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Imaginaire

Marketing Executive

Jamie Gentile-Clarke

Managing Director

Matt Cooke

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Nathan McEvoy-Swann

Head of Digital and CRM

Charita Chutoorgoon

Few business owners are SEO professionals. With so many terms to keep up with things can soon get confusing.

Two SEO terms you might not fully understand are domain visibility and domain authority. With your domain (website URL) being how your customers find your website, and being part of how search engines make ranking decisions, your 

 must help improve all related aspects to your domain. Not to worry, as in today’s post, we’ll explain the differences between domain visibility and domain authority to guide you. 

 In this guide, we'll break down the key differences between domain visibility and domain authority, what a good score looks like for each, and how to improve both.

Have you ever wondered how search engines determine where to rank results on a search engine results page? SEO (search engine optimisation) considers several algorithms, one of which is domain authority. When a domain is newly purchased (and has never existed before) it will have a domain score of 0. For that website to have a good search presence, it will need to put in work to increase its domain authority score over time. 

If a credit score measures your overall financial health to signify to banks and lenders how trustworthy you may be for certain products - a domain authority score essentially does the same thing but for your URL. 

While somewhat subjective based on different tools, a domain authority score tells search engines how trustworthy your domain is considered. 

Some of the aspects that make up a domain authority score include:

The quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your website

The diversity of referring domains — links from many different sites carry more weight than multiple links from a single source

Technical SEO health, including page speed, mobile-friendliness and crawlability

Domain authority scores run on a scale of 0-100, with the higher the score the better.

However, domain authority is not quite that straightforward. This is because the niche of a website will also determine the typical domain authority. So really the goal is to achieve a domain authority score which is in line with your industry and your main competitors. Some of the websites with the highest domain authority scores have been revealed by 

. These include the likes of Google, Apple and Microsoft. These websites have a score of between 99-100, sitting at the upper maximum for trust and authority. It’s unlikely a small business would ever reach a domain authority score of 90+ (or even need to). 

That said, the website would want to aim for a decent domain authority score, with the average domain authority score being between 40 and 50. At the very least, a score of above 20 is what to aim for as a 

. Though these minimum requirements may be higher depending on your industry and competitors. 

Improving your website’s domain authority is the goal of any SEO strategy. 

It can be achieved by getting more quality backlinks. However, it’s also important that your website and its content factor in E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness). In short, users want to find a helpful result that factors in their wants and needs. In contrast, what they don’t want is poor quality content, thin content, misleading content or spam. Continue to provide a quality experience and

 from a variety of different domains, and your domain authority will gradually rise. Your domain authority score can be tracked by using SEO software such as Semrush or Ahrefs. 

Domain visibility is a lesser-known term compared with domain authority. It too is a subjective term created by the likes of Moz and Sistrix. Known as the ‘domain visibility index’, each website will be given a 5-figure score. As with domain authority, the higher the domain visibility score the better. 

Domain visibility is calculated based on several data points which have been collected from search engines over time. The score considers the number of ranking keywords a website has, the search volume of these keywords, and the click rate of the position. As you might expect, domain visibility is a complex term to understand. That said, it remains yet another SEO metric to consider when looking at where improvements can be made to your overall strategy. 

What is a good domain visibility score and how do I improve it?

There are no fixed ‘good’ domain visibility scores in the same way there are for domain authority scores. A website will start with a score of 000,00. For context, Google has a domain visibility score of 305,34 at the time of writing. So it’s fair to say that the higher the score the better, even though there’s no specific score to aim for. Improving your domain visibility is simple. It requires that new content is created with keywords added, existing content is improved, and that a website ranks for keywords with a 

will look to achieve these aims regardless, it could well be the case that your domain authority increases naturally without specifically trying to do so. This is especially the case if you put in a solid effort with your SEO strategy, focusing on E-E-A-T within your content as we mentioned above. 

How domain authority and domain visibility guide SEO decisions

Rather than being goals in their own right, domain authority and domain visibility are best used as diagnostic SEO indicators. Together, they help highlight why a website may or may not be performing as expected in search results.

For example, if organic traffic is stagnating despite regular content updates, comparing these two metrics can help pinpoint the issue. A relatively strong authority score may indicate that the website has the credibility to rank, while weaker visibility can suggest gaps in keyword targeting, search intent alignment or content coverage. Conversely, improving visibility without a corresponding lift in authority can signal that future growth may be limited without stronger off-page support.

Using both metrics side by side allows businesses to prioritise SEO actions more effectively, whether that means refining content strategy, expanding topic coverage or supporting growth with broader 

 When viewed in context, domain authority and domain visibility provide clearer insight into SEO performance than relying on a single metric alone.

Need help improving your website’s domain authority, domain visibility or any other aspect of your SEO strategy? Get Nottinghamshire’s leading 

 on your side when you work with us here at Imaginaire. Let us know more about your project by 

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Domain visibility vs domain authority