Guide · SEO

Page Authority vs Domain Authority: What's the Real Difference?

Domain authority measures a whole website's backlink strength and ranking potential. Page authority measures a single URL's strength. Both are third-party metrics (Moz invented them), not Google ranking factors, but they're useful benchmarks for sizing up competitors and tracking progress.

Published 13 July 2026 Updated 13 July 2026 Read ~7 min Topic SEO

I get this question at least twice a month from clients, usually right after they've Googled their competitor and seen a DA score for the first time. "Their domain authority is 55, ours is 12, are we screwed?" Not necessarily. Because the number that actually decides whether your page beats theirs for a specific keyword isn't domain authority at all. It's page authority. And the two work differently enough that mixing them up leads to wasted effort and bad decisions. Here's the breakdown I give every client who asks.

What domain authority actually measures

Domain authority (DA) is a score from 1 to 100 that Moz created to predict how likely an entire website is to rank in search results. It looks at the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to the root domain as a whole: every page, every subdirectory, every blog post. A site with thousands of quality backlinks from diverse sources will have a higher DA than a new site with a handful of links from forums.

The key word is "entire." DA doesn't tell you anything about a specific page. A DA 70 website might have a homepage pulling most of that link equity while 300 blog posts sit with zero external links. The site looks strong on paper, but individual pages could be weak. I see this constantly when auditing competitor sites for clients in Pune. A competitor's DA looks intimidating until you drill into the actual pages competing for the keyword you want. Their DA is 50 but the specific URL ranking for your target term has barely any links of its own.

DA updates roughly monthly and fluctuates when Moz recrawls the web and recalibrates its index. A drop from 35 to 32 doesn't mean you lost backlinks; it might mean Moz found more sites and adjusted the curve. It's a relative score, not an absolute one. For a deeper walkthrough, I covered this in my full domain authority guide.

What page authority actually measures

Page authority (PA) is the same 1-to-100 scale, but scoped to a single URL. Instead of asking "how strong is this website overall?" it asks "how strong is this specific page?" It factors in the backlinks pointing directly to that URL, internal links from other pages on the same site, and the link equity flowing through the site's architecture to that page.

This is the metric that matters when you're trying to figure out whether your blog post can outrank a competitor's blog post for the same keyword. Two sites might both have DA 40, but if your target page has PA 35 and theirs has PA 18, you have a real edge in link equity for that specific ranking battle. PA is where the rubber meets the road for individual keyword fights.

Page authority is also more volatile than domain authority. A single strong backlink to a page can move its PA significantly, whereas DA barely flinches from one link because it's averaged across the whole domain. That volatility makes PA a better signal for tracking whether your link-building efforts on a specific page are actually working.

The practical difference (with examples)

Here's the simplest way I explain it to clients: domain authority is like a university's reputation. Page authority is how good a specific professor is. Harvard has a great reputation (high DA), but that doesn't mean every single course is the best available. A smaller university might have one professor who's the global leader in a narrow field (high PA on a specific page), and students seeking that expertise will go there instead.

In real terms: a DA 25 site with a PA 45 blog post can absolutely outrank a DA 60 site whose competing page has PA 12. I've seen it happen on client projects. Google ranks pages, not domains. The site-wide authority helps (internal links pass some equity around), but the page-level strength for that specific URL is what matters in the SERP for a given query.

When I audit a client's site, I check DA to benchmark against competitors in their space and PA to find which specific pages are actually earning authority. That tells me where to double down on link building and where to restructure internal links to pass more equity to the pages that need it.

When to care about each metric

Use domain authority when:

  • Comparing your site's overall backlink profile against competitors in your niche
  • Evaluating whether a website is worth getting a backlink from (higher DA sites pass more link equity)
  • Tracking your site's long-term link-building progress quarter over quarter
  • Pitching guest posts: publishers with higher DA are more valuable for your backlink profile

Use page authority when:

  • Analyzing whether your specific page can compete for a keyword against the URLs currently ranking
  • Deciding which of your pages to prioritize for link building: a page with PA 15 targeting a competitive keyword needs more links than a PA 40 page
  • Finding competitor weak spots: if their ranking page has low PA despite high site DA, that's your opening
  • Measuring the impact of link-building campaigns aimed at a particular URL

Most people obsess over DA and ignore PA entirely. That's backwards if your goal is ranking specific pages for specific keywords. DA gives you the landscape view. PA gives you the actionable intel.

How to check both metrics for free

You don't need a paid Moz subscription to look up these numbers. I built a free Website Authority Checker on this site. Enter any domain and it returns the authority score powered by Open PageRank data. For a full walkthrough of other free methods, I wrote up how to check website authority with step-by-step screenshots.

Moz also offers a free version of their Link Explorer tool that shows both DA and PA for any URL you enter. You're limited to a handful of lookups per month without a paid account, but for quick competitor checks it's plenty. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools gives you a free domain-level overview if you verify ownership of your site, though their metric is called Domain Rating (DR) rather than DA, similar concept, different scale and algorithm.

My typical workflow: run the domain through my authority checker for a quick DA read, then plug the specific competing URLs into Moz's free tool to compare PA scores. Takes about two minutes and tells me whether a page-level fight is winnable before I commit hours to content and outreach.

Why neither metric is a Google ranking factor

This trips people up more than anything. Domain authority and page authority are Moz's inventions. Google has never used them, confirmed them, or referenced them as ranking signals. Google has its own internal metrics (PageRank was the original one, and they've moved well beyond it), but those are not the same as DA or PA.

That doesn't make DA and PA useless. They correlate with rankings because they measure backlinks, and backlinks are a confirmed Google ranking factor. A high DA site tends to rank well because the same links that inflate its DA also influence Google's actual algorithms. But the DA number itself isn't what Google cares about. If a DA 20 page has the best content, strongest on-page SEO, and most relevant backlinks for a query, it can outrank a DA 70 page that's thin, outdated, or poorly optimised for that term.

Think of DA and PA as thermometers, not thermostats. They measure temperature (backlink strength); they don't control it. The real work that moves rankings is building quality backlinks, writing genuinely useful content, and nailing ranking on page one fundamentals. The scores just help you track whether it's working and where you stand relative to competitors.

Frequently asked questions

Is page authority or domain authority more important for SEO?

Neither is a Google ranking factor, but both are useful benchmarks. Domain authority helps you compare the overall backlink strength of competing websites, while page authority tells you whether a specific URL has enough link equity to rank for a given keyword. When I audit a client's site, I check DA for the competitive landscape and PA for individual ranking opportunities. If you're deciding where to focus link-building effort, page authority on your target URL matters more than the site-wide DA number.

Can a low domain authority site outrank a high domain authority site?

Yes, and it happens constantly. A DA 25 site with a PA 45 blog post can outrank a DA 60 site whose competing page sits at PA 12. Google ranks pages, not domains. The page with stronger backlinks, better on-page relevance, and higher user engagement signals for that specific query wins regardless of the site-wide DA gap. That's exactly why page authority exists as a separate metric; site-level strength doesn't automatically flow to every URL.

How can I check page authority and domain authority for free?

You can use the free Website Authority Checker on this site. Enter any URL and it returns the domain authority score powered by Open PageRank data. For page-level authority, Moz offers a free version of their Link Explorer that shows both DA and PA for any URL (limited to a few lookups per month without a paid account). Ahrefs Webmaster Tools also provides a free domain-level overview if you verify site ownership.

Related guides

Work with Shreyas → ← Back to blog