Does getting a placement in a high DA site matter if PA remains low?

[4RS_John]

I'm fairly new, so take this with a grain of salt but:

1. I expect the PA might improve over time, although I can't be sure. Also remember that Moz doesn't update in realtime, so even if Google figures out what's going on and gives you credit, it might take a week or two to show up in Moz.

2. (I'm more confident on this answer) It'll take time. Nothing in SEO is instant, in my experience. Also, if the huge publication picked it up & linked to you, you'll probably get a bunch of other copy-cat links.

[MattRoney]

I just want to add a point of clarification to #1 there:

It could actually be several months before PA and DA update to reflect changes. This is because PA and DA are link metrics based on our Mozscape index (the index that also powers Open Site Explorer). Index update times vary, but it's fair to say they take an average of 4 weeks or so to compile. So, link metrics update approximately once per month.

But!

Say your site acquires a new backlink, which may have an affect on its authority metrics. If Mozscape is still in the process of crawling and indexing the web and hasn't yet crawled your site, then provided your site gets does get crawled you'll see the changes in the next index release.

If, however, Mozscape is still in the process of crawling and indexing the web and has already crawled your site, you won't see any update for 2 or more index cycles. This is because your site has already been crawled in that cycle and won't be recrawled until the index is released and we start on a new one.

You can see the date of the last release and the expected date of the next on the Open Site Explorer homepage, or here.

Does that make sense?

[MattRoney]

This post is deleted!

[MattRoney]

Hi Marcus!

What I'm getting from your question in that a high-authority site has a roughly two-week-old page featuring a piece of content of yours. Is that correct?

Generally, a PA or DA of 1 simply means that we don't yet have information on that URL. As I explained in my response to John, we gather that information through our crawl of the web as documented in our Mozscape index. That crawl takes ~1 month.

PA and DA are based on pretty much the same factors, and those factors are almost entirely based on the strength of the backlink profile. According to the Open Site Explorer home page, the last index was released March 2, and the next index is expected to be released March 30. That makes March 30 the earliest you can expect to see information about that page. It's quite possible that you still won't see it until the following update.

PA and DA are both based on pretty much the same factors, and those factors are based almost entirely on the strength of the backlink profile. The difference is that DA is based on the backlink profile for the entire domain, while PA is based on the backlink profile for just that page. PA can be raised by building links to the page. If it doesn't gain links, PA won't improve (though I'd expect it to me higher than 1 once it's been crawled and indexed).

Now, lastly, you ask about your boost in the SERPs. I assume you mean you're expecting a bump for your site, since the high-authority site links to you through the content it's picked up, yes? In that case, you may see some benefit on the SERPs well before the change is reflected in PA (Google crawls a lot faster than we do). The amount of a boost you get will depend on a lot, including your competitors' link profiles and whether the content that got picked up also appears on your site (if it does, I hope the high-authority site is pointing to the original content on your site with rel=canonical, or you could find yourself competing with them).

I really hope that makes sense. Let me know if you need more clarification, or if I'm just totally misunderstanding your question!

[MattRoney]

Oh, and just to say: Congrats on your content getting picked up. That's pretty rad.

[4RS_John]

I'm still learning about refresh rates & the inner workings of Moz - today I learned a bit more, thanks Matt.

[MattRoney]

Sure! It's almost like it's my job. In general, your timeline is accurate. Campaigns—including crawl report, keyword rankings, etc.—update weekly.

[BrighterFinance]

Thanks for the reply Matt, that makes a lot of sense.

As a follow-up query, if it's picked up on a large site that generates daily content, should the PA not improve by much, will the link even matter? The content was to a Wall St Journal property, and as a result I doubt people will read it now that it's a couple of weeks old and newer content has gone up on their site. Originally I was thrilled, but I'm starting to doubt whether it will matter that much to my rankings, as it will continue to go deeper and deeper in to their history.

Cheers, 
Marcus

[BrianJGomez]

If that link comes from a Wall St. Journal Property that doesn't allow just anyone to create pages with followed links (i.e. blogspot), I would anticipate that link yielding terrific long term results for your site's page and domain authority. Most small businesses have a very hard time getting those types of links so you should be very proud.

At the same time though, when it comes to linkbuilding always remember to play the long game. Every once in awhile that unicorn link that makes an instant impact comes along but generally speaking that's a result of click through traffic as a result of people clicking on that link when the page goes live ... it sounds like that's NOT the case here if I understand your post correctly so I would just keep doing what you're doing that got you that link in the first place

Also, I'm sure you've already done this but it's always a good idea to share links about your business from other sites on your social media for the bragging rights and of course, it won't hurt the value of that link to have good social signals going to it.

[BrighterFinance]

thanks so much for your reply Brian that makes a lot of sense.

I'm now just waiting for another couple of links to get indexed, then hopefully I'll see some rewards for the work done!

Cheers,

Marcus