What is domain authority, and should you pay an agency to raise it?
Domain Authority is a score from the SEO tool company Moz, not from Google. Moz describes it as a 1 to 100 score that compares how likely websites are to rank, and says it is not a Google ranking factor. Google says third-party SEO tools do not have access to its internal ranking data. A higher score is not a business result: judge an agency by the inquiries and customers that arrive from search.
What the score is
Moz, the company that created Domain Authority, calls it "a search engine ranking score developed by Moz". Its definition page says the score runs from 1 to 100, predicts how likely a website is to rank compared with competitors, and is calculated mainly from data about links pointing to a site.
Moz also says the score is relative, so there is no universal good or average number, that new websites always start at 1, and that smaller businesses or local websites often score lower because fewer sites link to them. Other SEO tool companies often publish similar scores under their own names; as general advice, read those the same way.
What it is not
Moz, which makes the score, says it is not a Google ranking factor. Moz's own page says "Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor", and Google's guide "Do you need an SEO?" says third-party SEO tools "don't have access to Google's internal ranking data".
Google's guide to optimizing for its AI features says the same of AI answers: "No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems". Its guidance on third-party SEO tools adds that some tool data is misread as coming from Google, and that a tool's forecasts are its own: "Any predictions are their own and like predictions generally, may not happen".
What Google says it looks at
Google's own explanation of how it ranks results says its systems look at many factors, including the words of the search, the relevance and usability of pages, the expertise of sources, and the searcher's location and settings, and that the weight given to each varies with the search. As general advice, none of that is captured by one number from a tool company, and a customer choosing whom to call never sees the score.
Why raising the score is not a result
A score can rise or fall for reasons that have nothing to do with your business: Moz says it can change with competitors' scores or with updates to how it is calculated. A promise to raise it is a promise about a tool's number, not about calls, forms or booked jobs.
As general advice, judge an SEO agency by what you can check yourself: a dated list of the work, and more inquiries from search, each followed to won, lost or still open, as the related answer on how to tell if your SEO agency is working explains. A pitch built on raising a third-party score, especially with a promised number, belongs with the warning signs in the related answer on how to spot an SEO scam.
Sources
- Moz, "Domain Authority: What is it and how is it calculated"
- Google Search Central, "Do you need an SEO?" (last updated June 5, 2026)
- Google Search Central, "Google's Guide to Optimizing for Generative AI Features on Google Search" (last updated July 10, 2026)
- Google Search Central, "Google Search's guidance on using third-party SEO tools, services, and advice" (last updated June 5, 2026)
- Google, How Search Works, "Automatically generating and ranking results"
Related answers
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