Two measurements of a site are often thrown around as important metrics for your site to work on improving. One of these is the Google-created and measured PageRank. The other is the third-party Moz creation, Domain Authority. What goes into measuring these and which is important for your site?
What is PageRank?
PageRank is an algorithm created by Google founder Larry Page, and named after him. It’s a simple measurement of links and link equity. Google looks at a given site and measures the number of links pointing to that site. It measures the authority of those sites as well, to prevent abuse from link farms. A site with higher quality incoming links in a higher number will have a better PageRank.
For a long time, PageRank was an important metric relating to the quality of a site. It was used both by webmasters and regular users to identify if a site may be trustworthy. It was also used as a flag to set value on a site for domain resellers, though its utility in this instance has gone down.
What does PageRank mean?
System for Ranking Web Pages
PageRank — a System for Ranking Web Pages
PageRank is a system for ranking web pages that Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed at Stanford University. The higher the PageRank of a link, the more authoritative it is
Why is PageRank important?
Page rank is important because it's one of the factors a search engine like Google takes into account when it decides which results to show at the top of its search engine listings – where they can be easily seen. (In fact PageRank is a Google trade mark – but other search engines use similar techniques.)
Ways to Increase Your Page Authority
Make sure your content is interesting.
Make sure your content is expanded accordingly.
Make sure you update your content regularly.
Make sure your content is useful and relevant.
Make sure your content is easy to read.
What is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority is a metric created by Moz.com as a more accurate indication of the value of the site. Like PageRank, it is a logarithmic calculation of the authority of the site. Rising from a low 30 to 35 will be easier on this scale than rising from a high 80 to 85. A DA of 100 is the top ideal, while an unranked site would have a DA of zero.
Domain Authority can be found through a number of different SEO tools, most notably the MozBar or the site Open Site Explorer.
DA is calculated using a wider range of metrics than Pagerank. Some of those metrics include:
• The number and quality of incoming links
• The number and quality of outgoing links
• Domain registration information.
• Domain age
• Link diversity
Check out this video If you want to learn more about Page Rank versus Domain Authority