Domain authority or page authority in ranking

[ccgale]

Hi, sorry if this is an obvious one...

I am doing some keyword research tool and have a few keywords I wish to ran for. Looking at the DA of the sites on the first page they are averaging 60ish, my site is 33. However, for the keywords I am targeting they seem to have PA of 1, or at best, 5.

From what I can make it out appears they are ranking for the keywords because of their strong DA rather than any seo work.

If I were to target these keywords and send backlinks to the individual pages and so build up a PA on my pages would this be enough to challenge the competitors or would I still be at a major disadvantage because of my lower DA?

Hope that make sense? I know what I mean but hard to explain it

Thanks

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

There is no simple answer but I can provide you some clarity.

Domain authority is always more important and provides more value more than Page Authority...Page authority is one of the attributes of a sites domain authority.

To say that they are "ranking for the keywords because of their strong DA rather than any seo work" doesnt make sense. The reason their domain authority is high is because of the SEO.

A good strategy to generate higher rankings on keywords is to focus on lower competitive keywords. Targeting a lower page authority page for a competitor isnt where you should be focused. Focus instead on the keywords and building solid and relevant content with those keywords.

Hope this helps. If so, let us know....

Mark

[ccgale]

Hi Mark

Just to pick up on your remark: To say that they are "ranking for the keywords because of their strong DA rather than any seo work" doesnt make sense. The reason their domain authority is high is because of the SEO.

What I meant there was that the pages I looked at appear to be ranking because of the root domain authority/seo rather than any specific seo to that page. The pages have little to no external links. Sorry, probably didn't explain it the right way.

Thanks. Carl

[EGOL]

I am competing in a SERP with product pages from Amazon and Ebay.  Amazon and Ebay both have a DA of 100 and both have a product page in this SERP with a PA of 1.    Both of these beat my site that has a DA of 82 and a product page with PA of 68.

They are beating me on DA alone as I am better optimized for the keyword and my PA is enormous compared to theirs.

[ccgale]

Thanks EGOL

Very useful information there, exactly along the lines of my thinking (disproved my idea mind you hehe). I guess i'll have to find a 'level' for my domain and keywords which match that