Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
DA not increased as backlinks generated...
-
Hi,
I would like to discuss my issue as my site's some backlinks are generated but DA is still there. Can anyone make me understand the reason? -
Hi Jeroen,
PageRank still exists, it's just not public. DA/PA etc are 3rd party metrics which are designed to replicate PageRank for the benefit of marketers who want a rough idea of how strong a given page or domain is.
I agree about the importance of relevant links and good content though and I wrote about this extensively in this chapter of The Link Building Book if you'd like to read more.
Cheers.
Paddy
-
Hi Sean,
I'm afraid that isn't correct. There are many, many sources out there confirming that PageRank scores are no longer publicly available. Google Chrome, other browsers and 3rd party tools all pulled the data from the same source. I'm not sure where that tool pulls numbers from.
Here are some sources to confirm this:
1) https://searchengineland.com/google-has-confirmed-they-are-removing-toolbar-pagerank-244230 - confirms that this is tools, not just browsers where PageRank will no longer be available.
2) https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-pagerank/ - mentions commentary from Gary Illyes that PageRank still exists but not outside of Google.
3) http://www.thesempost.com/google-removing-pagerank-from-toolbar/
4) https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-pagerank/159112/
5) https://searchengineland.com/rip-google-pagerank-retrospective-244286
Cheers.
Paddy
-
You can check PageRank of a domain here: https://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
The only thing discontinued about PageRank is the Chrome feature, which is completely separate.
-
The new pagerank these days is DA/PA/UR etc etc. But really i get much better results from links that are relevant and have excellent content in relation of just a number with the opposite. It sells great on spreadsheet obviously but it dont really mean anything. General domain age + content + technical everything well done is usually the key to it.
-
Hi Sean,
Just a note on your PageRank comment - the public version of PageRank, often referred to as Toolbar PageRank and used by tools such as the one you've referenced, stopped being updated by Google a few years ago. This was confirmed in 2016 and you can read about that here.
PageRank is still very much a thing that Google uses, but we no longer have a way to know what the PageRank score for a given URL is.
Cheers.
Paddy
-
It's actually explained in the https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority article. The more (follow) links to your website the higher your DA will grow.
-
I recommend you go to Google Search Console > Links > Top Linking Sites > More to see if Google has indexed the domains from where these links are placed. If they are not, it's going to be hard for Moz to detect them and they won't help you with SEO until they do show up there.
I also recommend that you only target websites for links with a PageRank of 4/10 or higher. You can check their rank here: https://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php
-
Thank you Paddy for the reply. This explains why DA increase takes time on sites that already have high DA. For quite some time, I was also thinking why the DA for my bodybuilding site is not increasing. But this explains everything.
-
Hi there,
There are a few reasons why your Domain Authority may still be the same, despite more backlinks being built to your website:
- Moz may not have discovered all of the new backlinks to your website yet, so they may not have been factored into the DA score
- If they have discovered them, then there is a chance that some backlinks may not improve your DA score quickly and it may take more links in order for your DA to go up. This is particularly true the higher your DA is because the algorithm that DA uses is logarithmic which means that the higher you go, the harder it becomes to increase it
- The DA of other websites may have changed and could be skewing the DA of the websites that are now linking to you
You can read a bit more information and watch the videos here for more information on DA

I'd also just mention that you should remember that whilst DA/PA are designed to give some direction on how well you can rank in Google, they are not connected to the Google algorithm, so definitely keep an eye on DA, but don't forget about other metrics too.
I hope that helps!
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
-
Sudden spike in backlinks - should we disavow?
A kitchen remodelling firm in Australia has noticed a big increase in spammy backlinks to their website since April this year. Majestic shows that referring domains and backlinks during that period have gone up from 400 domains (10,000 links) to 1,070 domains (47,000+ links). About 100 are sitewide links. The vast majority are "follow" links directed at image files on the site - ending in .jpg. Ahrefs now shows the number one anchor text (23%) is a period (full stop) "." Most of the links come from .us domains, eg: cowboysr.us
Link Building | | Adab1
blackphoto.us
alldpic.com Google Search Console isn't showing any of these links, there's no penalty on the site and there's been no noticeable change in rankings (if anything organic clicks went up over May, June, July) ... so we're wondering what action - if any - should be taken. Are these links likely to have a negative impact on the site and homepage? Should we disavow these links? Appreciate any advice. Thanks.0 -
Backlinks and PDFs
Hi, we are trying to improve on the number of links to our website. A supplier has added a PDF file which is case study to their website. In the PDF it has a link to our website, will this count as a link or not? Thanks
Link Building | | danieldunn100 -
Backlinks from non-relevant site
There's a forum I used to participate in that allows you to include a link to your website in your signature block. I have over 500 posts in the forum so that provides a lot of backlinks to my website. However, I recently decided to remove my website link from my signature for two reasons: The forum is 95-99% dead. Hardly anyone uses it anymore. BTW, the website that houses the forum is still popular within is niche (articles, etc). Just the forum appears to be dead. The website and its forum really have no connection whatsoever to my business. I'm in a completely different niche. However, I have no idea if I've made the right decision. Will removing my signature and the backlinks hurt my site? Or will it help it since the other site really isn't related to mine? Thanks for any thoughts on this!
Link Building | | emh19690 -
DA vs PA when building links
When building links to your site from other sites, what is more important or what weights more heavily? Say a site has a DA of 20 and PA of 34 for that page I want a link from. Say another site has the revese, a DA of 34 and a PA of 20. All things being equal, which site's link to me would be better? The one with a higher DA or the one with a higher PA for the on the specific page I would get a link?
Link Building | | studio35design0 -
Hidden Backlinks
Hi, I hope someone can help me with this. We have a competitor who appears to be ranking No1 for a competitive search term with a very lame site and above some authoritative sites. He has been here for some time as well. When we check out his back link profile through OSE, Majestic and Ahrefs they show as only 3 backlinks from no PR sites. However, someone pointed out that they could be using a link network that is blocking every crawler apart from Google, Yahoo and BIng. I would like to know if there is a way to confirm this. For instance I know that we can use screaming frog to mimic Googlebot, however, if there a way to reveal the real backlinks to a site like this using any tools. Thanks
Link Building | | kirstyseo0 -
Ways to remove spammy backlinks
Hello everyone, I got hit with an algorithm penalty and need to start removing old backlinks ASAP. Does anyone have any good resources on how best to ask webmasters for removal? Are there any other ways to remove bad back links besides the disavow tool? (An SEO consultant I talked to said that they had a proprietary software that can remove them - is that possible?) Thanks all,
Link Building | | CleanEdisonInc1 -
Backlinks From Press Releases - Should I Disavow Them?
About 2 months ago, I published a press release through PRWEB with a link back to my website of course. Now it must have been one of those morning where the coffee wasn't strong enough as my website already has a Penguin penalty I'm trying to get lifted. The intent wasn't to spam the web but rather to gain some traction in the business hosting world. Like I've said, the coffee must've been too weak that morning as it didn't even cross my mind to see if I could "nofollow" the links in the press release. I just hit the submit button... As I'm in the process of submitting a disavow links request to Google, I'm wondering if I should include the URLs to copies of those press releases? I mean, there's no way I can find all those links as it was submitted not long ago. Google and link tools will keep discovering other copies of the PR for months to come probably.
Link Building | | sbrault740