's strength. PA matters more for predicting individual page ranking; DA matters more for site-wide assessment.