Why Track Domain Authority?

Domain authority metrics give you a snapshot of your website's perceived strength in the eyes of search engines. While Google doesn't use these third-party metrics directly, they serve as useful proxies for understanding your site's backlink profile and overall SEO health.

Tracking these metrics over time helps you:

• Measure the impact of your link-building efforts
• Benchmark against competitors
• Identify trends and potential issues early
• Report progress to stakeholders and clients
• Make data-driven SEO decisions

The Challenge: Multiple Platforms, Multiple Subscriptions

The SEO industry has three major providers of domain authority metrics: Ahrefs (Domain Rating), Moz (Domain Authority), and Majestic (Citation Flow and Trust Flow).

Each platform offers its own metric based on proprietary algorithms. While youcan track these metrics if you have a paid account on each service, this approach has significant drawbacks:

The Cost Problem

Subscribing to all three major SEO platforms can easily cost $300-500+ per month. For most businesses, this represents a significant expense, especially when you consider that you're paying for largely overlapping functionality.

Overlapping Features

Each platform offers keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits, and rank tracking. If your primary goal is just to monitor domain authority metrics, you're paying for dozens of features you may never use. It's like buying three different cars just to check three different odometers.

Manual Tracking is Tedious

Even if you have all the subscriptions, tracking metrics over time requires manual effort. You need to:

• Log into each platform separately
• Navigate to the right reports
• Export or record the data
• Compile everything into a spreadsheet
• Repeat this process weekly or monthly

This manual process is time-consuming and error-prone, especially when managing multiple domains.

A Better Approach: Unified Domain Authority Tracking

Instead of juggling multiple expensive subscriptions, consider using a dedicated domain authority tracking tool like Koala.

How to Get Started with Domain Authority Tracking

Ready to start tracking your domain authority effectively? Here's a simple step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Identify Your Domains

Make a list of all the domains you want to track. This might include:

• Your main website
• Any subdomains or separate properties
• Key competitors you want to benchmark against
• Client websites (if you're an agency)

Step 2: Choose Your Tracking Tool

Select a tool that can pull metrics from multiple providers. With Koala, you simply add your domains and the platform handles the rest—automatically fetching and storing metrics from Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic.

Step 3: Set Up Regular Monitoring

Configure your preferred update frequency. For most sites, weekly updates are sufficient, but high-traffic sites or those in active link-building campaigns may benefit from daily monitoring.

Step 4: Add Notations for Context

When you launch a new campaign, submit to directories, or make significant changes, add notations to your charts. This helps you correlate metric changes with specific actions—essential for understanding what's working.

Step 5: Review and Adjust

Check your metrics regularly and look for trends. A sudden drop might indicate lost backlinks, while steady growth confirms your strategy is working.

What to Watch For

As you track your domain authority, keep an eye on these patterns:

• Sudden drops: May indicate lost backlinks, algorithm updates, or provider recalibrations (Ahrefs did a major one in late 2024)
• Stagnation: If metrics aren't moving, your link-building efforts may need a boost
• Diverging metrics: If one provider shows growth while others don't, investigate the type of links you're acquiring
• Competitor movements: Relative position matters as much as absolute numbers

Conclusion

Tracking domain authority doesn't have to be expensive or time-consuming. While subscribing to multiple SEO platforms gives you access to many features, most of that functionality overlaps—and the cost adds up quickly.

For pure domain authority tracking, a specialized tool like Koala gives you everything you need at a fraction of the cost. You get unified metrics from all major providers, automatic updates, historical tracking, and clear visualizations—all in one place.

Ready to simplify your domain authority tracking? Get started with Koala today.