Page Authority
Page authority is a page-level score that estimates how well a single URL will rank in search results, based on the strength of links pointing to it.
Page Authority (PA) is a score created by Moz that estimates how well a specific URL will rank in search results, calculated from the quantity and quality of external and internal links pointing to that page.
What Page Authority Means in Marketing
Where Domain Authority measures the strength of a whole domain, Page Authority zooms in to a single URL. The same domain can have pages with very different PA scores. The homepage almost always has the highest PA because it collects the most links. A deeply nested blog post from three years ago may have a PA of 15 even on a strong domain, because few external sites have linked specifically to that URL.
Page Authority is a Moz metric, not a Google ranking signal. Like Domain Authority, it is a third-party proxy for ranking potential, useful for comparing pages and prioritising SEO work, but not the number Google’s algorithm directly reads.
For practical SEO work, PA helps answer questions like: which of our pages are in the best position to rank for competitive keywords? Which pages would benefit most from internal links pointing to them? Which competitor pages are likely to be the hardest to displace?
How Page Authority Works
Moz calculates PA using a machine learning model trained on link data from its web crawl. The inputs are the number of links pointing to the specific URL, the authority of those linking pages, and internal link signals from within the same domain. The scale is 1 to 100, logarithmic: easy to move from 1 to 20, very hard to move from 60 to 70.
A key implication is that internal linking can directly influence PA. Your homepage is your most powerful internal link source. Linking from the homepage to a specific piece of content raises that content’s PA. More broadly, structuring your site so that authority flows from high-PA pages to important target pages through internal links is a genuine SEO tactic with measurable effects on ranking potential.
External links pointing specifically to a page, earned through digital PR, content that attracts citations and link building outreach, are the primary driver of PA growth for important pages.
Page Authority Example
A news site covering Indian markets might find that its section homepage for “Personal Finance” has a PA of 55, because many external sites have linked to it as a resource. But an individual article from six months ago about ELSS funds might have a PA of 22, because while it ranks well and earns traffic, few sites have linked specifically to that URL. If that article is strategically important, adding internal links from the site’s most authoritative pages, including the Personal Finance section page, can raise its PA and improve its ranking position for competitive queries.
Why Page Authority Matters for Marketers
PA gives you a way to prioritise link building efforts and understand where authority is and is not flowing within your site. Knowing which of your pages are strongest helps you decide which ones to push for competitive keywords and which ones need more authority before they can rank. It also helps you evaluate link building opportunities: a link from a page with PA 60 is more valuable than one from a page with PA 15, even if both are on the same domain.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Page Authority differ from Domain Authority?
Domain Authority (DA) estimates the ranking strength of a whole domain. Page Authority (PA) estimates the ranking strength of a single URL. A high-DA site has strong overall link equity, but individual pages on that site can have very different PA scores depending on how many links point specifically to each one. Your homepage is usually your highest-PA page. Deep interior pages with few external links pointing to them typically have low PA even on a high-DA domain.
Can internal links increase Page Authority?
Internal links distribute authority from high-PA pages on your own site to lower-PA pages. When your homepage links to a specific article, some of the homepage's authority flows to that article, raising its ability to rank. This is one reason internal linking is an important SEO tactic: you can boost the ranking potential of important pages by ensuring your most authoritative pages link to them. The practice is sometimes called internal link building or passing link juice.
Is Page Authority accurate for predicting rankings?
It is a useful indicator but not a reliable predictor. PA measures the link equity pointing at a page as calculated by Moz's own crawl data, which does not match Google's index exactly. Content quality, relevance, user experience and many other factors influence rankings independently of link equity. Two pages with identical PA can rank very differently for the same query depending on content quality. Use PA to compare the relative link strength of pages, not to predict absolute ranking positions.
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