Page Authority

Page Authority is calculated from the quantity and quality of backlinks pointing to a specific URL. Moz's algorithm processes link data through a logarithmic scale — which means moving from PA 20 to PA 30 requires significantly more effort than moving from PA 10 to PA 20. Use it for relative comparison within a competitive set, not as a target metric in isolation.

The most common misuse of PA is treating it as a direct indicator of whether a page will rank. It isn't. Rankings depend on relevance signals, content quality, E-E-A-T, search intent match, and dozens of other factors. PA captures one dimension — link authority — and says nothing about the others.

Where PA becomes useful: comparing your page against the pages currently ranking for a target keyword. If the ranking pages have PA 40–60 and yours is PA 15, you have a meaningful link gap to close before content quality alone will be enough to compete. If the ranking pages have PA 20–30, you can compete on content without a major link-building campaign first.

PA is also useful for identifying internal linking opportunities — high-PA pages on your site should be linked from as often as relevant, because they pass authority downstream to the pages they link to. Finding your strongest pages and routing internal links through them is a structural improvement that costs nothing except time.