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How to Check Domain Authority of a Website (Free, Bulk, and Automated Ways)

The fastest way to check a website's domain authority is to paste its URL into a free checker. Moz's Domain Analysis tool gives you a Domain Authority (DA) score in one click without an account, and Ahrefs and Semrush offer similar free checkers that return their own authority scores (Moz, 2026). That takes about ten seconds. But if you're checking dozens of sites, tracking changes over time, or feeding scores into your own reports, you'll need bulk tools or an API — and there are easier ways to get all of it automatically, which we'll cover below.

This guide walks through every method, what the scores actually mean, and how to read them without drawing the wrong conclusions.

Definition

What Is Domain Authority, Exactly?

Domain Authority (DA) is a score from 1 to 100, created by Moz, that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search results. It's calculated mainly from the number and quality of backlinks pointing to a site (Moz, 2026).

Three things matter for reading the score correctly:

  • It's comparative, not absolute. A DA of 30 can be strong in a small niche and weak in a competitive one. The number only has meaning next to the DA scores of sites that actually compete with you for the same keywords.
  • Different tools use different names and different math. Moz calls it DA, Ahrefs calls it Domain Rating (DR), and Semrush calls it Authority Score. The same website can show 35 on one tool and 48 on another — that's normal, because each tool uses its own link index (Semrush, 2026).
  • It's not a Google metric. Google doesn't use or publish DA. Google removed its own PageRank score from public view years ago, which is why third-party scores filled the gap.

If you want the full background, our guide on what domain authority is covers the calculation in detail. And before you set targets, read what a good domain authority actually is — the honest answer is "higher than the sites you're competing against," not a fixed number.

Step by step

How to Check Domain Authority for Free

Free checkers are the right starting point for most small business owners. Here's how to use each one, in the order most people try them.

  1. Step 1

    Check the score with a free tool.

    Go to Moz's free Domain Analysis tool, type in a domain, and you'll see the DA score, Page Authority, spam score, and the site's top search competitors. Moz lets you run 3 free reports per day without logging in (Moz, 2026).

    Ahrefs' Website Authority Checker returns the site's Domain Rating (DR) plus a snapshot of its backlink profile, and Semrush's free Website Authority Checker reports an Authority Score on the same 1–100 scale along with backlink and traffic context (Ahrefs; Semrush, 2026).

    Illustration of a free domain authority checker with a URL being entered and a DA score displayed
    What a free checker shows: enter a domain, and you get the authority score plus supporting context like page authority and spam score.
  2. Step 2

    Check the same site on a second tool.

    Because each tool uses its own link index, one score gives you a rough position and two scores give you a stable range. The free Ahrefs checker doesn't require an account for a single lookup; unlimited checking and the browser extension need a free Ahrefs account (Ahrefs, 2026).

  3. Step 3

    Look past the number.

    A score alone doesn't tell you much. Check which sites link to the domain, whether those links look natural, and whether the site ranks for real keywords. Semrush recommends running your own domain, then checking the authority of the sites linking to you — links from low-authority sites do much less for you (Semrush, 2026).

  4. Step 4

    Compare against your real competitors.

    Look up the domains that actually outrank you for your target keywords. If a competitor with a lower DA than yours is outranking you, the gap isn't authority — it's content quality, page optimization, or search intent. That's a critical distinction, because building links blindly wastes months.

Tool landscape

Domain Authority Tools Compared

ToolMetricFree checkingBest for
Moz DA, PA, spam score 3 free reports/day, no login The original DA score; spam score
Ahrefs DR, UR Single checks free; more with free account Backlink profile strength
Semrush Authority Score Free tool available Score plus traffic context
Votrix AI Authority metrics via DataForSEO Free quota included Automatic tracking, competitor comparisons, acting on the results

For most business owners, one free lookup answers a curiosity ("how strong is this site?"). The harder question is the one that follows: "how do I get stronger?" That's a monitoring and backlink problem, and it's where the approaches diverge.

At scale

How to Check Domain Authority in Bulk

Checking one domain at a time doesn't scale when you want to size up an entire market — say, the ten sites fighting you for "plumber Austin." A bulk domain authority checker tool lets you paste a list of URLs and get every score at once. Tools like DA PA Checker can process up to 1,000 URLs in one run, pulling DA, PA, spam score, and domain age together (DA PA Checker, 2026).

A practical workflow:

  1. List the domains that appear in the top results for your five most important keywords.
  2. Run them through a bulk checker.
  3. Note the average DA of the top results for each keyword.
  4. Treat that average as the entry price for ranking there.
Illustration of a bulk domain authority check: a list of URLs turned into a table of scores
Bulk checking turns a list of competitor domains into one score table, so you can see the whole market's strength at a glance.

Sites like SEO Review Tools also offer a bulk mode that calculates the average DA and PA for a group of competitors, which turns raw scores into a benchmark (SEO Review Tools, 2026).

Over time

How to Check Historical Domain Authority

A single snapshot tells you where a site is today, but not whether it's rising or falling. Historical domain authority shows the trend — and the trend matters more than the level. A site climbing from 20 to 35 is doing something right; a site sliding from 40 to 25 is losing links.

Two ways to see it:

  • Tools that track scores over time, like Moz's reporting, let you watch your own DA move month by month.
  • Third-party services and browser extensions such as Keywords Everywhere can surface historical DA data for domains you look up (Keywords Everywhere, 2026).
35 20 Month 1 · DA 20 Month 12 · DA 35
A site climbing from DA 20 to DA 35 over twelve months is gaining links — the trend matters more than the level.

For your own site, the most important use is measuring whether your SEO work is paying off. If your DA has been flat for six months despite publishing content, something in your link acquisition is broken — and that's a signal worth acting on quickly, because competitors with growing authority will pass you.

For developers

Using a Domain Authority API

If you build reports, dashboards, or internal tools, checking scores by hand won't work. A domain authority API lets software request a score programmatically. Moz offers DA through its Mozscape API, and many free checkers are built on top of it (Moz, 2026). DataForSEO offers a similar backlinks and authority data API that powers many third-party tools.

This matters more than it sounds for small teams: once authority data flows into the systems that already manage your SEO — rather than living in a separate browser tab — it becomes something you act on instead of something you look at.

The shortcut

The Easier Way: Track Authority Automatically

Here's the honest catch with every method above: checking is a few seconds, but everything around it — comparing against competitors, watching trends, finding which pages need links, then actually earning those links — is hours of manual work every month. Most small business owners don't need another tab; they need the loop closed.

That's exactly what Votrix AI does.

It's a fully automated SEO and GEO agent that checks your website authority and your competitors' authority using DataForSEO data, maps the backlink gap between you and them, and then works on closing it: it writes and publishes articles and pages, rewrites pages that aren't ranking, sends outreach emails to earn links and mentions, verifies that Google and AI crawlers can read your site, and tracks whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews mention you. Connect it to Google Search Console and you'll see your real rankings, clicks, and impressions in the same place. It's free within the free quota, and pay-per-usage beyond that.

Votrix AI dashboard showing a sample company ranking first in Google after SEO work
Sample Votrix AI output: a Google search results page the agent keeps track of.
ChatGPT recommending the sample company first after Votrix AI GEO work
Sample Votrix AI output: an AI assistant conversation the agent keeps track of.

So instead of running a bulk checker on your competitors each month and deciding manually what to do, you get the scores, the gap analysis, and the execution in one system. If you want to see it in action, start at the Votrix AI SEO manager.

Start freeSee how it works

Pitfalls

Common Mistakes When Reading a DA Score

  • Chasing a number instead of competitors. Getting from DA 30 to DA 35 means nothing if the sites beating you are at 25. Set your target relative to the top results for your keywords.
  • Comparing DA to DR as if they're the same. A DA of 40 and a DR of 40 come from different calculations and different link indexes. If you mix them in one report, you're comparing apples and oranges. Our DA vs DR breakdown explains the difference.
  • Ignoring page-level authority. Pages compete for rankings, not just whole domains. A weak page on a strong domain can still lose to a well-optimized page from a weaker site. See our guide on DA vs page authority.
  • Treating DA as a ranking factor. Google has confirmed it doesn't use DA. It's a proxy — useful for planning, useless if you mistake it for how Google actually works.
  • Panicking over normal fluctuation. Scores update as link indexes refresh. A two-point monthly move is noise; a sustained ten-point drop over several months is a signal.

Next steps

What to Do After You've Checked It

Checking tells you where you stand; it doesn't move the number. Raising authority comes down to earning links from sites that are themselves authoritative — which means content other sites want to reference and outreach to get it seen. That's a whole discipline of its own, and we walk through it in how to increase domain authority.

If you'd rather skip the manual loop, Votrix AI handles that end too — it identifies the pages that need help and sends the link and mention invitations that build authority over time.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is website authority?

Website authority is a measure of how likely a site is to rank in search results, based mostly on the quantity and quality of sites linking to it. The most common version is Moz's Domain Authority (DA), a 1–100 score.

How do I check the domain authority of any website?

Enter the domain's URL into a free checker. Moz's Domain Analysis tool works without an account (3 free reports per day), and Ahrefs and Semrush offer free website authority checkers that return their own equivalent scores.

How can I check my domain authority, PA, and spam score together?

Moz's free Domain Analysis tool shows DA, Page Authority, and spam score for any domain in one report, so you can see domain strength, page strength, and link quality risk together.

Is there a bulk domain authority checker?

Yes. Tools like DA PA Checker process up to 1,000 URLs in a single run and can pull DA, PA, spam score, and domain age together — useful when you want to benchmark all your competitors at once.

Can I check historical domain authority?

Some tools and extensions track DA over time, letting you see whether a site's authority is trending up or down. For your own site, tracking the monthly trend is more useful than any single snapshot.

Does Google use domain authority?

No. Google does not use DA in its ranking system. It's a third-party metric from Moz that predicts ranking ability based on backlinks, and it's most useful as a way to compare yourself against competitors.

Is there a domain authority API?

Yes. Moz's Mozscape API provides DA programmatically, and DataForSEO offers authority and backlink data APIs that many tools build on. Votrix AI uses DataForSEO data to track authority automatically.

Sources

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