Domain Authority
Domain authority is a score, calculated by SEO software vendors rather than by search engines, that estimates how likely a website is to rank based mainly on the links pointing to it.
Also called: domain rating, website authority
Why it matters
SEO teams use authority scores to compare sites quickly: their own against competitors, or possible link partners against each other. A higher score usually means a site has more and stronger backlinks, which tends to go with better rankings. It helps set expectations about which keywords a site can realistically compete for.
Authority scores are estimates, not ranking factors. Moz says its Domain Authority is not a direct ranking factor used by Google but a comparative metric.
Example
A young software company sees that the pages ranking for its main keyword all belong to sites with much higher authority scores than its own. It targets narrower questions first, where smaller sites already rank, and works on earning links from industry publications. After a year its score has risen and it starts competing for broader terms.
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