How we, as SEOs, can advocate against DA

If you are an active follower of SEO Twitter or SEO news in general, you’ll have seen a recent discussion between some of the SEO industries top dogs and bloggers. *I will not be linking to the series of tweets or the blogger just out of respect, unfortunately, she has received a fair bit of grief and I do not want to add to that further.*

Barry Schwartz went on a great rant about it during his latest SEO Video Recap

The conversation stemmed from a blogger asking for advice on how she can improve her DA (domain authority). 

Unfortunately for her some SEO’s were on hand to offer their thoughts and she got hundreds of messages, informing her that DA plays no part in Google’s ranking. Which I promise you, she already knew.

So that’s how this conversation got started again. 

Obviously, yes that’s true. DA means nothing to SEO. 

Many SEOs fail to realise that other industries rely heavily on this metric. Which then end up misusing and putting too much weight on it. 

Bloggers in certain niches such as lifestyle or beauty, if they want to get paid or gifted opportunities they are required to have a DA over a certain amount. Normally PRs and brands look for a DA over 20. 

The theory is that the link will pass on some authority to the brand, whilst also giving them a short boost in traffic as well as passive traffic over time. Which we know isn’t wrong, it’s just not right also. 

So why is this a problem? 

Majority of the time these opportunities include x amount of no-follow links and advertising on the blogger’s social channels too. 

Less well-informed businesses (or dodgy ones) will mislead bloggers into accepting payment for do-follow links. Which we know is against Googles Webmaster Guidelines. 

There is also a rise in platforms that act as a middle man, matching brands with bloggers for paid marketing. 

I looked at Get Blogged, which is one of these platforms and saw that their opportunities were paid based almost solely on DA as the primary measurement. 

Get blogged also specify in several of their opportunities that links should be “do follow”. 

Out of curiosity, I signed up for Get Blogged and I’m not eligible for many assignments because of having a low DA (14). The ones I am they would offer me around £25 – £50 for 500 words with a DO FOLLOW link. 

It’s businesses like this that keeping DA and blackhat SEO alive. Taking up back to the days of PageRank and manipulating search.  

We know that Google removed PageRank as it was massively abused and SEO’s stopped focusing on the actually important things; creating content for users. Now the same is happening again, just from other areas in digital marketing. 

I think if the whole SEO community could come together and pass on this knowledge and advocate the use of other metrics bloggers would have an easier time with their sites, and maybe DA could finally die. 

How can we advocate against DA?

Ensure beginners education does not include DA

In as many training documents, blog posts, webinars and nuggets of knowledge we share, if relevant we should mention that DA is not a good metric to use and explain why. One of the biggest issues I’m finding is businesses hiring inexperienced people to manage their PR (and sometimes SEO). If we make this information more easily accessible, we can likely guide new marketers along the right path. 

Offer alternative metrics

I feel like this is a bit of a no-brainer but why would businesses put so much pressure on DA when there are much better metrics. If I was advertising my product through a blogger, I personally would prefer to be on a site that gets x amount of visits a month, where people stay on for at least 4 minutes than a site with a DA of 20. 

Like I can’t be the only one right? 

SEOs are obsessed with user experience, so why aren’t other industries? It just makes sense right? 

Challenge colleagues 

If you notice a colleague paying attention to DA, question them on that? Not in a rude way but use it as a channel to teach them. 

Say something like “oh it’s interesting that you are using DA is a metric? Can I ask why you have chosen to monitor that?” You have your entrance there, teach but be kind. 

Challenge Clients

Perhaps the hardest route, some clients are impossible to sway from their marketing beliefs. Every SEO campaign should be used as an education piece for our clients so don’t give in to what they want. 

Explain to them why that metric shouldn’t be important to them and offer them further reading. So they know what you are saying isn’t just your opinion, it’s the stance of the whole industry. 

Make best practice and webmaster guidelines more accessible 

Whether it’s writing a guide to everything bloggers need to know about making money online or just occasionally reaffirming that there are rules to follow. We need to make sure other industries are aware of this.

We share so much information every day, it really couldn’t hurt to go back to sharing the basics. 

Keep the conversation going.

These are just a few small things we could try, don’t let this conversation die. But also don’t be rude to people on the internet who still need to use DA. Bloggers are not going to stop needing to make money any time soon. It’s up to us to advocate for brands, businesses and PRs to use other, more valuable metrics.

I don’t have all the answers so I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you think another metric would work better? On any tips for us to be leaders on this?

I’ll monitor the comments and messages on social and any great ones will be added to this!