Domain authority (DA), a score between 1 and 100, evaluates how high your website ranks in search engines. Estimating DA is one of the basics of a website audit, and growing domain authority is a key goal of every SEO strategy.
How long does it take to increase domain authority? Predictably, the answer is: “It depends.” In most cases, improving your DA involves months of consistent effort.
What Is Domain Authority?
Domain authority is a search engine rank score that Moz developed. It’s a number that predicts how likely a website is to rank high in Google’s search results.
DA ranges from 1 to 100 and works on a logarithmic scale, which means that increasing your domain authority from 1 to 20 is much easier than climbing from 70 to 85. Any DA score beyond 50 usually counts as good, while scores 60 and up are excellent for commercial websites in most industries.
Factors That Influence Domain Authority
Your site’s domain authority depends on factors like:
- The number of backlinks leading to your site. The more backlinks you have, the higher your DA will be.
- The authority of the referring domain. For example, links from a high-authority website like Wikipedia have a higher potential of boosting your site’s DA.
- Content quality. To grow your DA, you should publish relevant, engaging, and shareable content on your site.
- Overall SEO performance including page speed, UX, mobile friendliness, and targeted keywords.
You’ll notice a strong correlation between domain authority and SEO. While DA is a performance predictor rather than a direct factor Google uses in its algorithm, growing your domain authority involves all the elements of smart SEO: quality content, backlinks, and website performance.
Realistic Timeframes for Increasing Domain Authority
Building your domain authority is a long game. Even with a consistent SEO and link-building strategy, a few months will probably pass before you see an uptick in your DA score. Also, your domain authority may plateau after reaching a certain level, since growing your DA in the higher numbers is much more difficult.
A word of warning: Beware of any digital marketing agencies that make unrealistic promises like boosting your domain authority from 0 to 90 in a week. These agencies often use black-hat digital marketing tactics like massive link buying, which may cause Google to penalize your site.
Instead, use trusted long-term methods to build your domain authority, such as:
- Creating a consistent stream of valuable, SEO-oriented, and share-worthy content
- Sourcing relevant backlinks—for example, by pitching a guest post to a high-authority site in your industry
- Auditing and optimizing site performance and UX
Results Digital: Comprehensive Digital Marketing Solutions for Your Business
At Results Digital, we tackle the question of “How long does it take to increase domain authority?” with a multi-pronged, holistic SEO approach that involves long-term link-building strategies, improving the content of each web page, and boosting total site performance.
Schedule a consultation to discover how we can help you grow your domain authority with our SEO management.
