What Do DA and PA Mean? A Guide to Domain Authority and Page Authority

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority, usually shortened to DA, is a score that estimates how well a website as a whole is likely to perform in search results. It was created by Moz, one of the best-known SEO software companies, to answer a practical question: since search engines do not publish an authority score for each site, how can you compare one domain with another?

The scale runs from 1 to 100, and it is calculated mainly from link data: which other sites link to the domain, how many different sites do so and how strong those sites are themselves. A site with many links from many strong, varied domains tends to score higher than a site with few links from weak ones. DA is a prediction, not a measurement of something Google reports. It says, roughly, “sites with profiles like this have tended to rank well”.

In the advertorial and link building industry, DA became a common currency. Agencies list it next to each publication, and buyers use it to shortlist. That is helpful, as long as it is understood as a rough comparison tool and not a verdict. In this guide we explain what DA and PA are, how they are calculated, what they can and cannot tell you, and how to use them sensibly alongside other checks. If you prefer to browse real examples with scores, our portfolio of publishing sites shows DA and PA for every site.

What is Page Authority?

Page Authority (PA) applies the same logic to a single page. DA asks, “how strong is this domain?” PA asks, “how strong is this particular page?” It uses the same 1–100 scale and is also based on link data, but at page level.

Some simple consequences follow.

• A homepage usually has a higher PA than an inner article, because most external links point to it.
• A brand-new article starts with a low PA, even on a strong domain, because it has few links of its own. It gains as it receives internal links from other pages and, possibly, external ones.
• Two pages on the same site can have very different PA scores depending on how many links each page has attracted.

When you place an advertorial, the DA tells you something about the umbrella your article will sit under, and the PA of surrounding articles shows how well the site passes strength to its content pages. Neither number says whether anyone will read the piece.

How the scores are calculated

Moz does not publish the exact formula, but it has described the principles. The scores come from Moz’s own index of links on the web and a model that is trained to predict which sites tend to rank well. Among the signals that feed into it are the number of unique domains linking to a site, the quality of those domains and the overall link profile. The model is updated from time to time, which is why scores can shift when the provider refreshes it.

Two features of the design deserve attention.

1. The scale is logarithmic. Moving from 20 to 30 is considerably easier than moving from 60 to 70. The distance between two scores in the upper range represents much more link power than the same distance lower down.
2. The score is relative. It reflects how a site compares with others at the time of calculation. If the web as a whole gains links, or competitors improve faster, a site can lose points while doing nothing differently.

Other companies publish similar scores under different names, such as Domain Rating or Authority Score, calculated with their own data. They are not interchangeable, and a site can look different from one tool to another. When you compare sites, use figures from the same source.

What DA and PA do not measure

It is just as important to know the limits.

• They are not used by Google. Google has said it does not use these third-party scores, and the way it treats links is not public. A high DA does not mean Google considers the site authoritative.
• They do not measure traffic. A site can have a decent score and few visitors, or the reverse.
• They do not measure relevance. A high-authority site on an unrelated subject may do little for a specialist business. See topical relevance or authority.
• They do not measure content quality or trust. A site can accumulate links and still publish weak or even spammy material.
• They do not predict rankings. Scores describe a link profile; ranking depends on far more.

Why a score can change without any action

Many site owners panic when a score drops, so it is worth understanding why this happens. Because DA is relative and recalculated against an index that changes constantly, several things can move it.

• Other sites gain links faster than yours, shifting the comparison.
• The provider updates its model or its index, rescaling many sites at once.
• Some links that once counted disappear, as linking pages are removed or expire.
• Rounding and small recalculations move a score by a point or two.

Treat changes of a few points as noise. The meaningful signal is a sustained trend over several months, ideally compared with similar sites. The score at a single date is a snapshot, which is why published figures should always carry the date they were obtained.

How to use DA and PA when choosing where to publish

Here is a practical method for putting the scores to use without leaning on them too heavily.

1. Set a sensible floor. Exclude clearly weak or brand-new domains if your goal is authority. The right floor depends on your sector, and there is no universal number.
2. Compare within a category. A score means more next to its peers than in the abstract.
3. Check the match with traffic. A wide gap between a strong score and a tiny audience calls for a closer look.
4. Value variety. A mix of scores looks more natural than links from sites that all sit at the top of the scale.
5. Review quality by hand. Read articles, check indexation and look at outbound links. The checklist in how to vet a website before you publish on it covers this in detail.

The Succes Grup portfolio applies the same idea in an interface: 450 sites in 19 categories, each with DA and PA on show, so you can filter by subject and by score. The highest DA in the portfolio is 59, and the metrics come from PrePostSEO, updated on 29 September 2026. Because third-party tools can disagree, we suggest checking a site you care about in a second tool before you decide.

Reading scores in practice (hypothetical example)

Imagine you are comparing three fictional Romanian sites for an article about home renovation. Site A, a general news portal, shows a DA of 52 and a PA of 38 for its recent articles. Site B, a regional renovation blog, shows a DA of 31 and a PA of 24. Site C, a forum, shows a DA of 45 but few recent posts. These numbers are invented.

On score alone, Site A leads. But the questions that follow are what matter. Does Site A actually cover renovation, or would your article sit between unrelated stories? Does Site B have a loyal audience of homeowners, and does it publish regularly? Is Site C still alive? You might well decide that Site B is the stronger fit for a renovation firm, even though its numbers are lower, and keep Site A for a broader awareness push later.

That is how DA and PA should work in your process: they put sites in a rough order and flag unusual cases, and then human judgement takes over. The Romanian market is no different from any other in this respect, and relevance and quality often count for more than the last few points of score.

Common misconceptions

• “A higher DA always means a better link.” It means a stronger link profile, which is only one part of value.
• “DA is a Google metric.” It is a Moz metric, and Google does not use it.
• “We need DA 60+ or it is not worth it.” That is an arbitrary line. Relevant sites with moderate scores often serve specialist businesses well.
• “DA can be bought quickly.” Anyone who promises to raise your DA fast should be treated with caution, because artificial boosts are exactly what link-spam rules target.
• “The number is exact.” It is an estimate with rounding, delay and model changes built in.

Another common slip is to treat the score as a property of the person or company rather than the domain. DA belongs to a domain (or, for PA, a page), not to a brand, and it does not automatically follow a brand if the site moves or changes ownership.

What about your own site’s score?

You can check your own site’s DA and PA in free tools, and it is reasonable to track them over time. But do not make them your main goal. A better set of aims is to publish content that answers real questions, earn mentions from relevant sources, keep the site technically healthy and watch the metrics that reflect real outcomes: organic visits, enquiries and sales. If your score rises as a side effect, that is welcome. If it dips for reasons outside your control, you will not have built your plan on it.

If you are about to start publishing on third-party sites, a clear opening matters as much as the host. Once you have chosen a site, our guide to how to open a sponsored article shows how to write the first 100 words so that the text earns its place.

Your next step

Pick three sites you are considering, find their DA and PA in one consistent tool, and write down what the numbers do and do not tell you in each case. Then add traffic, topic and quality, and see whether the ranking changes. The exercise usually shows quickly how much the score alone leaves out.

When you are ready to see scores in context, browse the portfolio by category and metric, build a shortlist and apply the checks above. The scores are there to help you compare, and the judgement stays with you.

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