DA/PA Fluctuations: How to Interpret, Apply, & Understand These ML-Based Scores

[randfish]

Hi Deacyde - that shouldn't be the message you're taking away from this post at all! As I noted above, you could improve the SEO, improve your link profile, and still see a reduction in Domain Authority as as a score due to how DA is done (on a relative scale, not an absolute scale). We could find more and better links to your site, and you'd still see a lower DA.

If a number of smaller sites in your field have all seen lower DA score in this index, that's indicative that it's nothing you've done, but rather, an indication that DA has been shifting across the board. If you're seeing rankings stay high and organic search traffic stay high, then there's nothing to worry about, and DA should still work just as well as a relative metric across sites (actually, slightly better given the improved correlations).

[Deacyde]

Thank you for responding, again wasn't upset, but was scratching my head as to the various factors that represent the overall DA score. Thanks for schooling me further and have a great weekend.

Now I know & knowing is half the battle...

[randfish]

Always happy to help, and especially to provide transparency. Thanks for the kind response

[DonnaDuncan]

Rand,

It's very hard to repeatedly explain a 30-40% fluctuation in an exponential metric with savvy clients. I'm finding the metric can't be used, especially with smaller websites or competing sites with large differentials in link or page counts. Will the long term efforts Moz has underway address this concern? Is there a ceiling in terms of website size that you don't recommend using the metric under?

I know you keep getting the same questions over and over. That's perhaps part of the reason.

[randfish]

Hi Donna - yes, that fluctuation should be much larger on average in the tail of the web (sites with DA 0-40) than in the middle or head. This makes sense because with a relative metric, all of the factors I describe above are going to be magnified in the tail, particularly because Google's rankings change so much there and because just a few links can have such a huge impact. For metrics-savvy clients, they should be best poised to understand that since DA/PA are exponential, a few links here or there and a few valuation shifts on those links can have big swings in the 10-40 point ranges of DA/PA, whereas in the 50/60+ ranges, small shifts in link discovery or in link valuation (from us or Google) won't have as much change.

As far as a ceiling - no, we don't have a recommendation there. The idea is that as DA/PA fluctuate, especially as they get more accurate in predicting rankings (correlations & coverage), the fluctuations are generally happening because Google's changing and we're getting closer to tracking how and where (with exceptions I noted above around issues with our crawl/indexing). My biggest recommendation is to keep track of similar-sized competitors (and larger/smaller ones) so you've got a set of benchmarks for comparison.

Thanks for the note and apologies for the frustrations this causes.

[DonnaDuncan]

Putting a range around the DAs where fluctuations will be most felt (10-40), helps and makes sense, but I also saw 3-15 point differences in DA this update at the higher end of the scale.

[Ria_]

This answers sooo many of my questions. Thanks, Rand!

[Andrew_Birkitt]

Thanks for clarifying this Rand it is a question that often crops up from savvy clients and you explain it so much better than I could

[KevnJr]

Rand,

Thank you for addressing the fluctuating DA/PA, to be clear: I have been disavowing bad links for 3 months using Marie Haynes post as a guide: https://moz.com/blog/guide-to-googles-disavow-tool.  I have disavowed 88 bad links during that period which I personally investigated and our DA dropped 6 points (31-25) with this last index.

Am I to understand that was because:

1. The index is reading from as far back as 90 days
2. We are in the 10-40 range and small link changes affect us more.

PS: I have been "cleaning up" the SEO using the Moz guidelines and adding quality unique content (products pages & blog posts)

Thanks,
Joe

[randfish]

Hi Joe - yes, it's most likely the fluctuations are because you're in that lower range. Remember that Moz can't see links you've disavowed in Google Webmaster Tools/Search Console, so we wouldn't be lowering DA/PA based on those (although, it's possible that, over time, as Google stopped counting links like that, our algorithm for PA/DA would "learn" and evolve, but that would take a while).

[KevnJr]

Thank you, I'm off to build a spreadsheet of my competitors PA/DA scores

Joe

[SarahWJATL]

You aren't the only one with the crazy fluctuations. The group of websites I monitor via Moz experienced DA changes from +3 to -17. The industry this cluster of sites is in tends to change mightily every time Moz refreshes - DA within the top players in the industry ranges from 20-65 on average. As long as the fluctuation is holding steady across the entire industry, we aren't seeing it as cause for alarm. We do see the same trend and same show runners each update.

My thoughts - as a whole the industry I am in is slipping behind the curve in keeping up with authority signals. The entire point of the tracking is so we can keep ahead of those things. Being proactive not reactive. Don't look at your domains as a single point. Get their competition in there too. You can see how the entire group is performing.

[SEMPassion]

When communicating with clients about progress I avoid talking about their PR/DA directly but talk in terms of improving (or not) in relationship to their competitors.  They really don't care about the NY Times, but about the sites that are directly competing against them.  If I can tell them that we closed the gap between their site and their competitors that is all they want to know. If a new index throws us a curve ball, we soften the blow by following up the bad news with a trend line showing that we are moving in the right direction even though there is an aberration in this indexes numbers..

Chris

[JosephGourvenec]

Rand,

This type of inconsistency isn't anywhere near good enough!

The metrics are not comparable to many months previous as we track DA and PA, I've spent the last week reviewing them.

When reporting back these drops look like anyone using your metrics are actually doing their job and we're all going backwards. Everyone above is is saying the same in a slightly more indirect point but this is a joke.

The credibility of the metrics of Moz mean everything in a digital strategy as they are new new PageRank metrics to showcase if you are actually doing a credible job for your client.

Despite everyone seemingly having fall backs, the issue here is again we all have to go back to our clients and say "Mr and Mrs/Miss invoice payer, we're doing a really good job doing all the things we need to do but your site statistics have gone backwards, not forwards. As we mentioned we use Moz because "We'll they we're credible" source of data they say that they have cleaned up their act due to a hidden bug in the system that was dormant until a series of issues occurred which they fixed. But Rand and their tech team say they've cleaned up their data and won't happen "hopefully" again anytime soon.

But we are doing a good job, promise please pay our bill even though we've had no update on stats for 2 months and then when we do it shows we're going backwards."

We'll in all honesty I'm very Pee'd off and yes I am having a rant here because you should have factored this in and some sort of levy.

I am just yet again disappointed with the out come and deflated with the results we're getting.

Sorry, but that's my truth and reality.

Cheers,
Joseph Gourvenec

[randfish]

Thanks for the feedback Joseph - I appreciate your transparency and can totally empathize with the frustration.

I think the key here, unfortunately, is in understanding and effectively explaining how the metrics of DA and PA operate and why they're not like standard counts that always go up as things get better. Clearly, we need to do a better job of that.

A good metaphor might be how rankings work for countries in various categories. For example, if Japan is ranked as having the world's best healthcare in 2015, and they improve the quality of their healthcare in 2016, are they guaranteed to still be #1?

Not necessarily.

Maybe the #2 ranked country improved even more and now Japan has fallen from #1 to #2 despite actually improving on their healthcare quality. Maybe countries 2-10 all improved dramatically and Japan's now fallen to #11 even though they technically got better, not worse.

PA and DA work in a similar fashion. Since they're scaled on a 100-point system, after each update, the recalculations mean that PA/DA for a given page/site could go down even if that page/site has improved their link quantity and quality. Such is the nature of a relative, scaled system. This is why I encourage folks strongly to watch not just PA/DA for their own pages/sites, but for a variety of competitors and sites in similar niches to see whether you're losing or gaining ground broadly in your field.

Hope that's helpful and wish you all the best.

[Christy-Correll]

I just have to say I love this particular metaphor. I will be using it frequently from now on when explaining how DA and PA work. Thanks so much, Rand!

[EmilyNudo]

We have seen a 10 point reduction in DA but this reduction seems to be in line roughly with our competitors, im just glad to see others have this and its not just us...

[adampetford]

So basically what you saying then is DA is not accurate and it should not really be trusted as an true measure of where my website in terms of Google rankings?

[randfish]

No, that's not correct at all. As you can see from the other folks replying in the thread, and from reading my post and responses, we're simply saying that DA is a relative measure, not an absolute one. It's like ranking websites based on their visits rather than showing their raw number of visits. You could grow your site traffic by many thousands of new visitors, and still have a lower "rank" because others grew their traffic even more. That's just how relative metrics work.

[PGD2011]

Reading through this thread. I'm frustrated too. It seems like acquiring PA/DA data is super hard for Moz. Why are you using this data? How are we supposed to use this data?

Building on your example of Japan and Healthcare. If Japan no longer is number one for healthcare, and I can only track three competitors in Moz, how am I supposed to figure out who the competitor is that causes the issue?

So, I'm tracking Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, and the UK. Last month Japan was number one for healthcare. Korea was number two. Viet Nam is number three, and the UK is number four.

This month Japan has fallen to number three, but the other countries have fallen as well. Obviously, someone is at number one. How do I figure that out? Shouldn't I now include the number one as a competitor in Moz?

Honestly, I've long been confused about how, when, and where to use the DA, PA metrics. They don't seem to be good metrics to use for evaluating how well a site is doing. I only use them when looking at sites to get links from, but it sounds like it's not a very good metric for doing that either.