📊 DA PA Checker: Free Domain & Page Authority Checker
By Shihab Mia · Updated 2026-07-06
Domain Authority (DA) scores the whole site. Page Authority (PA) scores the home page. Both are on the standard 0 to 100 scale.
This DA PA checker looks up the authority of any domain and shows two scores on the standard 0 to 100 scale: Domain Authority (DA) for the whole site and Page Authority (PA) for the home page. Higher is stronger, the scale is logarithmic, and both are estimates modelled from the web link graph, not a Google ranking factor. Type a domain such as github.com, click the button, and read each score with a coloured meter and a plain-English band. For example, github.com scores a DA around 87 and a PA around 67. The free DA PA checker allows 2 lookups per day.
What is the DA PA Checker?
A DA PA checker is a tool that tells you, at a glance, how authoritative a website is on a simple 0 to 100 scale. DA stands for Domain Authority, a whole-site measure of how strong a domain looks based on its backlink profile. PA stands for Page Authority, the same idea applied to a single page rather than the whole domain. The phrase "DA PA checker" became popular because the Moz toolbar made DA and PA household terms among SEOs, and people now use "DA PA" as shorthand for "how strong is this site and this page".
Both scores run from 0 to 100, and the scale is logarithmic, which means it gets harder to climb the higher you go. Moving from 20 to 30 is far easier than moving from 70 to 80, because the top of the scale is reserved for the most heavily linked domains on the web. A brand-new site with no backlinks sits near 0, a healthy small business often lands in the 20 to 40 range, and only major brands, news outlets and institutions reach the 80s and 90s. That is why this DA PA checker pairs every number with a plain-English band, so a raw score like 67 instantly reads as "Strong" rather than an abstract figure.
The difference between Domain Authority and Page Authority is worth understanding before you read any DA PA checker result. Domain Authority describes the whole site, so it is one number that reflects the strength of the entire domain. Page Authority is specific to a single URL: a heavily linked guide can be far stronger than a thin contact page on the same site. This tool reports DA for the whole domain and PA for the home page, so you can compare how strong the site is overall against how strong its front door is. It is common for a big site to have a high DA but a more modest home-page PA, because deep, link-worthy content pages often pull in more links than the home page itself.
It helps to know how authority scores like these are built, because that explains both their value and their limits. Moz, the company that popularised DA and PA, calculates them with a machine-learning model trained on dozens of signals from its Link Explorer index, chiefly the number of unique linking root domains, the quality of those links, and internal measures such as MozRank and MozTrust. The model is tuned to correlate with how sites actually rank in Google, then normalised onto the 0 to 100 curve. Crucially the scale is relative: your score is scored against every other site on the web, so if rival domains earn links faster than you, your own DA can drift down even when your backlink profile is unchanged. Moz refreshes DA roughly monthly, which is why a score can appear to jump between updates. The DataForSEO figures behind this tool are an independent estimate built the same way, from backlink data, so they follow the same logic and the same 0 to 100 curve.
A question people ask a lot is how DA differs from DR, Ahrefs Domain Rating. Both are 0 to 100 authority estimates, but they are not the same metric and will rarely match. Ahrefs DR is based almost entirely on the strength and quantity of a domain backlink profile and makes no attempt to predict rankings, whereas Moz DA folds in extra signals including spam detection and is designed as a rough ranking-potential estimate. Ahrefs also crawls a larger index and updates far more often. The practical takeaway: do not compare a Moz-style DA against an Ahrefs DR one-to-one, and never obsess over a few points of difference between tools. Use DR when prospecting links purely on backlink strength, and use DA-style scores when benchmarking yourself against SERP competitors.
Why does authority matter at all? Search engines rank pages partly on how trusted and well-linked they are, and metrics like Domain Authority and Page Authority are attempts to model that trust from the public link graph. A domain that many reputable sites link to scores higher; a brand-new site with no links scores near zero. None of these third-party scores is used by Google directly, so a high DA does not guarantee high rankings, and because authority can be artificially inflated with paid or spammy links, a single number should never be trusted blindly. Used well, though, a DA PA checker is a fast triage tool: before you pursue a backlink, vet a guest-post site, buy an expired domain, or benchmark against a competitor, a quick DA and PA read tells you roughly which league a domain plays in. Cross-check important decisions against more than one source, and weigh the scores alongside content quality, relevance, spam signals and the real-world reputation of the brand, because no single number tells the whole story.
When to use it
- Link building outreach: quickly gauge whether a prospective site has enough Domain Authority to be worth pitching for a backlink before you spend time on the email.
- Vetting guest-post and sponsorship offers: a domain with a very low DA or an obviously inflated one may be a private blog network or a weak site, so the authority read is a fast first filter.
- Competitor benchmarking: compare your Domain Authority and Page Authority against rivals to see roughly where you sit in the authority pecking order for your niche.
- Expired or aged domain buying: check the DA and PA of a domain you are thinking of acquiring, alongside its age and link profile, before you pay for it.
- Reporting to clients or managers: pull a simple, free DA and PA figure for a domain to include in an SEO audit or pitch, on the same 0 to 100 scale everyone recognises.
- Tracking your own progress: re-check your domain over time to see whether your link building is moving the needle, remembering the score is relative and updates in batches.
- Spotting weak or spammy links: if a site linking to you has a near-zero authority score, it is a candidate to review when you are cleaning up a backlink profile.
How to use the DA PA Checker
- Type or paste the domain you want to inspect into the box, for example github.com. You can leave off the "https://" and "www." parts, the DA PA checker cleans the input for you.
- Click the "Check DA PA" button. Nothing is looked up until you click, because each lookup uses a metered data source and the free allowance is limited to 2 lookups per day.
- Wait a moment while the tool asks our own server, which calls DataForSEO, for the authority scores.
- Read the two meters: Domain Authority (DA) on the left for the whole site, and Page Authority (PA) on the right for the home page, both out of 100 with a coloured bar and a band label such as "Strong".
- If the tool shows "N free lookups left today", that is how many more checks you can run before tomorrow. A small "cached" tag means the answer was reused from a recent identical lookup, so it did not spend quota.
- Use the "Copy result" button to copy a one-line DA and PA summary for a report or email, then check another domain by editing the box and clicking again.
Formula & method
Worked examples
You want a quick authority read on a very well-known site, github.com, to use as a high-authority reference point.
- Enter "github.com" and click Check DA PA.
- The DA PA checker calls our server, which asks DataForSEO for the authority scores.
- The response comes back as something like {target: "github.com", da: 87, pa: 67}.
Result: The tool shows a Domain Authority of 87 out of 100 in the "Exceptional" band and a home-page Page Authority of 67 out of 100 in the "Strong" band, illustrating how a huge domain can outscore its own front page.
You are evaluating a guest-post offer from a small, newish blog and want to know if it has real authority.
- Enter the blog's domain and click Check DA PA.
- The scores return low, for example {da: 18, pa: 22}.
- The tool maps 18 to the "New / Low" band and 22 to the "Building" band.
Result: The DA PA checker reports a Domain Authority of 18 out of 100 ("New / Low") and a Page Authority of 22 out of 100 ("Building"), a signal to look harder at the site's real traffic and links before accepting the offer.
You compare two competitors in the same niche to decide which is the stronger benchmark.
- Enter competitor A, for example a well-established site, and note a DA of 52.
- On your next lookup enter competitor B, a newer rival, and note a DA of 34.
- Read both against the bands: 52 is "Moderate", 34 is "Building".
Result: The DA PA checker shows competitor A at 52 out of 100 ("Moderate") and competitor B at 34 out of 100 ("Building"), telling you competitor A is the tougher benchmark and the more valuable link target of the two.
You run a third lookup in the same day after already using your two free checks.
- Enter a domain and click Check DA PA for the third time today.
- Our server sees you are over the 2-per-day free cap and returns HTTP 429 with a limit message.
- The DA PA checker shows that message instead of the scores.
Result: You see a friendly notice explaining that the 2 free lookups for today are used up and to come back tomorrow, with no scores shown and no quota wasted.
How to read DA and PA in this DA PA checker (standard 0 to 100 scale)
| Score range | Authority band | What it usually suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 20 | New / Low | New, tiny or near-empty link profile; treat with caution |
| 21 to 40 | Building | Some links but still growing; verify traffic and quality |
| 41 to 60 | Moderate | A real, established site with a decent link profile |
| 61 to 80 | Strong | Well-linked domain; a valuable link if relevant to you |
| 81 to 100 | Exceptional | Major, heavily-linked domain such as a large brand or institution |
Domain Authority vs Page Authority at a glance
| Metric | Scope | Scale | Example (github.com) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | The whole site | 0 to 100 | About 87 |
| Page Authority (PA) | A single page (home page here) | 0 to 100 | About 67 |
DA (Moz-style) vs DR (Ahrefs) vs this tool: how authority metrics compare
| Metric | Mainly based on | Scale | Update frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Authority (DA) | Links plus extra signals and spam detection, tuned to ranking potential | 0 to 100 (logarithmic, relative) | About monthly |
| Domain Rating (DR) | Backlink profile strength only, no ranking prediction | 0 to 100 (logarithmic, relative) | Roughly every 12 hours |
| This DA PA checker | DataForSEO backlink data mapped to the Moz-style 0 to 100 curve | 0 to 100 | On demand, per lookup |
Common mistakes to avoid
- Reading the scores on the wrong scale. Both Domain Authority and Page Authority in this DA PA checker run from 0 to 100, the same scale Moz and other tools use. A score of 87 means 87 out of 100, not a percentage of traffic or a count of links.
- Treating DA as a Google ranking factor. Google does not use any third-party authority score. Domain Authority and Page Authority estimate link strength, which correlates with rankings but is not used directly by search engines.
- Confusing Domain Authority with Page Authority. DA scores the whole site as one number, while PA scores a single page. This tool shows DA for the domain and PA for the home page, and the two will often differ, which is completely normal.
- Comparing DA against Ahrefs DR one-to-one. DA and DR are both 0 to 100 but measure different things: DR is pure backlink strength, DA folds in spam detection and ranking signals. They use different indexes and update at different rates, so a gap of several points between tools is expected, not an error.
- Expecting an exact match with Moz to the point. These scores are on the same 0 to 100 scale and track closely with Moz Domain Authority and Page Authority, but they are computed independently, so they can differ by a few points. Use them as a directional read.
- Panicking when a score drops on its own. Authority is a relative, batch-updated score. If competitors gain links faster than you, your DA can fall even though your own backlinks have not changed. Look at the trend over time, not a single reading.
- Judging a site on authority alone. A high DA does not mean the content is relevant, trustworthy or worth a link, and authority can be inflated with paid or spammy links. Use the DA PA checker as one input alongside content, relevance, spam signals and real traffic.
Glossary
- DA PA checker
- A tool that looks up the Domain Authority and Page Authority of a website and shows them on a 0 to 100 scale, used by SEOs to gauge how strong a site is.
- Domain Authority (DA)
- A whole-site authority score on a 0 to 100 scale that estimates how strong a domain is based on its backlink profile and related signals.
- Page Authority (PA)
- A page-level authority score on a 0 to 100 scale that estimates how strong a single URL is; this tool measures it for the home page.
- Domain Rating (DR)
- Ahrefs equivalent 0 to 100 authority metric, based almost entirely on backlink profile strength; similar in spirit to DA but not identical and rarely the same number.
- 0 to 100 scale
- The standard, logarithmic authority scale where higher is stronger and the top is reserved for the most heavily linked sites on the web.
- DataForSEO
- A commercial SEO data provider whose API supplies the backlink authority data behind the DA and PA shown by this DA PA checker.
- Backlink profile
- The full set of links pointing to a domain or page, which authority scores analyse to estimate how trusted and well-linked it is.
- Linking root domains
- The count of unique domains that link to a site, one of the strongest inputs to any authority score; ten links from ten sites count for more than ten links from one.
- Spam score
- A companion metric that flags patterns common to penalised or manipulative sites; a high authority paired with a high spam score is a warning sign.
- Logarithmic scale
- A scale where each step up gets harder, so climbing from 70 to 80 takes far more links than climbing from 20 to 30.
Frequently asked questions
What is a DA PA checker?
A DA PA checker is a free tool that looks up how authoritative a website is and shows it as two scores on a 0 to 100 scale. DA means Domain Authority (the whole site) and PA means Page Authority (a single page, here the home page). Higher is stronger, and both are estimates modelled from the web link graph.
What is a good DA and PA score?
On the 0 to 100 scale this tool uses, above 60 is Strong and above 80 is Exceptional, typically large brands and institutions. Most small business sites sit in the 20 to 40 range and a brand-new site starts near 0. There is no universal "good" number, what matters is how a domain compares to its direct competitors in the same niche.
What is the difference between Domain Authority and Page Authority?
Domain Authority scores the whole site as a single 0 to 100 number, while Page Authority scores one specific URL. This DA PA checker reports DA for the domain and PA for the home page, so you can see how strong the site is overall compared with its front page. The two often differ, which is normal because deep pages often earn more links than the home page.
How is Domain Authority calculated?
Domain Authority is calculated by a machine-learning model trained on dozens of link-graph signals, mainly the number of unique linking root domains, the quality of those links, and internal measures such as MozRank and MozTrust, tuned to correlate with how sites rank in Google. It is then normalised onto a relative 0 to 100 logarithmic curve, so your score depends partly on how every other site scores.
DA vs DR: what is the difference between Domain Authority and Domain Rating?
DA (Moz-style) and DR (Ahrefs) are both 0 to 100 authority estimates but measure different things. DR is based almost entirely on backlink profile strength and does not try to predict rankings, while DA folds in extra signals including spam detection and is meant as a rough ranking-potential estimate. They use different indexes and update at different rates, so the two numbers rarely match and should not be compared one-to-one.
Is this the same as Moz DA?
It is an independent estimate on the same 0 to 100 scale, not the literal Moz number. The Domain Authority and Page Authority shown here are computed from DataForSEO backlink data and track closely with Moz DA and PA, but because they are calculated independently they can differ by a few points. Treat them as a comparable, directional read on the scale you already know.
Does a high Domain Authority guarantee high Google rankings?
No. Google does not use any third-party authority score, including the DA and PA shown here. These metrics estimate link strength, which correlates with ranking ability but does not guarantee it, and authority can even be inflated with paid links. Use the DA PA checker for comparison, not as a ranking predictor.
How do I improve my Domain Authority?
Earn links from more unique, relevant, trustworthy domains, since linking root domains are the biggest driver of authority. Support that with strong internal linking that passes equity to important pages, high-quality content that naturally attracts links, and by removing or disavowing spammy links. Authority updates in batches, so expect gradual movement over weeks and months, not overnight jumps.
Why did my DA drop even though I did not lose links?
Domain Authority is a relative, batch-updated score. Your DA is scored against every other site on the web, so if competitors gain links faster than you between updates, your number can fall even though your own backlink profile is unchanged. Watch the long-term trend rather than a single reading.
Why is this DA PA checker limited to 2 lookups per day, and can I check domains in bulk?
Each lookup calls a paid data provider, so to keep the tool free we cap the free allowance at 2 lookups per day per visitor and check one domain at a time. Identical repeat lookups are served from a short-lived cache and do not spend quota. A bulk DA PA checker that processes a list of URLs at once usually requires a paid plan or your own API key.
Do I need an account or API key to use this DA PA checker?
No. There is no sign-up and no API key. Your browser never contacts DataForSEO directly; it calls our own server, which holds the key securely and returns just the DA and PA scores. You simply enter a domain and click the button.