Page Authority (PA) is the URL-level companion to Domain Authority. Where DA scores the whole domain, PA scores a single page — also on a logarithmic 0–100 scale. Two URLs on the same domain can have wildly different PA values depending on how internal and external links flow to them.
The metric was popularised by Moz, but the underlying idea predates it: search engines have always assigned per-URL ranking signals, going back to the original PageRank paper. PA is essentially a modern, logarithmic estimate of that per-page strength based on the public link graph.
In practice, PA is more useful than DA when planning content investments. A new article on a DA-70 domain does not inherit that DA — it starts at zero PA and accumulates strength as internal and external links accrue. This is why publishing on a strong domain is not a free pass: each page must still earn its position. Internal linking from already-strong pages is one of the cheapest ways to lift PA on new URLs and is fully under your control.
PA also reacts faster than DA to single-link events. A high-authority editorial backlink to a specific article will move that article's PA noticeably before it nudges the parent domain's DA at all. Operators chasing rankings on a specific commercial page should monitor PA on that URL, not the homepage's DA.
Like DA, PA is not a Google ranking factor — it is a third-party proxy. Treat it as a diagnostic: when PA stalls but rankings rise, the metric is lagging the truth. When PA rises but rankings stall, look for on-page issues, Search Intent mismatch, or a stronger competing URL rather than blaming the link profile.
Compare PA across the URLs ranking for your target keyword. If the top three results sit twenty points above you, link acquisition is part of the gap. If they sit at parity, the gap is content or intent.
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