I am a professional blogger.
Well, in the loosest sense of the word….as far as anyone can be professional with Lego lying about all over the floor, and a tendency to eat at my desk.
I also used to be a business analyst so I am a little bit partial to the odd number. I even like a spot of digging and faffing about with the website analytics type stuff that most people ignore in favour of watching paint dry.
This meant that when my domain authority dropped a few weeks ago, I noticed.
What is domain authority?
Some people think that Google rules the Internet, and generally speaking, they do. However, PRs and SEOs don’t just use Google’s data to find out about the quality of a site, they also use other organisations statistics. One such company is Moz.
Moz provides a number of metrics, of which domain authority is one. It tells an organisation how trustworthy and authoritative your site is within your niche. In other words, does your site provide great, trustworthy content that my brand would like to be associated with?
Higher domain authority means a more authoritative site; a blog with over 40 is considered to be very good, but anything over 35 isn’t a slouch either.
Why should you keep an eye on it?
Factors that influence your domain authority include the age of your site, links into it, and links within it. As with Google page rank, there isn’t one factor that affects it. Annoyingly, there are quite a few of them.
If you want to stay professional, and avoid tripping over that Lego, then you need to keep a look out as otherwise you might get a very sharp jab in the bottom of your foot.
This means it is wise to keep a record of your domain authority, so that if there is a blip in the way the index is calculated, you can actually tell. You are then in a great position to ask the lovely Moz people what is going on with a little more than a feeling something isn’t right.
After the domain authority shenanigans of the last two weeks, I now watch very carefully what is happening to my Moz metrics on a weekly basis. If you nip over to the KiddyCharts blog , you can too with my lovely new spreadsheet. There is also more information on domain authority in this article too.
In you keep track of your statistics, you can avoid not spotting those nasty, pointy bits of Lego lying about all over the floor and putting you off your blogging stride.
Helen Neale is Webmaster extraordinaire at kiddycharts.com, which she began in January 2012 to distract her from running around after her two kids. She used to be a business analyst and still has an unhealthy obsession with all things geek. She blogs for fun at stickersstarsandsmiles.com, and is much less professional there; watch out for the dirty washing lying about. She spends too much time on Facebook and Twitter, and rather likes Lego and Strawberry Laces.