Do Backlinks Increase Domain Authority? The Honest Answer

Short answer: yes. Backlinks are the single biggest factor behind your Domain Authority score. Nothing else comes close.

Longer answer: not every backlink helps, some can actually hurt, and the way most people go about getting links is somewhere between ineffective and dangerous. So if you’re asking this question because you’re wondering whether link building is worth the effort — it is. But only if you do it right.

Let’s unpack the whole thing properly. What Domain Authority actually measures, why backlinks drive it, which links move the needle and which ones are a waste of money, and how to earn the kind that matter.

What Domain Authority Actually Measures

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric created by Moz. It scores your website from 1 to 100 and predicts how likely you are to rank in search results. The higher the number, the stronger your site’s ranking ability.

Here’s the part that matters for this article: DA is calculated primarily from your link profile. Moz looks at the number of websites linking to you, the authority of those websites, and the overall quality of your link graph, then rolls it into a single score.

Two things worth knowing about how the score works:

• The scale is logarithmic. That means going from DA 10 to DA 20 is dramatically easier than going from DA 60 to DA 70. The higher you climb, the more quality links it takes to move each additional point. This is why new sites see fast early gains and established sites feel stuck.
• It’s relative, not absolute. Your DA only means something compared to the sites you’re competing against. A DA of 30 is plenty if your competitors are at 25, and hopelessly low if they’re at 70.

So when people ask “do backlinks increase Domain Authority,” the answer is baked into the definition. Backlinks aren’t just one factor among many — they’re the raw material the score is built from.

The Honest Truth: Google Doesn’t Use Domain Authority

Before we go further, let’s clear up the biggest misconception in this whole conversation.

Google does not use Domain Authority. It’s not a ranking factor. Nobody at Google looks at your Moz DA score and adjusts your rankings. DA is a third-party metric — Moz’s best attempt to model what Google’s own internal authority measurements might look like.

Does that make it useless? No. DA correlates well with actual ranking ability, because it’s based on the same underlying signal Google cares about most: who links to you. A site with a DA of 60 will, on average, outrank a site with a DA of 20 for the same query. Not because Google checks the score, but because the link profile behind that score is genuinely stronger.

Think of DA as a thermometer. The thermometer doesn’t make you sick — but it tells you something useful about what’s going on. Track it, use it to benchmark against competitors, but don’t obsess over the number itself. Obsess over the link profile that produces it.

Quality vs. Quantity: What Actually Moves DA

Here’s where most link building goes wrong. People assume more links equals more authority, so they chase volume. Fifty directory submissions. A hundred blog comments. A “DA 50+ link package” from a seller who promises 200 backlinks for the price of a pizza.

It doesn’t work that way. Not even close.

A single backlink from a respected, relevant website can do more for your DA than a hundred links from low-quality sites. I’ve audited sites with massive link counts stuck at low DA, and sites with modest link profiles punching far above their weight. The difference is always the same: who is linking, not how many.

What makes a backlink high quality? Three things:

• Authority of the linking site. A link from a well-established site with its own strong link profile passes more weight than a link from a brand-new blog nobody reads.
• Relevance. A link from a site in your industry or niche counts for more than a link from an unrelated site. A plumbing company linked by a home improvement blog makes sense. The same company linked by a casino review site looks suspicious.
• Editorial placement. A link that a site owner chose to include because your content is genuinely useful carries more weight than a link you placed yourself in a comment section, forum signature, or directory listing anyone can join.

When all three line up — an authoritative, relevant site linking to you editorially — that’s the kind of link that actually moves your DA.

Dofollow vs. Nofollow: Does It Matter?

You’ll hear a lot of strong opinions about this. Here’s the balanced version.

A dofollow link is a normal link — it passes ranking credit from the linking page to yours. A nofollow link includes a tag telling search engines not to pass that credit. Nofollow links are common on social media, blog comments, forums, Wikipedia, and most user-generated content.

Dofollow links from quality sites are what move your DA. That’s the straightforward part. But nofollow links aren’t worthless. A natural link profile includes both — in fact, a site with only dofollow links looks manipulated. Nofollow links from real, high-traffic sites still send visitors, build brand awareness, and contribute to the natural-looking link graph that keeps you safe.

Don’t chase nofollow links as a DA strategy. But don’t turn them down either. Take the link, take the traffic, and keep building.

Anchor Text: The Detail People Get Wrong

Anchor text is the clickable words in a link. It tells search engines what the linked page is about, and it matters more than most people realise — mostly because getting it wrong is one of the fastest ways to look manipulative.

The natural pattern looks like this: most of your backlinks should use your brand name, your URL, or generic phrases like “this guide” or “read more.” That’s how real people link. When someone references your site in passing, they write your company name, not a keyword-stuffed sales pitch.

The dangerous pattern is the opposite: dozens of backlinks all using the exact same keyword-rich anchor text, like “best cheap SEO services.” Nobody links like that naturally. When Moz — and Google — see that pattern, it looks like you built or bought those links, because you probably did.

Best practices:

• Let linkers choose their own anchor text. When you earn links naturally, this happens on its own. Don’t ask people to use specific keywords.
• Aim for variety. Brand mentions, naked URLs, generic phrases, and the occasional descriptive phrase is a healthy mix.
• Never buy keyword-rich anchor links. This is the fastest way to turn link building from helpful to harmful.

Toxic Links: The Ones That Drag You Down

Not all backlinks increase Domain Authority. Some do the opposite.

Toxic links come from spammy neighbourhoods: link farms, private blog networks, hacked sites, foreign-language directories you never submitted to, and those charming “50,000 backlinks for $5” packages. These links don’t just fail to help — they actively associate your site with spam, which can suppress your DA and, worse, draw Google’s attention for all the wrong reasons.

How to deal with them:

• Audit regularly. Check your backlink profile in Moz’s Link Explorer or a similar tool every few months. Sort by spam score and look at what’s pointing at you.
• Try removal first. For the worst offenders, email the site owner and ask them to take the link down. It works less often than you’d hope, but it’s worth trying.
• Disavow what you can’t remove. Google’s Disavow Tool lets you tell Google to ignore specific links. Use it surgically — only for obvious spam. Disavowing legitimate links by mistake hurts you more than the spam did.

And the obvious one: don’t buy cheap link packages. Ever. The sellers promising “high DA backlinks” in bulk are selling you the exact links you’ll later pay someone to clean up.

4 Ways to Earn Backlinks That Actually Increase DA

Enough theory. Here’s how to get the kind of links that move your score.

1. Guest Posting on Real Websites

Write genuinely useful articles for blogs in your industry that have actual readers. Not link farms with “write for us” pages — real publications. Pitch a specific, valuable topic, write the best article you can, and include a natural link back to a relevant resource on your site.

This works because the links are editorial, relevant, and surrounded by real content. One guest post on a respected industry blog beats a hundred directory submissions.

2. HARO and Journalist Requests

Services like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) connect experts with journalists who need quotes. You answer a query in your area of expertise, and if they use your quote, you typically get a backlink from a news site or publication.

These links are gold. News sites tend to have high authority, the links are editorial, and they’re nearly impossible for competitors to replicate. The catch is you need to respond fast and give genuinely quotable answers — journalists ignore generic fluff.

3. Broken Link Building

Find broken links on relevant websites — pages that link to resources that no longer exist. Then email the site owner, point out the dead link, and suggest your content as a replacement.

This works because you’re doing them a favour, not just asking for something. Webmasters like fixing broken links; you’re making it easy. Tools like Ahrefs can find broken outbound links on any site in seconds, and a polite, specific email converts surprisingly well.

4. Digital PR

Create something newsworthy: original research, a survey with interesting results, a free tool, a contrarian industry take backed by real experience. Then pitch it to journalists and bloggers who cover your space.

Digital PR is the hardest method on this list, but it produces the best links. A single data-driven story can earn dozens of backlinks from publications you’d never reach through guest posting. Start small — even a survey of your own customers can produce statistics nobody else has.

How Long Before Backlinks Move Your DA?

Set honest expectations. Moz updates its link index periodically — roughly every few weeks — so there’s always a lag between earning a link and seeing it reflected in your score.

For a new or low-authority site, a handful of quality links can produce visible DA movement within a month or two. For established sites at higher DA levels, the logarithmic scale means progress is slower — you need more and better links to move each point.

The realistic timeline: consistent, quality link building shows measurable DA improvement in one to three months. Anyone promising faster results is either lying or selling links that will hurt you. Link building compounds — the links you earn this month make next month’s outreach easier, because a stronger site is an easier pitch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do backlinks directly increase Domain Authority?

Yes. Backlinks are the primary input Moz uses to calculate Domain Authority. More high-quality, relevant backlinks pointing to your site will raise your DA over time. It’s the closest thing to a direct lever the metric has.

How many backlinks do I need to increase my DA?

There’s no magic number, because quality matters far more than quantity. A few links from authoritative, relevant sites can move the needle more than hundreds of low-quality ones. Focus on earning the best links you can, not hitting a count.

Do nofollow backlinks increase Domain Authority?

Not directly in any meaningful way. Dofollow links from quality sites are what drive DA. But nofollow links contribute to a natural link profile and can drive real traffic, so they’re still worth having — just don’t build your strategy around them.

Can backlinks decrease Domain Authority?

Yes. Links from spammy, irrelevant, or manipulative sources can drag your DA down. That’s why auditing your backlink profile and disavowing toxic links matters as much as building new ones.

If Google doesn’t use DA, why should I care about it?

Because DA is a useful proxy for the link-based authority Google does measure internally. A higher DA generally means a stronger link profile, which generally means better rankings. Use it as a benchmark against competitors and a health check on your link building — not as a goal in itself.

Build Links That Actually Count

Backlinks increase Domain Authority — that part’s simple. The hard part is earning the right ones and avoiding the wrong ones. At SEOGIX, we do link building the way that lasts: manual outreach to real websites, relevant editorial placements, no PBNs, no spam, no shortcuts. Get in touch and let’s talk about building real authority for your site.