Also known as: Domain Rating (DR), Authority Score, DA
Domain Authority (DA) is a third-party score from 1 to 100, created by Moz, that predicts how likely a whole website is to rank in search results. It is not a Google metric — it is a comparative estimate of a site's backlink strength relative to others.
For a Forex affiliate, DA is a quick proxy for the overall SEO muscle of your domain, driven mainly by the quantity and quality of sites linking to you. Competing tools report their own versions of the same idea: Ahrefs calls it Domain Rating (DR), and SEMrush calls it Authority Score. All three are logarithmic, so climbing from 20 to 30 is far easier than climbing from 60 to 70, and none of them directly feed Google's algorithm.
DA matters most as a benchmarking tool. The Forex space is dominated by banks, regulators, and established comparison portals with DA scores of 70–90+, so a brand-new affiliate site at DA 10–15 has little chance of ranking for a head term like "best forex broker." A realistic worked example: a review site sitting at DA 12 and stuck on page five for "MT4 brokers" runs a year of digital PR and guest posting, reaches roughly DA 45, and sees its reviews move onto page one — not because DA itself ranks pages, but because the same link-building that raised DA also raised the pages.
Because DA is an estimate, treat it as a compass, not a KPI. Use it to size up competitors and gauge whether a prospective backlink source is strong, but judge your own success on organic traffic, keyword rankings, and conversions — the numbers that actually pay commission.
DA is calculated from a site's backlink profile — the number of unique referring domains, their own authority, and the overall link pattern — run through a machine-learning model trained to correlate with actual Google rankings. Add strong, relevant links and the score tends to rise; the model is also periodically recalibrated, so scores can shift even when your links do not.
Because it is logarithmic and relative, DA is best read as a percentile against competitors rather than an absolute grade. The practical workflow is: check the DA of sites already ranking for your target keywords, aim to build a comparable or stronger profile, and prioritise earning links from domains with higher authority than your own, since those pass the most weight.
Record the DA/DR of the sites ranking on page one for your money keywords to set a realistic target.
Measure your own DA and referring domains, and identify gaps versus those competitors.
Run digital PR, guest posts, and data studies to attract DoFollow links from stronger finance sites.
Disavow spammy or paid links that could drag authority down or trigger a penalty.
Watch keyword positions and organic traffic as the real proof that rising authority is working.
Why it matters for partnership: In a keyword space owned by giant financial institutions, a low-DA affiliate site cannot rank for the lucrative terms that convert. Building authority through quality backlinks lets your reviews outrank competitors and capture the free organic traffic that becomes funded accounts and commission.
A new affiliate review site at DA 12 ranks on page five for "MT4 brokers." Over a year it earns DoFollow links from a DA 78 financial-news outlet and several DA 40–60 trading blogs, lifting its DA to about 45. Its broker reviews move to page one, organic sessions grow from a few hundred to several thousand a month, and CPA conversions rise in step.
| Metric | Provider | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | 1–100 |
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | 0–100 |
| Authority Score | SEMrush | 0–100 |
| (No official equivalent) | Not published |
Prioritise links from domains with higher authority than your own — a single DoFollow link from a DA 80 finance site typically moves your rankings more than fifty links from DA 10 blogs.
Obsessing over the DA number as a goal in itself — it is a third-party estimate, not a Google metric, so inflating it while ignoring relevant traffic and conversions wastes budget on vanity.
Consistently earn high-quality DoFollow backlinks from reputable, relevant finance and trading sites, publish link-worthy content, and remove toxic links. There is no shortcut — authority follows a genuinely strong backlink profile.
No. DA is a third-party score from Moz that estimates ranking potential. Google does not use it. It is useful for benchmarking, not as a direct input to rankings.
It depends on your competitors. To rank for competitive broker terms you often need a DA comparable to the sites already on page one — frequently 40+ — but for long-tail terms a lower DA can still rank.
Moz periodically recalibrates the model and the size of its index, which can shift scores across the whole web. Focus on your rankings and traffic, which reflect real performance.
They measure the same idea — backlink-based authority — but come from different providers (Ahrefs vs Moz) with different data and formulas, so the exact numbers will not match. Compare like with like.
Buying links violates Google's guidelines and risks a penalty that harms your actual rankings, even if a vanity score rises briefly. Earn links through content, data, and PR instead.