Category: SEO Fundamentals
A Moz metric that predicts how well a specific page will rank in search results, scored from 1-100. Unlike Domain Authority which evaluates the whole domain, Page Authority focuses on individual page strength.
Page Authority is a 0 to 100 score created by Moz that predicts how well a single page is likely to rank in search results. It is a third-party estimate, not a Google metric, and Google does not use it. Its practical value is comparative: checking whether one of your pages is stronger than a competitor's equivalent page. Treating it as a target to raise, rather than as a symptom to read, is the most common way it gets misused.
Page Authority is a score developed by Moz that predicts the ranking potential of a specific individual page, as distinct from Domain Authority which evaluates an entire domain. Scored on the same 1-100 logarithmic scale, Page Authority reflects the combined strength of all the ranking signals pointing to that particular URL, primarily the backlinks it has earned and the quality of those linking sources.
The distinction between Page Authority and Domain Authority is important to grasp. A website might have a strong Domain Authority overall, yet individual pages can vary enormously in their Page Authority depending on how many quality links they have attracted. Conversely, a single outstanding piece of content on a modest domain can achieve a high Page Authority through exceptional backlinks, enabling it to compete with pages on much larger websites. This is precisely why creating link-worthy content for specific strategic pages is such an effective SEO tactic.
In practical terms, Page Authority is most useful when evaluating specific ranking opportunities. If you are targeting a particular keyword and want to understand your chances of ranking, comparing your page's PA against the PA of currently ranking pages gives you a realistic assessment. A significant PA gap suggests you will need to invest in building links specifically to that page, while a comparable PA indicates that improvements in on-page optimization and content quality could be sufficient to improve your position.
It bears repeating that, like Domain Authority, Page Authority is a third-party metric and not a direct Google ranking factor. It serves as a useful proxy and analytical tool, but the real ranking algorithm considers hundreds of factors that no external metric can fully capture. Use PA as one input in your decision-making, alongside your analysis of content quality, search intent alignment, and the competitive landscape.
Page Authority is a score from 0 to 100, created by Moz, that predicts how well a single page is likely to rank. It is calculated mainly from the quantity and quality of links pointing at that page. It is a third-party model, not a number Google publishes or uses.
No. Page Authority is Moz's proprietary metric and Google has no access to it and no use for it. Google representatives have repeatedly said there is no single public authority score inside their ranking systems. Treat Page Authority as one company's estimate of an outcome, not as an input to it.
Page Authority predicts the ranking strength of one specific page, while Domain Authority predicts the strength of a whole domain. A strong domain can host a weak page and often does: a new post on an established site starts with almost no links of its own, which is exactly what Page Authority measures.
There is no absolute threshold, because the score is only meaningful next to the pages you compete with. A score of 30 may be strong in a quiet niche and hopeless in a competitive one. The useful question is whether your page scores higher than the pages currently outranking it for your target query.
Page Authority is driven mostly by links to that specific page, so it rises when other sites link to it. Nothing you change on the page itself moves it much. That is worth knowing before spending time on it: the score is a reflection of off-site reality rather than a dial you can turn from your own CMS.
It is worth checking occasionally as a comparative signal, and not worth tracking as a KPI. Ranking position, impressions and clicks from Search Console describe what is actually happening. Page Authority describes what a model predicts might happen, which is a weaker thing to manage a business by.
The score is relative and recalculated as Moz's index updates. If other pages gain links faster than yours, your score can fall even when nothing about your page has changed. It can also shift when Moz updates its model, which is a change in the ruler rather than in the thing being measured.
There is no published evidence that any AI answer engine uses Moz's Page Authority. They retrieve from search indexes and their own systems, none of which expose or consume a third-party vendor's score. Optimising for the metric itself would be optimising for the wrong target.
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