What Is Page Authority?
Page Authority scores how strongly a single page is likely to rank, separate from the whole domain. Definition, how it's used, and an example.
Page Authority (PA) is a third-party metric, also from Moz, that scores how strongly a single specific page is likely to rank in search results, rather than the whole domain it sits on. Like Domain Authority, it runs on a 1 to 100 scale and is not used by Google.
Why Page Authority matters
Domain Authority tells you about a site’s overall strength, but individual pages on the same domain can vary enormously. A widely linked, heavily shared feature article and an obscure archived page from the same site can sit at completely different PA scores despite carrying identical Domain Authority. That gap is exactly what makes PA useful: it lets you compare the relative strength of specific competing pages, your own or a competitor’s, rather than judging an entire site at once when only one page actually matters for the keyword you’re targeting.
How Page Authority is calculated
- Moz analyzes links pointing to the specific URL, not just the domain as a whole.
- A machine learning model, the same underlying approach as Domain Authority, weighs link quantity, quality, and relevance for that page.
- The page is scored on the same logarithmic 1 to 100 scale, where each additional point gets harder to earn at higher scores.
- Content quality and on-page signals play a supporting role, but the strongest predictor in Moz’s model remains the page’s own inbound link profile.
How to use Page Authority in practice
- Compare it against the pages currently ranking for your target keyword, not against your own homepage or unrelated pages on your site.
- Use it to prioritize internal linking. Pages with lower PA relative to their importance often need more internal link support.
- Spot outlier pages worth studying. A high-PA page buried in a low-DA site usually earned strong niche links worth understanding and replicating.
- Don’t optimize for the score directly. Chasing PA through manipulative links risks a Google penalty without reliably moving the metric anyway.
Page Authority vs. Domain Authority
| Factor | Page Authority | Domain Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | One specific URL | Entire domain |
| Best used for | Comparing individual competing pages | Comparing whole sites/competitors |
| Changes with | Links to that exact page | Links across the whole site |
| Google ranking factor? | No | No |
Real example
For example, within the same news website, a deeply linked, widely shared feature article might carry a Page Authority of 60, while an obscure archived article on that same domain, with the same Domain Authority, sits at 15. Comparing the domain scores alone would miss that gap entirely.
Page Authority and AI search
PA has no direct bearing on whether a specific page gets cited in an AI Overview, those systems evaluate relevance and content quality through Google’s own systems, not Moz’s score. Still, a page with genuinely strong, well-earned links usually also has the kind of established topical depth that both ranking algorithms and AI citation systems favor, so a high PA is often a byproduct of the same qualities that help with AI visibility, not a cause of it.
FAQ
Can a page have higher Page Authority than its own domain’s Domain Authority?
Yes. A single exceptionally well-linked page can carry more link equity than the average of its domain, resulting in a PA that exceeds the site’s overall DA.
Does internal linking affect Page Authority?
To a limited degree, Moz’s model weighs internal links less heavily than external backlinks, but strong internal linking still supports the page’s overall relevance and discoverability.
Is Page Authority the same across all SEO tools?
No. PA is specific to Moz. Ahrefs, Semrush, and others use their own, differently calculated page-level authority metrics, so scores from different tools aren’t directly comparable.
How often does Page Authority update?
Moz refreshes its link index and scores on a rolling basis, typically every few weeks, though exact timing isn’t published and can shift as Moz updates its crawling infrastructure.
Related terms
Compare pages to pages, not pages to whole domains. That’s the entire reason Page Authority exists separately from Domain Authority, use it that way or don’t bother checking it.