Domain authority has become a vital indicator to identify the worth of a website. After Google has shut down the PageRank algorithm, generally importance is given to the alternative solution that is Domain Authority (DA).
The up and downs in the domain authority could be experienced on every website that comes under the influence of the search engine ranking. Therefore, asking why has my domain authority droping would give you the explanation behind the decline.
The domain authority tells you how popular your website is among the competitors based on the SEO on-page factors and the external links pointing to your website called backlinks. Many other indicators are also considered when deciding the final Domain Authority (DA) of the site. However, the number of backlinks receives more value than other factors when it comes to rising the domain authority of the site.
The drop in the domain authority is the result of the less high-quality backlinks pointing to your site. For example, if your website is getting a backlink from the reputed site named “Alfa”, which also possesses high domain authority. If the “Alfa” has removed your backlink, or the site is down for a while due to a technical issue, it may result in a sudden drop in the DA of your site. Until your website gets the high-quality backlinks back to the normal state from the site “Alfa”, your site will experience low domain authority.
In this case, you either contact the site “Alfa” to make the backlink live again or create the new backlinks on the other website that also has high domain authority. Remember that the backlink from the home page get priority and more link juice to your site compared to the backlink placed on the internal pages of the site.
Why Does Domain Authority Drop?
We will try to decode the reason behind the domain authority drop problem by discussing the different situations. Also, try to answer the most common question asked by several people, “why has my domain authority dropped?” using the different methods and examples. (If you need to know what does domain authority mean , this post can help you!)
1) Others Are Doing Well
The realm of SEO is very competitive, and everyone is trying to eat a large pie of their industry. SEO experts worldwide are putting their efforts into ranking the client website at the number one spot at any cost. They are also taking the help of the traditional link building practice, which makes a big difference in increasing the site’s domain authority and ranking the keywords in the organic searches.
When you enter the SEO world, remember that everyone is involved in the link-building process. So you are in the race with these players. Sometimes they will move ahead of you, and on some occasions, you will have a chance to lead in the race. When others are doing well, you will experience a drop in the domain authority because the first position is not for all. When a certain number of websites reach the top spot, they occupy the space, and you will be pushed down the ladder.
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2) Drop In the Dofollow Links
Dofollow backlinks add more value compared to the Nofollow links. People have developed the wrong perception of backlinks. Many of them asking the question, “Why my Domain Authority is Decreased overnight?”.
The drop in the domain authority also causes by the less number of dofollow backlinks. As the sites receive fewer backlinks, their authority drops, and eventually, it impacts the domain authority.
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3) Losing High Authority Dofollow Links
Dofollow links from high authority websites give you more link juice to increase your website worth. As soon as these links are removed, the link juice from the site is removed, and your site is no longer meets the parameters. As a consequence, the domain authority of your site drops.
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4) Dofollow to Nofollow Backlink
There are also possibilities that the dofollow links pointing to your website are no longer contain the dofollow attributes because the site owner might have made the changes to the outbound links. Once the attribute is changed, the link becomes nofollow, and it now does not have the authority to pass the link juice. The backlink to your site is not leveraging the benefits which impact the domain authority. You will experience a drop in the DA as the changes implemented by the site owner.
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5) Referral Domain Lost the Authority
Backlinks are very vulnerable, and you do not have full control over them. As your website loses the DA, the site that gives you backlinks may also have lost the authority. The lost rating of the referral website would also result in a drop in the DA of your website.
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6) Organic Ranking Dropped
Keywords ranking in the top pages of Google search also affects the overall domain authority. Your website might have lost the top spot in the organic ranking. This indicates that the website is having some issues or your competitors are doing well in the niche category. When such a thing happens, it will push down your website in the organic searches. It may have less influence, but it is still considered when calculating the domain authority of your site.
7) Site Downtime
In most of the case, the website owners are unaware of their site downtime. Few seconds of drop in the server response time could also result in a big change in the domain authority. You need an automated system to track the website uptime without failing. Luckily, several third-party tools are available online for the free and premium versions. It allows the website to monitor the server response time from different locations. Signup for the service and register your website for instant email and SMS alerts as soon as your site goes down.
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It checks server response time on a different location to ensure it is not blocked in a particular region and accessible globally. There are possibilities that the site is up in certain areas, and in few regions, the server response time is poor. This may negatively impact your rating, and Google will consider the site is low quality. So take care of your site uptime and do not give reason to the search engine to drop your ranking.
8) New Content
A site that is updated regularly gets more attention from the Search engine algorithm. Search engines like new content as their primary job are to seek the relevant content to feed the users’ needs. If your site has not updated the new content for a long period, the site crawling rate might have gone down.
The website in the stealth mode could receive less crawling rate. If your competitors are updating the new content and your website doesn’t have fresh content, the priority will be shifted to the competitor’s website. The competitor’s website will snatch your ranking and become the number one in the organic search. New content published to your site gives the search engine reason to crawl the page and the internal linking. Hence, you should focus on updating the new content regularly to stay in the game.
What Can Be Done When Domain Authority Is Decreased?
Finding a solution begins with the diagnosis of the problem. Unless you know the root cause of the problem, it would be difficult to decide what treatment is required.
Once you know the cause, it will be easy to recover from the problem quickly and push your website domain authority up.
DA changes for multiple reasons. Check some of the common reasons that affect the DA on a large scale. See if you can find the pattern in the website audit report.
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How do fix a domain authority problem?
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The high bounce rate of visitors visiting your site could make your website lose the organic ranking of your targeted keywords. Google considers your site as less valuable than the competitors who are getting quality traffic to their website.
So check your traffic source and see who is sending you the visitors. Contact those websites and ask them to remove your link from their site. Clean the junk backlinks and build new backlinks to stay ahead of the competition.
- Backlinks from the education institute, a reputed university, are one of the key sources to enhance your visibility in organic searches. These backlinks hold the power to rank your website high in the organic search and boost your domain authority. Tie up with the universities for the educational program. In return, request them to put your site link to their official website. Building relationships with the top educational institute would make your website climb quickly in ranking.
- Remove the broken links from the referring sites. It is a painful process, but if you want to present yourself as the reputed website on the web, you must take action against the broken links. Broken links are hurting the DA. Take the help of Google search console and third-party backlink checker tools. Collect all of them in one document and start removing the broken links by contacting the website owner.
- Push the pages that are ranking in the top 20 search results to the top ten positions by simply optimizing the pages for keyword density, speed, and user experience. When your pages are qualified for the first page results, Google will pull them up in the top spot. A small tweak to the articles would give you a boost in the ranking.
- Reduce the number of pages with no genuine traffic to your site. There might be pages on your website or blog which are ranking for the unwanted keywords. Examine the analytical report and list the pages with the keywords they rank for in the organic search. Filter them according to important and non-important pages.Any keyword which does not generate the business or quality traffic should be removed. These keywords are not helping you in revenue generation or increasing the domain authority. They are simply consuming your server resources. Also, these kinds of traffic may contribute to the high bounce rate, which could leave a negative rating on your site. It is better you take action against them and delete them or redirect them to the relevant pages using the 301 redirection method.
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When you have a concern about drop and looking for the answers to the question, Why did my domain authority go down? It is advisable to run a complete audit of your website. Take the help of the Google search console, Google Analytics, and third-party SEO optimization tool, and backlink checker tools.
You will encounter several issues in your website hidden in the background. If the search engine Bots crawls these pages and detect the error, they can use this data to decide the rating for your website.
Less error indicates you have good quality websites. It increases the chances of ranking high in the search engine. Fix errors found in the tools and resubmit the website for crawling once you have done with the changes.
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Final Words
If you are also facing a drop in the domain authority, then do not panic. Nothing is permanent in this universe. Pay attention to the details, conduct your website audit, and find the root cause of the drop of the domain authority.
If you are worried about the domain authority went down, then spend some time with your website and see what causes it to lose health. After all, it is your baby. It will tell you what makes it suffer. The new algorithm is released every few months, domain authority algorithm changes, backlink drops, attributes of the backlink changes, and there are many other things that affect the website’s health. When you understand these factors, it becomes easy to evaluate the problem and fix it immediately.
Remember that the domain authority will grow gradually even after you recover from the situation. Do not expect a sudden increase in the domain authority or bounce back to the earlier DA immediately after making the changes to your site.
It takes time for the algorithm to fetch the new data and apply it to their assessment parameters. If you have done it authentically, your site will experience a boost in the Domain authority in the next update. So stay positive and do your best to improve your ranking and domain authority with the white hat SEO practices.