Why are Internal, nofollowed links good for Domain Authority?

[BottleGreenWebsites]

I always thought that internal links should be 'followed' to preserve link-juice.
I've just been checking my Domain Authority Links overview, and the competitor with the most no-follow internal links has been rewarded with a higher Moz DA score.
Can anyone explain why this would be the case?

JRJ4Dwn

[SEO_Help]

This a situation where I would be examining the external link profile to determine how their deep linking is going.  There is a good chance they are linking to many more internal urls than you.  Recorded a quick video with some info.

This is where SEO gets fun!

view?usp=sharing

[meghanpahinui]

Hi there!

Thanks so much for the great question! Sorry for any confusion here. The new model is based on links that come from external pages only. We have a great resource all about the new DA model that may help as well: https://moz.com/domain-authority-2.0

We also have a great resource in our Learning Center that talks more about DA as well: https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority

And we have a great blog post that talks more about the new DA score which may be helpful: https://moz.com/blog/comprehensive-analysis-domain-authority

I hope that helps to clarify! If you have any other questions or you need anything else, please feel free to email us at help@moz.com.

[BottleGreenWebsites]

Thanks for your answers.

I'll assume then that 'Internal Nofollow links' are included in the Links Overview report more for information, than as a factor that goes towards DA.

I think I was confused because the competitors website had Internal Nofollow highlighted in green with a tick (see image in OP), that made me think it was included as a factor in DA.