Introduction to Domain Overview

This guide walks through the Domain Overview tool.

Quick Links

• Getting Started With Domain Overview
• Summary
• Rankings
• Competition
• Links

The Domain Overview tool in Moz Pro allows you to quickly discover key SEO metrics to better assess a site's online authority, performance, and health.

To get started with Domain Overview, follow the below steps:

1. Enter a URL (This can be a domain, subdomain, or exact page)

2. Select the domain type

3. Select the preferred market

4. Click Analyze

After clicking Analyze, data will populate in a handy all-in-one dashboard to help you better understand the health of the site you’re searching. Continue reading below to learn more about the data included in each section of the tool.

The Summary section offers a high-level view of how your site is performing in terms of authority, links, and rankings. Exploring these baseline numbers at a glance can help you understand the overall strength of a domain, subdomain, or exact page.

The following metrics will be noted for the site you enter:

A. Domain Authority^tm — A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 that predicts how well a domain will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

B. Brand Authority^tm — A score developed by Moz that measures a domain’s total brand strength as a 1-100 score.

C. Page Authority — A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 that predicts how well a page will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

D. Linking domains — The number of unique root domains linking to a target. Two links from the same website will only be counted as one linking root domain.

E. Ranking Keywords — The number of keywords where this site ranks in the top 50 search results.

Under the total count of Linking domains, you will see the number Discovered in last 60 days and Lost in last 60 days. Click on the count beside each to be taken to Link Explorer's Discovered and Lost section.

Discovered in last 60 days — Linking domains which have been found in the last 60 days. This does not necessarily mean the links were created at that time - only that our tool found them and added them to the Moz link index.

Lost in last 60 days — Linking domains from your current backlink profile where no active link was found when our index attempted to recrawl them. In other words, when our crawler went back to that domain, the links to your site were no longer discoverable and crawlable. A few other reasons a link may be marked as lost include a server error that kept us from seeing that link, the page returned a 404 error, or the link wasn’t accessible at the time we attempted to crawl it. A lost link does not necessarily indicate that the link has been removed. Learn about troubleshooting lost links.

Below the total count of Ranking Keywords, you will see the number of keywords this site ranks for in the top 3 results and positions 4-10. Click on the number beside each to be taken to the Ranking Keywords section of Keyword Explorer.

Click Track this site at the top right to create a new Campaign for the site entered.

Below the metrics overview, you’ll see a Metrics over time graph showing the last 12 months of data. Use the radio buttons to switch between Domain Authority, Linking Domains, and Page Authority over time. Hover over the data points on the graph to see more information.

The Rankings section provides insight into the top-ranking keywords for any domain, subdomain, or exact page, as well as ranking distribution. The data in this section is pulled from the Keyword Explorer tool.

The first module will outline Top ranking keywords, sorted by descending Monthly Volume.

A. Keyword — The keyword this site is ranking for.

B. Rank — The rank of the keyword from the Keyword column.

C. Ranking URL — The URL ranking in the position noted in the Rank column.

D. Difficulty — A score from 1-100 which estimates how hard it would be to rank in the top 10 organic spots for a given keyword. We arrive at this score by analyzing the strength of the top 10 organic blue links on the search engine results page (SERP). A Difficulty score of 1 is not difficult at all, and 100 is very difficult.

E. Monthly Volume — Monthly Volume shows the number of searches for a keyword in any given month. It is an indication of the demand for that keyword.

Below the Top ranking keywords module is a graph detailing the Ranking distribution for this site.

Ranking distribution outlines how many keywords the site entered is ranking for within each range. For example, in the above screenshot, the site is ranking for 847 keywords in the #4-#10 positions.

The Competition section identifies the top search competitors for any domain or subdomain. It then provides a ranking distribution comparison and highlights the top keyword and link opportunities for each site. Please note: The Competition section is not currently available for exact page.

The first module in the Competition section is a Competitor Overview which lists the site entered and 3 competitors along with key metrics to help you compare them at a glance. Please note: If an exact page is queried, the Competition section will default to show data for the root domain.

A. Site — The URL of the site entered or the sites identified as top competitors.

B. Ranking Keywords — The number of keywords where this site ranks in the top 50 search results.

C. Top positions #1-3 — The number of keywords where this site ranks in the top 3 search results.

D. Top positions #4-10 — The number of keywords where this site ranks in positions 4 through 10 in the search results.

E. Page Authority — A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 that predicts how well a page will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

F. Domain Authority — A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 that predicts how well a domain will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

G. Brand Authority – A score developed by Moz that measures a domain’s total brand strength as a 1-100 score.

Below the Competitor Overview is the Brand Authority comparison chart. Within this chart, you will be able to compare the Brand Authority and Domain Authority of your top competitors at a glance, giving you a holistic view of the strength of each site being compared. Hover over the graph to see more information.

The next module is a Ranking distribution comparison. This chart is very similar to the Ranking distribution graph seen in the Rankings section of the tool; however, this version includes the competitors noted in the Competitor Overview. Hover over the graph to see additional information about the number of keywords in each rank position.

Below the Ranking distribution comparison are modules for Keyword opportunities and Link opportunities.

Use Keyword Opportunities to identify ranking keywords you can improve on to outrank the competition and drive additional traffic to your site. To further research any keyword in this module, click the keyword itself to be taken to the Keyword Overview section of Keyword Explorer.

Use Link Opportunities to identify who links to your competitors but not to you, and use this information to inform your content and link building strategy. The Legend at the bottom will indicate which sites have links from the Root domains noted.

A. Keyword — The keyword identified as an opportunity for this site. Consider optimizing for these keywords.

B. Traffic Lift — The estimated amount of traffic you can expect to gain by outranking your competitor for this keyword.

C. Root Domain — The URL for the site linking to your competition but not to you. These sites may be opportunities for link building outreach.

D. Sites that intersect — The competitors that currently have links from the site in the Root domain column. Use the Legend at the bottom of the module to further understand which sites have these links.

The Links section provides you with insight into the link profile of any domain, subdomain, or exact page.

The first modules in the Links section are Top pages and Top pages with 4xx errors. Use Top Pages to identify top-performing content based on the number of linking domains they currently have. Top pages with 4xx errors can be used to identify broken pages on your site that have links. These pages may be opportunities to fix the page, redirect the URL, or ask the linking domains to update their links to point to active pages on your site. Please note: Top Pages and Top Pages with 4xx errors are not displayed for exact page.

A. Page/URL — The URL for the page with the indicated Page Authority and number of Linking domains

B. Page Authority — A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 that predicts how well a page will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

C. Linking domains — Number of unique root domains linking to a target (in this case the page noted in the Page/URL column). Two links from the same website will only be counted as one linking root domain.

Below the Top pages modules is the Discovered & lost linking domains graph, which provides an overview of historical link activity for the last 12 months.

The bars on the graph indicate when domains linking to your site were added to the Moz link index or marked as lost. This can help to identify possible reasons for metric fluctuations (such as inbound link counts or authority metrics). Additionally, it can help identify opportunities for link recovery. Hover over the graph to learn more.

Discovered Links — Links that have been found by our crawlers. This does not necessarily mean they have been created in that time- only that our tool has found them.

Lost Links — Links that were not found when our index attempted to recrawl them from your existing backlink profile. When our crawler went back to that page, the link was no longer there. A few other reasons a link may be marked as lost include there is a server error that kept us from seeing that link, the page returning a 404 error, or the link wasn’t accessible at the time we attempted to crawl it. A lost link does not necessarily indicate that the link has been removed.

Discovered and Lost Linking Domains — If all links were lost from a domain, or a new domain is found with a link to your site, this will be reported in the Discovered and Lost Linking Domains.

Below the Discovered and lost linking domains chart are modules for Top linking domains and Frequently used anchor text.

You can use the Top linking domains module to identify the top sites linking to you along with their Domain Authority. The Frequently used anchor text module can help you understand how people are talking about (and linking) to your site or brand.

A. Domain — The domain URL linking to your site

B. Linking domains — Number of unique root domains linking to a target. Two links from the same website will only be counted as one linking root domain.

C. Domain Authority — A Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 that predicts how well a domain will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

D. Anchor text — The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink.

E. Followed external links — Links to the site from other sites that are followed (they do not have a "nofollow" tag added to the link).

The last module is Linking Domains by Spam Score. This chart will show the distribution of your linking domains by Spam Score.

Spam Score represents the percentage of sites with similar features we've found to be penalized or banned by Google. This does not mean that the site is spammy. It’s best to use this as a guide to discovering potentially spammy sites for further investigation.

A score of 1%-30% is considered a Low Spam Score.

A score of 31%-60% is considered a Medium Spam Score.

A score of 61%-100% is considered a High Spam Score.

Since this is just based on correlation with penalization rather than causation, the solution isn't necessarily to disregard sites or disavow links with higher Spam Scores. Instead, we'd recommend using it as a guide for kick-starting investigations.