Page Authority

Understanding Page Authority

Page Authority is a page-level scoring metric created by Moz that estimates the likelihood of a single URL ranking in Google's search results. Unlike Domain Authority, which evaluates an entire domain's ranking strength, Page Authority focuses exclusively on the ranking potential of one specific page. The score runs from 1 to 100, with higher values indicating a greater probability of ranking well.

The metric is computed using a machine learning algorithm trained against real Google search results. It incorporates data from Moz's Link Explorer index, weighing factors such as the total number of linking root domains, the authority of those linking domains, and the relevance of anchor text. Because the model is periodically retrained, PA scores can fluctuate even when no changes have been made to a page's backlink profile.

PA is best used as a comparative metric rather than an absolute benchmark. Comparing your page's PA against competing pages targeting the same keyword gives you a practical sense of where you stand in the link equity race. A page with a PA of 45 competing against pages averaging PA 30 has a strong positional advantage, while the same PA 45 page would face an uphill battle in a SERP where competitors average PA 60 or higher.

Why Page Authority Matters

Page Authority helps SEO professionals prioritize link building efforts at the individual URL level. Rather than spreading backlink acquisition across an entire site, you can identify which money pages have the weakest PA relative to their SERP competitors and focus outreach accordingly. This targeted approach delivers faster ranking improvements because you are closing the specific gap that matters for each keyword.

PA also serves as a diagnostic tool during content audits and internal linking reviews. Pages with high-quality content but low PA often indicate an internal linking deficiency — the page exists but the site's own link architecture is not funneling sufficient equity to it. Identifying these underlinked assets and building internal link pathways to them is one of the highest-ROI activities in technical SEO because it requires no external outreach.

Best Practices

• Compare your page's PA against the top 10 SERP competitors for your target keyword rather than chasing an arbitrary PA number in isolation.
• Build internal links from your highest-PA pages to underperforming pages that target valuable keywords to redistribute link equity efficiently.
• Earn backlinks from topically relevant domains rather than pursuing high-DA links from unrelated sites, as Moz's model weighs relevance alongside raw authority.
• Consolidate thin or duplicate pages using 301 redirects to funnel their accumulated link equity into a single canonical URL with stronger PA.
• Monitor PA trends monthly using Moz Pro or the MozBar browser extension to detect when competitors are actively building links to competing pages.
• Pair PA analysis with actual SERP position data — a page with rising PA but stagnant rankings may have content quality or on-page optimization issues that links alone cannot fix.