Domain authority

[MauiCoffee]

Wondering why my domain authority has dropped after about three months of trying to implement the best practices suggested on this site. Can anyone help?

[DavidKauzlaric]

To make an even basic attempt at helping you, I would need to know your URL, what changes you've made, what kind of drops you've seen, and what you think the issue is as a starting point.

[KrisRoadruck]

Like david said it'd be helpful to see the stats and what you've done.. that being said... SEOmoz does play with that metric from time to time as seen here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/linkscapes-august-update-better-domain-authority-numbers-new-partners-and-more

It may be a situation of "Its not you, its me" if you know what I'm sayin.

[MauiCoffee]

Thanks guys for your responses.

URL is www.mauicoffee.com. Since hopping on here, I've improved most page titles, attempted to optimize page content for key pages (most now score As and Bs using the On-Page Analysis tool), added more internal links targeting back to key ranking pages, brought in some external links from well-respected sites, and reduced duplicate page content. Authority dropped from 36 to 32 after about one month, and has not bounced back. I don't really have an idea why. I know there's a lot more work to be done with the site (including a complete visual overhaul which is in the works), but it's discouraging to see the work I've put in doesn't seem to be having much of an impact in terms of how my page is viewed by the search engines.

Thanks in advance for any further advice.

[DavidKauzlaric]

You should give it another month or two. They only do Linkscape updates once a month so your true DA could be higher but it has not been recalculated as of yet.

I say wait for the next update or two. In the meantime, keep building authoritative links that are as white-hat as they come. Write engaging content that is very useful to your site visitors, and you'll see your DA go up along with your rankings, traffic, etc...

[KrisRoadruck]

pretty much all the of the onsite stuff you have done has no impact on domain authority. Domain Authority (at least the way I think of it.. SEOmoz may calculate in some other factors) is entirely derived from the types and quantities of links pointed at your domain.

Some possible reasons for it going down would be either Moz making adjustments to the algorithm that calculates it, a change in their index size or index content (maybe they stopped including some stuff that was previously in their index), or the more likely senario that some site or sites that were linking to you arent passing as much authority as they used to and your score is reflecting that.

[MauiCoffee]

Thanks again to both of you. The responses and advice are much appreciated and quite reassuring.

[KeriMorgret]

MauiCoffee, how are things going with your site now that there have been a couple of more months for the changes to take effect?

Q&A is really active these days. If you have other specific questions about how we could help your site, feel free to jump on in with a fresh question -- you're sure to find lots of help!

[wedmonds]

Yep agreed, would be interesting to know what happend to your site some months on.

[MauiCoffee]

Well here it is nearly 6 months later and no improvement -- in fact, we have slipped even further in domain authority despite adding some links that have seemingly impressive domain authority like dmoz.org and Google places. Any other suggestions?