Moz is the largest unofficial community of SEO experts. They have created a lot of SEO tools so far to help you ease your journey to dominate SERPs (search engine result pages). One of them is the Domain Authority (DA).
Developed by Moz, Domain Authority has become an industry standard in recent years to measure your site’s ranking potential. Even Google considers it as one of the ranking factors in their SERPs.
There are regular updates to the domain authority, usually every month that shows the change in your site’s DA. But there hasn’t been a major upgrade in years. Finally, Moz is introducing a new change in the DA algorithm with Domain Authority 2.0.
A Domain Authority score ranges from 1 to 100. Higher score corresponds to a greater ability to rank.
What’s the need for Domain Authority 2.0?
So far, just like any other search engine metric, Domain Authority had a large unmanipulated set of fixed rules and standards to determine your site’s score. That made it almost impossible to determine the score of some websites with no ranking keywords.
A change was required, something that learns from the situation and adapts itself according to it. That’s when Moz thought of developing Domain Authority 2.0 from the ground.
It is more accurate, reliable, and always evolving. Even the smallest of the sites with no traffic at all will get their individual score.
What’s new in Domain Authority 2.0?
Domain Authority follows a linear model which is not ideal. So, Moz made a switch and replaced the backbone of the algorithm with a neural network which makes the DA algorithm more accurate.
The DA scoring factors are massively changed. The number of backlinks to a site contributed the most in Domain Authority till now. With Domain Authority 2.0, the following factors will also be considered:
- Spam Score
- Link Distribution Pattern
The heart of Domain Authority has the industry’s leading link index. Moz Link Explorer is holding an index of more than 35 trillion links. With Domain Authority 2.0, the index will be used effectively to assign a spam score to each one of them and then score your site accordingly.
What are the benefits of Domain Authority 2.0 update?
The fundamental improvements to the DA algorithm will make it fool-proof, more reliable, and upgradable. This will hugely help us to remove spam from the web as the spam score is one of the determining factors now.
Also, DA will adapt according to changes Google makes to its algorithms. This will result in regular fluctuations in your site’s Domain Authority. Everything the new algorithm decides for your site will be the most accurate then it has been ever before.
What should we do to be prepared for this update?
- There is nothing you need to do. This update will make the DA algorithm only better and accurate.
- Treat Domain Authority as a relative score and not an absolute one.
- If your score improves after the update then congrats to you, in case it drops then don’t worry, make you sure you compare it with the progress of your competitors as their score will likely to fluctuate similarly.
- Also, make sure you communicate this change to your boss or your client. They should even know the reason in case your site experience a shocking change in the score.
- Re-plan your search engine optimization strategies further after the update.
- Expect frequent updates in Domain Authority from now on. Moz will make sure that your site is analyzed with the most updated and recent changes in the Google algorithms.
When will the Domain Authority 2.0 rollout?
Moz plan on rolling out the new Domain Authority 2.0 update on March 5th, 2019. Meanwhile, they will keep us informed about everything related to the update. They have also planned a webinar on February 21st.
So what do you guys think about this upcoming update in DA? Feel free to share your views in the comments section below.
