Page Authority: An Important But Overlooked Link Building Metric

Domain-level authority has received far more attention over the years than page authority, which has led to a lot of SEOs and link builders–especially newbies–neglecting what is, in reality, a very important metric. 

We’ve covered domain authority in depth if you would like a deeper dive into what this metric is and how to increase yours. 

In the below article, we are going to delve into the world of page authority, which will include distinguishing it from its much more well-known big brother: domain authority. 

We’ll discuss how you can incorporate page authority analysis into your link building efforts and why it makes sense to do so. 

Let’s get started. 

What is page authority?

Page Authority, like Domain Authority, is a proprietary metric developed by SEO analytics company MOZ. 

Think of Page Authority as a more granular Domain Authority score. Instead of evaluating an entire domain’s likelihood of ranking in the SERP, PA looks at how likely it is that a particular page will rank well. 

It is a useful score to focus on both from an internal as well as external SEO perspective and one that can help you build better links. 

Page Authority for internal links

A lot of marketers and SEOs rely on Page Authority as a kind of checklist that you can use to ensure you are doing good on-page search engine optimization. 

It’s a good idea to stay on top of the page authority for each one of your web pages so that you can track your inbound marketing efforts and see what is and what isn’t working. 

For instance, if you have a blog page that has particularly low Page Authority, you can compare it with pages that have much better Page Authority to see where you might be lacking.

Better Page Authority means more websites are going to want to link to a given page because good external linking means only linking out to trustworthy, reputable pages (which PA, via backlinks, is a proxy for).

Page Authority for external links

A page’s authority when it comes to external SEO is something you can use to guide your own link building decisions. 

A page with high Page Authority and niche relevance is the ideal page for link building purposes. Links from these kinds of pages are going to be looked upon favorably by search engines as trust signals. 

Incorporate enough of these high quality backlinks into a page’s backlink profile (the total number of referring domains linking to a page), and it is very likely that you will see better ranking and organic traffic because of it. 

Page Authority vs Domain Authority

From a link building perspective, both Page and Domain Authority (or Page and Domain Rating) are the two authority metrics used to evaluate the quality and desirability of a backlink. 

Domain authority

Domain authority, again, refers to the backlink profile and ranking potential of an entire website (the domain). 

A good Domain Authority score correlates quite highly with how and where you rank on the search engine results page. 

In the world of search engine optimization and link building, DA and high quality backlinks, to a large degree, are synonymous. 

You can use a DA PA Checker to better understand both your Page and Domain Authority. 

A website’s domain authority, provided it also receives a good amount of organic traffic and creates high quality content, is usually a safe bet when it comes to link building opportunities. 

Page Authority

Page authority measures the SEO strength of an individual page on a website. 

Your Page and Domain-level authority tend to increase in tandem. 

Links that point to any page on your website are going to a) increase your domain-level authority and site-wide rankings and b) increase the page-level authority of the target page. 

How to improve your own page authority

As we mentioned at the outset, you should be looking to both a) build links with page authority in mind and b) increase your own authority so that your pages are more attractive link building targets for others. 

With that in mind, some of the best ways to improve your own page authority include: 

• Focusing on E-E-A-T
• Building backlinks 
• Updating older content regularly 
• Avoiding black hat link building techniques

Create your content with E–E-A-T in mind 

E-E-A-T stands for Expertise, Experience, Authority and Trust and they are the metrics by which Google evaluates and subsequently ranks content. 

The way you infuse E-E-A-T into your content is by doing the following: 

• Choose to write about engaging topics that people are interested in reading and learning about. 
• Use high-quality sources of information
• Make use of trusted and valuable industry sources of information. 
• Make content that is linkable. 
• Make sure the content is optimized for user experience, including things like page speed, paragraph and content length, bullet points and other easily digestible content conventions, and multimedia (images, video, graphs, and other visualizations). 

Build backlinks

At the end of the day, backlinks continue to be one of the most important Google ranking factors and a primary way in which search engines determine how trusted a piece of content is. 

Pages with a lot of inbound links from reputable, relevant websites are very often the ones that Google is going to deem the most trustworthy. 

If you are in a highly competitive niche where there are well-established incumbents competing for the top spots in the SERP, then you are definitely going to need to invest some time and money into link building in order to build up both your page and domain-level authority.

That is where an experienced link building service like dofollow can make all the different in the world. 

We build the kinds of user-centric links that Google likes to see and confer that trust and authority that is going to place you higher up in the SERP. 

Here are some of the links we’ve built for our clients over the years: 

Keep your content updated

Keeping your content updated is another important part of improving your page authority. 

That could involve both stylistic changes to improve user experience as well as informational updates to reflect changing industry standards, new developments or simply additional content to make a page more comprehensive and useful to readers. 

There is no set schedule for how often you should update your content, but you should be making both UX and content-depth related changes on a regular basis. 

Avoiding black hat link building tactics: Building baclinks that search engines like

Black hat link building refers to tactics that seek to manipulate ranking by building spammy links with no thought to user experience. 

Google really doesn’t like these sorts of techniques and will either neutralize any SEO value that you think you are passing onto your page or, if you build enough of these links, Google might decide to slap you with a manual action penalty for link spam. 

These sorts of penalties can seriously hurt your traffic and and ranking and ultimately cost you money until they are resolved. 

You can protect your Page Rank by monitoring your backlinks to ensure you aren’t acquiring and spammy links pointing to a particular page and by avoiding techniques that Google is against. 

Do all of these things and you create the most attractive backlink targets for other websites and increase the odds of building Page Authority and enjoying better visibility in the search results. 

How to build links with PA in mind

There are a few things to always keep in mind when building backlinks to ensure that your page’s authority gets the biggest boost possible. 

They are: 

• The domain authority of the referring domain
• The page authority of the referring domain
• The relevance of the site and page
• The traffic and engagement rate of the page
• Link placement and anchor text

Domain authority 

Regarding how a site's domain authority translates to better page authority for your target page, it's important to understand that domain authority influences the authority passed from one page to another within the same domain. When a high domain authority website links to your website, it can contribute to the overall authority of your domain.

This domain-level authority, in turn, can positively impact the page authority of your target page on your site.

Page authority is a metric that predicts the likelihood of a specific web page ranking well in search engine results. By obtaining backlinks from high domain authority websites, you increase the chances of search engines considering your target page as authoritative, which can result in higher page authority and improved rankings for that specific page.

However, it's worth noting that page authority is also influenced by other factors, such as the relevance and quality of the content on the target page, the internal linking structure within your website, and other on-page optimization techniques. Therefore, while domain authority contributes to page authority, it's not the sole determinant.

Page authority

Page-level authority of a referring page is important to focus on because it’s a proxy for the importance and credibility of a web page in the eyes of search engines like Google.

Pages with higher authority are more likely to rank higher. By acquiring links from high-authority pages, you increase the likelihood of improving your own search engine rankings.

There’s also the traffic generation potential of high authority pages. When you acquire a link from a high authority page with good monthly traffic, you are also directing relevant visitors to your website. This targeted traffic can potentially result in increased exposure, conversions, and business opportunities.

Relevance

Search engines like Google aim to provide the most relevant and useful results to their users. When evaluating the relevance of a backlink, search engines analyze the context of the referring page to determine its relationship to the linked content. If the referring page is topically related to your website's content, it signals to search engines that the link is likely to be valuable and genuine.

When building backlinks, you should prioritize acquiring links from both relevant domains and relevant pages within those domains. The ideal scenario is to obtain backlinks from pages that closely match your content and are situated within domains that are highly authoritative and contextually relevant to your website.

Having both things in mind ensures that the link only strengthens the authority and credibility of your site in the eyes of search engines but also ensures that users who follow the links find valuable and meaningful content.

Traffic and engagement

The amount of traffic a referring page receives are indicative of its popularity and visibility, so of course backlinks from pages with high traffic can potentially drive a significant number of visitors to your website.

This influx of traffic can increase your site's exposure, attract new users, and potentially lead to conversions, such as sales, sign-ups, or other desired actions. More page visits and more time on page also send signals to Google that your content is worth ranking. 

You want to consider traffic relevance, though. Traffic volume is important, but it is equally crucial to consider the relevance of the traffic. Backlinks from pages that attract an audience interested in your industry or niche have a higher chance of generating qualified traffic, thereby increasing engagement metrics. 

Link placement and anchor text

Link placement and anchor text are also important elements of both page and domain authority. 

Placing your link somewhere visible (typically within the first few paragraphs of a page) means it is more easily seen by users. What’s more, placing links in relevant and intuitive locations enhances the experience by giving people links they can follow in the places they would typically look for information.

If you are doing guest post or niche edit link building–the two strategies dofollow specializes in–you have a lot of control over link placement.

Placing links in authoritative and trustworthy locations can influence how users perceive your website. If your links are placed alongside reputable sources or within relevant and reliable content, it can enhance your website's credibility and build trust with your audience.

Anchor text

After you have decided where you’re going to place a link, you then have to decide what the hyperlinked text is going to say. 

There are various kinds of anchor text–from descriptive to naked URLs–and Google has specific policies and recommendations in place to regulate and judge anchor text use. 

Careful and appropriate anchor text selection is a major part of our editorial process at dofollow and an important part of how we are able to build links that move the needle. 

Wrapping it up

Page authority, both your own and that of the websites you are building links to, is a vital part of link building. 

You want to build links to URLs with good page authority and relevance, which in turns increases your own page authority and relevance, making your content more attractive and more likely to build and attract organic backlinks. 

Page authority is one of those self-reinforcing metrics where the more you focus on it, both externally and internally, the better it works on both levels. 

Page authority is something we take very seriously at dofollow and put a lot of faith in as a link building metric. Get in touch with us today and find out more about how our contract-free, transparent, user-centric link building tactics can help skyrocket your ranking, traffic and conversions.