The lead post in this series is Mastering Topical Authority: A Comprehensive Guide to Boost Your SEO.
Jump ahead to:
Domain Authority alternatives: Introduction
This is going to be another short article within this series. As with the other short ones, I wrote this post because the topical mapping tool AlsoAsked claims this is a question people search for.
But, the answer is pretty short.
Alternative metrics
The metrics listed below are not identical, but they’re all related enough for me to lump them together.
Domain Authority (Moz)
While the post is about what OTHER THAN domain authority acts like domain authority, for the sake of having a frame of reference, I’m starting with actual domain authority.
It’s a numerical score, created by Moz, that is assigned to the entire website. The lowest score is 1 and the highest is 100.
It is calculated from a series of measurable inputs, such as the number and quality of backlinks to the site, the number of unique domains those links originate from, etc.
Domain Rating (Ahrefs)
The domain rating metric was started by Ahrefs, and is reported by their software tool.
It’s a numerical score from 0 to 100. The higher the score, the more “robust” is the online presence.
It is calculated from measurable inputs such as the quality and quantity of backlinks to the site, traffic levels, and engagement with the site.
By the way, if you’re just starting out and don’t want to spend money for an Ahrefs subscription, they have a free version called Ahrefs Webmaster Tools you can start with.
Authority Checker (Ahrefs)
This is just another name for Domain Rating.
Authority Score (SEMrush)
Like domain authority and domain rating, it’s a numerical score from 0 to 100 with higher scores indicating greater authority.
It too is calculated from measurable inputs such as the quality and quantity of links to the site, organic traffic level, and the “spam factor” of the sites backlink profile.
Trust Flow (Majestic)
I may never understand why Majestic doesn’t get more respect.
They separate out the measurement of backlinks to a site into “trust flow” and “citation flow” where citation flow is the quantity of backlinks to your site and trust flow is the quality of those links.
I like this because I believe the ratio of trust flow to citation flow is meaningful, but unless they’re broken out and reported separately, that ratio can not be calculated.
Trust flow is also a number score, from 0 to 100.
A high trust flow indicates high quality backlinks.
In closing
There’s really nothing to close with here. I just hope you found this article useful.
