Domain authority is an indicator of how well your website creates content on a particular niche. It is one of the measurements used by Google to rank sites in the SERP.

The scoring system determines where your blog posts will be placed in the ranking system of search engines in a particular subject.  

Countless factors should be considered when optimizing a website’s SEO strategies. It’s almost impossible to keep track of all the different SEO aspects. From content marketing up to the most technical parts such as keyword structuring.

But the good news is that you can still focus on more important factors such as the domain authority of your blog posts. The sad truth, however, is that websites always fall for different mistakes involving domain authority.

Here are some of the most common reasons why a website experiences a drastic decrease in their domain authority:

Low-Quality Backlinks 

Backlinks can build authority and credibility, but when they’re misused, they can ruin everything that you’ve created.

When websites have too many backlinks that are incoherent with the contents of the site, that’s considered a wrong use of backlinks. It becomes evident that the purpose of those links is for linking sake only, which is like cheating.

Another example of bad backlinks is the use of comment spam links. No matter how personalized they sound, using spam links is still considered cheating, which could soon be detected by spambots. This is yet another reason for lower domain authority.

Poor Content Quality 

Content is the king in SEO. After all, people go to websites because they are looking for useful content, which can ultimately drive the ranking of the site.

Therefore, good content is vital to increase the website’s domain authority. Relevance is one of the most essential keys to achieving this. Your blogs should cater to a particular audience or problem. Don’t just create content for “content’s sake. Write high-quality contents that can provide valuable information to your readers.

A website that doesn’t provide high-value content is more likely to be scrapped by Google Analytics. Other SEO metrics can also plummet such as bounce rate, time on the page, and organic traffic.

Too Much Keyword Stuffing

Don’t even think about it. Google knows its craft all too well. Although keyword is used to evaluate the quality and relevance of a website, stuffing your site with too many keywords will never drive your ranking.

It’s considered a black-hat tactic. You’d be playing with fire if you even try to use this strategy. It might give your website some positive results in the beginning, but you will inevitably be caught red-handed in the long run.

Going On a Long Hiatus 

Relevance is not constant. Time is still a critical factor that affects the relevance of your content. What you wrote last year might not be useful today. Lack of activity is also a reason why most website suffers from poor domain authority.

Aside from losing readership, credibility, and having the risk of giving wrong information, Google might also scrap your website altogether, which eliminates it from the SEO race. 

Being Involved In Link Schemes 

No matter what you call them, they are called schemes - an illegal practice which deserves penalties or punishments. There are many forms of link schemes such as spams, irrelevant, repetitive, unnatural, and so on.

These are link strategies intended to manipulate the SEO ranking system through the use of fake links. It’s one of the common reasons why websites lose their credibility when crawled by search engines. Red flags or penalties will be imposed on any site that is involved in link schemes. 

Conclusion 

Domain authority is the pinnacle of SEO metrics. Google uses algorithms that are unfathomable to ordinary people. But the principles in SEO can be reduced to simple concepts in real life.

The best way to increase domain authority is to be consistent with your content. And don’t cheat - ever! Don’t trust black-hat strategies because Google is becoming more and more advanced. Don’t ever think that you can get away with your lousy SEO strategies.