TL;DR

Page Authority (PA) is Moz's score for how authoritative a single page is based on its backlinks. Like Domain Authority, it's a proxy metric — not a Google signal — but useful for comparing pages and prioritizing link building targets.

Key Points

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Page Authority measures the predicted ranking strength of a single URL, while Domain Authority measures the entire domain

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PA is calculated using a machine learning model trained on thousands of search results — it's a relative score on a 100-point logarithmic scale

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Google does not use Page Authority; they use their own internal signals including PageRank, which is not publicly available

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PA is most useful for comparison: evaluating your page vs. competitors', or assessing the quality of a potential link source

PA vs. Domain Authority vs. PageRank

These three metrics are often confused but measure different things^[1]. Domain Authority (DA) scores the overall domain or subdomain. Page Authority (PA) scores a specific URL — a single page can have much higher PA than its domain's DA if it has accumulated many backlinks. PageRank is Google's internal measure of page importance based on the link graph — it's the actual signal Google uses for ranking, but has been unpublished since 2016. PA and DA are Moz's attempts to model what PageRank-like influence would look like from the outside. Ahrefs has URL Rating (UR) as an equivalent to PA, and Semrush has Authority Score at the URL level. None are the same as PageRank — treat them all as directional proxies, not ground truth.

How Page Authority Is Calculated

Moz calculates PA primarily from link data collected by their Mozbot crawler^[1]. The factors include: the number of unique root domains linking to the page, the quality and authority of those linking pages, the relevance of anchor text used in links, the diversity of the link profile, and internal link signals. The score is logarithmic — moving from 20 to 30 is easier than from 70 to 80. PA is recalculated as Moz refreshes its link index, which means scores can fluctuate even without any changes to the page itself. A competitor site gaining links will also affect your relative PA even if your own links haven't changed.

Using PA in Practice

Page Authority is useful for link building prospecting and competitive analysis^[2]. When evaluating a potential guest post opportunity, check the PA of their published articles — a site with a DA of 40 might have article pages with PA of 15-20, which tells you the actual link value you'd receive. For competitive analysis, compare the PA of pages ranking above you for a target keyword — if competitors have PA of 35-45 and yours is 20, you have a clear gap that requires more link building effort. Don't obsess over specific PA numbers; use them as a ranking-order tool to prioritize efforts. A page with PA 30 linking to you is more valuable than ten PA 5 links.

SOURCES

Moz — What Is Page Authority?

Ahrefs — Domain Rating: What It Is and What It's Good For

Last updated: June 9, 2026

Related Terms

Domain Authority

A third-party score (0–100) developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine results pages based on its backlink profile.

PageRank

Google's original algorithm that assigns a numerical importance score to web pages based on the quantity and quality of links pointing to them, treating each link as a 'vote' of confidence.

Backlink

A hyperlink from one website pointing to a page on another website, used by search engines as a signal of authority and trust.

Link Equity

The SEO value and ranking power passed from one page to another through hyperlinks — sometimes called 'link juice' — determining how much of a linking page's authority is transferred to the pages it links to.

Put it into practice

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