Domain Authority
-
I am very new to SEO. I've built a dog grooming website for a business that my wife and I have established. www.petsalonbarkavenue.com When I try and check the metrics out, it keeps showing I have a 1 on page authority, and a 1 on domain authority.
When I check a competitors site, they have certain anchor text that Moz has identified. I am pretty certain that our business is listed on the same directory as this competitor, yet Moz doesn't identify my site's anchor text.
Am I doing something wrong? or is my site so new, that Moz hasn't been able to find it?
Craig
-
I agree with Andy, it's probably just a refresh issue. To check if your site is listed on that website you can use search dommands. Type this into Google using their domain, and your business name
site:theirdomain.com your business name
If you are listed, and the page is indexed by Google, it will find you.
-
It all depends. One of the reasons you show up so well in Google is because you have done things that Google likes, and not looked at other search engines. We blogged about this a while ago on our site. Look at number 8:
"Dont focus just on Google"
Do you have listings set up in Yahoo, and Bing? Is your site added to Bing webmaster tools? (yes, its real and it does exist lol) Have you submitted URL's through Bing? Lots of ways to get noticed by other search engines.
"I am up against sites that rarely update their content, and we do."
Updating content isnt enough. Blogging and creating additional pages for the sake of appearing more valuable to a search engine is pointless and a waste of time. I'm not saying don't write the blog, but to look more closely at your content marketing strategy, and see how it fits in with your seo strategy and goals.
If you are interested, I'd be happy to look at the site, and see how your ranking could be improved. PM me on here if interested. If anything, you could get some pointers and advice.
-
Good point, our site actually shows up pretty well in Google. Not very well in Bing or Yahoo. I am up against sites that rarely update their content, and we do.
Then today, I did a search to check my status, and a new competitor shows higher than us! And yet their page looks like it hasn't been updated at all. Gotta love it.
Then again, if they got other links out there, maybe their ranking improved. Right?
-
Without looking into the other places your competitor has links coming from, you cant say they are getting MORE credit for the link. Since your site is new, the competitor's site has had more time to build authority and links.
The tools for seo are just that, tools. I have seen sites that have a lower page authority and pagerank out rank sites with high PR and authority. All comes down to the details.
-
I have a disagreement about this to a degree. True, buying a link isnt a good practice, but buying the ability to have a citation profile that creates a link for you can be. Think of sites like the BBB, Chamber of Commerce, Business Journal, etc. These are trusted resources, that I highly doubt Google would penalize.
Facebook can be next to useless for a business unless your potential clients seach for services or use that service frequently. We have done many studies on this, and LinkedIn seems to be a better fit for service-based business, and Facebook better for product-based services.
To the original poster, if you are looking to build domain and page authority, begin by creating as many trusted citation links as you can. Yellowbook, Yelp, Patch, CityGrid, Axiom, FourSquare, Google Places, Bing Local, etc etc etc. We have a list we call the top 40, and that has been extremely sucessful for our local clients.
Blogging can help if you are typing things people will want to read and share. You can easily perform a search to find popular dog and pet grooming topics, or simply base the blog posts off of questions customers ask you everyday. Chances are, thats what people will want to know, and might have searched for before they even came to your location.
-
I am a CPA by day, so this whole SEO/website stuff sort of makes me crazy. But its a fun hobby (I would never be able to do this for a business), you SEO guys sure have some patience.
I have actually stayed off of directories pretty well, I've avoided all the SEO package things out there that want to throw your info on every directory in the world for a fee. I guess I meant in my original question that we offer certain grooming products, and our shop is listed on their page as a location that sells the grooming products. So our competitor is on there, and so are we, but yet the Competitor seems to get credit for it as a link, yet our site does not. Maybe I will just have to wait until another crawl comes through and check the results.
Thanks!
-
Also depending how new the site is Moz Domain Authority score only really updates once a month (ish) next update is due on 24/7. http://moz.com/products/api/updates so you probably wont see any movement until then.
Like mentioned above welcome to the world of SEO where nothing makes sense and can drive you up the walls. Google is a cruel mistress that you won't never understand and are always trying to please.
And have to agree with Andy - never ever pay to go on directories and in honest stay well clear of them, I am trying to get old links removed from these places. A few years ago this was the thing to do to get to number 1 in google and was very simple, now it actually hurts you more in the long run than benefits you.
If you are new you might want to run read this history of SEO as a starting point http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/history-of-seo-glimpse-into-future-tl-ss
-
Dog grooming is not blogged about much, but perhaps you could try to arrange an event for dog owners to teach them about dog grooming, or perhaps you can try to speak at an event where dog owners gather? By establishing yourself as an expert on dog grooming in your area, you should start to rank well in local searches.
I'm not an expert on local search, but it probably won't hurt to be on Foursquare and so on as well (http://webmarketingtoday.com/articles/for-local-seo-use-check-ins-at-foursquare-and-facebook/)
-
Thanks! The Dog Grooming industry isn't the most widely blogged about, but thanks for the Item 2 and I will look into that! And I have an idea for Item 1 that might be a good option in the next couple months.
-
Stay away from directories and never pay for links. If I were you, I'd consider the following:
1. If you have a newsworthy story of any kind, try to approach journalists in your area or any local news site/forum. Any kind of publicity is likely to lead to natural links coming back to your website.
2. Use Meetup.com to find bloggers in your area or people with a passion for dogs that blog. Networking and making friends in your target community will be good for your website, but it will take time.
3. Creating a Facebook page is less important than it used to be as reach is down (i.e. your posts are unlikely to reach the people who've liked your page), but you should still have a Facebook page as it's a good way to update everyone on what you're doing. It also helps build authority.
-
Hi Craig,
Welcome to the baffling world of SEO
First of all, I would suggest you read the MOZ beginners SEO guide here. That will cover off a lot of the best practices that you need to be following.
In terms of your question about domain authority, this is going to be looking at links that have been built to your site - if you haven't done this yet, then I would suggest you read Chapter 7 on how this is handled. I also note that you mentioned a directory - as a rule of thumb, steer clear of these, unless they are niche or something like Yelp. For the most part, links from directories will at best do nothing, and at worst, cause you to get a penalty from Google.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Exact Domain Match does it help or distract?
Does owning / buying an exact domain match help or not necessary? For example our main website ranks for nearly 14,800 Keywords but one KW we are trying to get in the top spot for we are currently at the bottom of page #1. We do see an exact domain match available so we purchased it but i don't know if it would actually help us or distract us. I was thinking we could create an article about the keyword on that exact domain then do some on page seo and back linking. But would that be more of a distraction VS. just focusing on getting more high quality back links to the main website we have ranked on Page 1 at the bottom? Any ideas or benefits to use an exact domain match to help boost also?
Link Building | | Cfarcher0 -
Fixing broken links from old domain
Howdy Mozfans, I am fixing some broken links and I was wondering if someone could help me out. Multiple old domains (www.olddomain1.com, www.olddomain2.com and so on) have been migrated to www.currentdomain.com/olddomain1 and www.currentdomain.com/olddomain2 over a year ago. The old domains redirect to the current domain but we found that a lot of those were redirecting to 404 pages at the current domain. We now redirected all URL’s that were on the old domains correctly. Will those redirects ever get indexed (and passing linkjuice) since the old domains haven’t been used for such a long time? If not, would it be a good idea to redirect the 404 pages on the current domain (that were a result of the previous redirects)? Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | SEO-Bas0 -
What value do external broken links give to a domain?
I ask, as I've just used opensite explorer to look at external links a competitor has, and I've found the high value ones at the top of the list go to a page that no longer exists on their site. Are these stiill of value in the SERP's, or have they messed up by not putting a 301 redirect on them?
Link Building | | xposurecreative0 -
How to increase domain authority
How do I increase my Domain Authority and Page Authority? How do I increase my external links numbers? Regards, Nilesh
Link Building | | vedantcreations0 -
Open Site Explorer - Finding 404s from my competitor's external linking Root Domains
I want to find websites that have linked 404s to my competitors. My goal is to contact webmasters who have linked to my competitors with 404s, but I cannot figure out how to get Open Site Explorer to give me that data. I can easily see this in GWT for my own site, but I need this for my competition instead. Does anybody know a quick way to get this information?
Link Building | | Francisco_Meza0 -
How many links with page authority to beat competition if we already score 62
How many links with page authority do I need to beat or get closer to competitor with page score 78 and domain authority score 72, if we already score 68 on page and 62 domain authority. This is in one of many beauty product markets. I ask because there is a company offering me for $80 each 10 links with higher than 70 page score (up to 80) and higher than 74 domain score (up to 86). All the other factors: number of links and social are almost the same for our website and the competitor's
Link Building | | beehappy1 -
What if trusted sites in your niche have low authority?
What if the most trusted sites in your niche have relatively low authority? Should you still spend a lot of resources to get those links or go after easier links with higher link authority (as determined by MozRank)?
Link Building | | Charlessipe0 -
301 Redirect Domains with old links
I came across a nice discovery of about 20 old domain names that each have many root domains and a bit of DA. I want to know the best way to utilize them without any type of penalty. Currently, (as of an hour ago) I am 301 redirecting all of them to the most relative pages on a single domain. Will i get the majority of the link juice from the domains? I'm excited to see what will happen here. Thanks in advance, Daniel
Link Building | | seoninja200