Page Authority (PA) is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific web page will rank in search engine results. Understanding Page Authority — and the factors that influence it — helps you prioritise SEO efforts on the pages most likely to drive organic traffic. This guide explains what Page Authority is, how it differs from Domain Authority, and the most effective ways to improve it.
What Is Page Authority?
Page Authority is a score on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 100 developed by Moz that predicts how well a specific page will rank in search engine results. Higher scores indicate a greater likelihood of ranking well. A page with a PA of 40 is considered better positioned to rank than a page with a PA of 20, though the relationship is not linear — it is much harder to move from 70 to 80 than from 20 to 30.
Page Authority is calculated using Moz's own machine learning model and is based primarily on the number and quality of backlinks pointing to that specific page. It is a third-party metric — not a Google ranking factor — but it correlates well with actual Google rankings because backlinks are one of Google's primary ranking signals.
Page Authority is page-specific, meaning each URL on your website has its own PA score. Your homepage will typically have the highest PA on your site (as it receives the most links), while individual blog posts or product pages will have lower scores unless they have attracted many backlinks.
Page Authority vs Domain Authority
Page Authority and Domain Authority (DA) are related but distinct metrics:
| Metric | What It Measures | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Page Authority (PA) | Ranking potential of a specific page | Individual URL |
| Domain Authority (DA) | Overall ranking strength of a domain | Entire domain |
A site can have a high Domain Authority but individual pages with low Page Authority — this happens when most backlinks point to the homepage rather than being distributed across the site. Conversely, a site with modest Domain Authority can have specific pages with high Page Authority if those pages have attracted many quality backlinks directly.
For practical SEO, Page Authority is the more granular and useful metric when evaluating how well a specific page is likely to rank. Domain Authority is better for comparing the overall strength of competing websites.
How Page Authority Is Calculated
Moz calculates Page Authority using a machine learning model trained to correlate with actual Google rankings. The primary input is the page's link profile — specifically the number, quality and diversity of backlinks pointing to that specific URL.
Key factors that influence Page Authority include:
- Number of root domains linking to the page — links from 100 unique domains are far more valuable than 100 links from the same domain
- Quality of linking pages — a link from a PA 70 page passes more authority than a link from a PA 10 page
- Anchor text relevance — descriptive anchor text reinforces the page's topical relevance
- Internal link equity — how much authority flows to this page from other pages on your own site
- MozRank and MozTrust — Moz's internal link popularity and trustworthiness scores
Because PA is a logarithmic scale, the difficulty of improvement increases exponentially as you move higher up the scale. Moving a page from PA 20 to PA 30 requires far fewer new quality backlinks than moving from PA 60 to PA 70.
What Is a Good Page Authority Score?
Page Authority scores should always be interpreted in context — specifically, in comparison to the pages you are competing against for a given keyword. A PA of 35 is excellent if your competitors have pages with PA 25–30. The same score is weak if your competitors have PA 60+ pages.
General benchmarks:
- PA 1–20 — new or low-authority pages with few or no backlinks
- PA 20–40 — pages with some backlinks, typical for established smaller sites
- PA 40–60 — well-linked pages with solid authority, competitive for most keywords
- PA 60–80 — highly authoritative pages, usually from major publications or extensively linked resources
- PA 80–100 — extraordinarily authoritative pages (Wikipedia entries, major news articles, government pages)
For most small to medium websites, pages with PA 30–50 are well-positioned to compete for non-competitive to moderately competitive keywords. Focus on improving PA for your most strategically important pages first.
How Link Equity Flows Through Your Site
Link equity (sometimes called PageRank or "link juice") is the authority value that flows from one page to another through hyperlinks. Every time a page links to another page, it passes a portion of its authority to the destination page.
Your homepage typically has the most inbound links and therefore the most link equity. From there, link equity flows through your internal navigation to other pages. Pages that are closer to the homepage in your link hierarchy (fewer clicks away) and that receive more internal links will accumulate more link equity and therefore higher Page Authority.
Understanding link equity flow helps you design your internal linking strategy: your most important pages (your highest-value service pages, your best blog posts) should receive the most internal links from high-authority pages on your site. This directly improves their Page Authority scores over time.
How to Improve Page Authority
Page Authority is primarily driven by backlinks. The most reliable strategies to increase PA for your key pages include:
- Earn backlinks directly to the target page — through content marketing, digital PR, guest posting, resource link building and creating genuinely link-worthy content (tools, research, comprehensive guides)
- Improve the quality of linking pages — one link from a PA 60 page is worth far more than 10 links from PA 10 pages. Focus outreach on high-authority relevant sites.
- Strengthen internal linking to the page — add contextual internal links from your other high-PA pages to the target page. This passes internal link equity directly.
- Fix broken backlinks — use Moz Link Explorer or Ahrefs to find backlinks pointing to 404 pages on your site. 301 redirect these to the correct URL to recover lost link equity.
- Remove or nofollow low-quality outbound links — pages that link out extensively to low-quality sites lose link equity through those outbound links
- Keep the page updated and fresh — fresh, updated content earns more natural backlinks over time and reduces the chance of existing links being replaced with links to newer content
Internal Linking and Page Authority
Internal linking is the most direct way to improve Page Authority for specific pages on your site without depending on external backlinks. By linking from your high-authority pages (homepage, popular blog posts, category pages) to your target page using descriptive anchor text, you pass link equity directly to the target page.
Best practices for using internal links to improve Page Authority:
- Add links from your most-visited pages to pages you want to improve
- Use descriptive, keyword-rich anchor text (not "click here")
- Ensure important pages are reachable within 2–3 clicks from the homepage
- Audit for orphan pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them) — they receive no internal link equity and have limited chances of being crawled or ranked
Use our free Word Frequency Counter to analyse your content for keyword distribution and ensure your most valuable pages are mentioned and linked frequently within your site's content.
Limitations of Page Authority as a Metric
While Page Authority is a useful benchmark, it has important limitations you should understand:
- It is a third-party metric, not a Google ranking factor — Google does not use Moz's PA score. It is a proxy that correlates with ranking factors, not the ranking factors themselves.
- It changes over time — as Moz updates its link index and algorithm, PA scores fluctuate. A drop in PA does not necessarily mean a drop in actual rankings.
- It does not account for on-page SEO — PA measures link authority only. A page with excellent on-page SEO and moderate PA can outrank a page with high PA but poor on-page optimisation.
- It does not reflect content quality — Google's quality signals (E-E-A-T, user engagement, content depth) are not captured in the PA score.
Use Page Authority as one data point among many — alongside on-page SEO quality, content relevance, user engagement metrics and actual keyword rankings — rather than as the sole indicator of a page's SEO performance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Page Authority the same as Google PageRank?
No. Page Authority is a Moz metric. Google PageRank was Google's original link-based scoring system, which Google stopped publicly displaying in 2016. While Google still uses PageRank-like calculations internally as part of its ranking algorithm, it is not accessible publicly. Page Authority is Moz's attempt to approximate link-based ranking strength.
How often does Page Authority update?
Moz updates Page Authority scores periodically as it recrawls the web and updates its link index. Major updates can cause significant changes in PA scores across the web. Because of this, it is better to track PA trends over time rather than reacting to individual score fluctuations.
Can I increase Page Authority quickly?
PA increases over time as you earn more quality backlinks and strengthen internal linking. There are no reliable shortcuts. The most consistent approach is to create genuinely valuable content that earns natural backlinks, then actively promote it through outreach. Using internal linking to distribute link equity to target pages provides the fastest short-term improvement.
Does deleting low-PA pages improve my other pages' PA?
Not directly. Deleting pages removes them from the link equity calculation but does not automatically redistribute their equity elsewhere. If a deleted page has backlinks, you should 301 redirect it to a relevant page to preserve the link equity it was receiving.