If you ask any digital marketing agency what is the number one goal of SEO? The answer will be to get to position number #1 on the search engine results page. Long gone are the days of just counting backlinks a couple of ways and hoping they match up well with the SERPs. But with the coming of Moz PA 2.0, we are looking forward to a more accurate prediction. Does the page has the ability to rank on a search engine results page (SERP.) 

MOZ Page Authority: What is it?

Page Authority, similar to domain authority, has established and set out as a significant and important measure to assess the page’s ability to rank. As the search arena continues to change and evolve, both domain authority and page authority also updated. These updates are brought to better keep pace with the search engines. Moz Page Authority, following the last year’s update to the algorithm which powers domain authority. Update set out to bring a new and state-of-the-art algorithm. This will incorporate an improved model to gauge the page strength much more accurately. It is powered by a machine-learned, neural network model. It uses more than 40 link-related factors to measure a page’s strength and ranking potential. 

Domain Authority VS Page Authority

Page authority mentions the predictive ranking strength of a single page. While domain authority measures the strength of the complete domain/subdomains. The metrics are, however, calculated using the same methodology — so in some ways, we can say that they’re more alike than they are different.

What changes to expect in MOZ PA 2.0?

Moz PA 2.0 brings forth a new way of calculating Page Authority to produce better and superior results. Here’s how we are expecting the changes:

Firstly, MOZ PA 2.0 redefines the training set altogether. Earlier the SERPs were alone used to train the Page Authority model making the process direct and simple, but there was a lot missing. Instead of basing the Page Authority on one page’s ability to outrank the other page, you will now see a summative value of a page based on a variety of factors such as search traffic and CPC. To put this in perspective, imagine two pages X and Y dealing with different topics. The older version model wouldn’t get to compare these two pages because they never appear on the same SERP but the new methodology provides an abstract value to each page, such that they can be compared with any other page by the machine-learned model.

Secondly, Moz Page Authority 2.0 now uses a common metric to run the model recognizing the outliers and then putting those URLs back in the training set. This solves the issue in building metrics which is not what the models see, but what they don’t see. Ponder for a moment: what kind of URLs do not pop up in the SERPS which the model will use to produce Page Authority. The answer is images, binary files, etc. The new version addresses this problem and re-runs the model such that it learns from its own mistakes. This can be repeated as many times as is necessary to reduce the number of outliers.

Thirdly, page authority 2.0 focuses on accuracy. Moz understands the impact of the changes on the customers and the compromise between accuracy and continuity. Moz keeps this in mind and says that it has now become more important to focus on Page Authority with respect to the competitors as it may cause larger than usual shifts in the current status. 

Will the new Page Authority 2.0 affect your website’s current PA?

The Page Authority metrics does not directly affect the search engine rankings but informs on the strength of an individual page on a 100-point logarithmic scale. However, with the forthcoming changes, some users will likely be surprised by changes and might witness fluctuations in the Page Authority scores. But be sure that you understand that this change will be much more accurate and useful and should be examined with the competitors and industry space. Moz won’t release a Page Authority which isn’t better than the previous version, so even if the results are disappointing, understand that you now have better insight than ever before into the performance of your pages in the SERPs.

Conclusion

Moz seems to be in good shape as they currently have plenty of candidate models which outperform the existing Page Authority. But they said they will not launch unless they are confident that it will provide customers with the right direction and results. They are highly conscientious of the decisions their customers make based on the metrics, not just whether the metrics meet some statistical criteria and thus, want to withhold the commitment to maintaining world-class quality SEO data. As new factors and enhanced algorithms emerge, it continues to give digital marketing agency and SEO experts important points to decide how to take action, where to build links, and what kinds of content to develop. 

Also, Moz will not just launch the page authority 2.0 and let it pass. Moz plans to improve the model as and when new and better features are discovered. This indicates that profiles with unnatural links can get affected, so it’s better to stay updated with Google algorithms. 

Keeping all this in mind, Moz will launch Page Authority 2.0. This will provide them with sufficient time to address the primary issues and produce good results. Is that annoying? We and other digital marketing agencies are sure it is but it is also necessary. 

Stay tuned for more updates on the upcoming Page Authority metric.