Almost every SEO conversation eventually arrives at a number: a page authority score, a domain authority score, or a page optimisation grade from a Moz report. Someone asks what a good score is, and the honest answer disappoints them, because there is no universal threshold. These metrics are relative, logarithmic, third-party estimates, and they mean very different things in different industries.

That does not make them useless. Used correctly, they are among the fastest ways to size up a competitive landscape or spot an unusually weak page holding a strong position. Used incorrectly, they become vanity targets that absorb effort without producing traffic.

How We Use Authority Metrics in Real Campaigns

We treat third-party scores as diagnostic inputs, never as goals, and that discipline is built into our SEO services. Our team benchmarks your pages against the specific competitors ranking for your target queries rather than against an arbitrary number, identifies where an authority gap is genuinely the blocker versus where relevance or technical issues are, and then focuses effort accordingly. We report on rankings, qualified traffic, and revenue, using authority scores only to explain why a gap exists. Because we are a full-service digital marketing company offering web development, digital marketing, and SEO worldwide, we can act on the findings across content, code, and off-page work. If you want interpretation rather than dashboards, hire AAMAX.CO and we will translate the numbers into a plan.

What the Scores Actually Measure

Page Authority estimates how likely a single page is to rank, based primarily on the quantity and quality of links pointing to it. Domain Authority does the same at the whole-site level. Both sit on a scale from one to one hundred, and both are predictions made by a third party, not signals search engines use. Google does not read them and does not have access to them.

Separately, Moz tools produce a page optimisation score for a URL against a chosen keyword. That number is a different thing entirely: it grades on-page factors such as keyword placement in titles, headings, and body copy, plus basic technical checks. A high optimisation score means the page is well-formatted for that keyword, not that it will rank.

Confusing these two is the most common mistake. Authority is about earned trust; optimisation is about how the page is constructed.

The Scale Is Logarithmic, Which Changes Everything

Authority scores are not linear. Moving from ten to twenty is comparatively achievable with a modest number of quality links. Moving from sixty to seventy requires an enormous amount of additional authority, which is why established publishers cluster in the high seventies and eighties while most business sites sit far lower.

This means percentage thinking does not apply. A score of forty is not half as good as eighty; it is dramatically further from it than the numbers suggest. It also means small sites should expect slow score movement and should not interpret that as failure.

So What Counts as Good?

The only meaningful benchmark is the competition for the queries you want. Run your target keywords, look at the pages currently ranking in the top five, and check their page-level authority. If they sit in the twenties, a page in the twenties is competitive. If they sit in the sixties, you need either substantially more authority or a much more specific query where the competition is softer.

As rough context, new sites typically start in the single digits. Established small business sites commonly land somewhere in the teens to thirties. Recognised regional or niche brands often reach the thirties to fifties. National brands and major publishers occupy the sixties and above. None of these ranges are goals; they are simply where sites of that type tend to sit.

Look for Authority Mismatches

The most practical use of these scores is finding opportunity. Scan the results for a target keyword and look for a page with unusually low authority holding a top position. That indicates the query is winnable on relevance and content quality rather than raw link strength, and it is exactly where a well-built page can break through quickly.

Conversely, if every top result has strong page-level authority and dozens of relevant referring domains, no amount of on-page work alone will get you there. That tells you to either invest in earning authority or to target more specific long-tail variations first and build up.

How to Improve the Numbers Meaningfully

Because these scores are link-driven, improving them means earning links, but the type matters. Focus on unique referring domains from relevant, credible sites rather than volume from low-value sources. Publish assets worth citing: original research, useful tools, thorough reference guides, and genuine expert commentary. Convert unlinked brand mentions into links. Contribute real expertise to publications your audience reads.

Internal linking also raises page-level authority by distributing existing site strength. Link from your strongest pages to the ones you want to lift, using descriptive anchor text. This is free, fast, and consistently underused.

Metrics That Deserve More of Your Attention

Rather than fixating on authority scores, monitor unique referring domains, keyword position distribution, impressions and click-through rate from Search Console, organic conversions, and revenue by landing page. These reflect reality rather than an estimate of it. A page whose authority score never moves but whose conversions double is a success; a page whose score climbs while traffic stays flat is not.

Final Thoughts

A good page score in Moz is one that is competitive against the specific pages outranking you, nothing more. Use authority metrics to size up difficulty and spot winnable queries, use optimisation scores as a formatting checklist, and judge success by rankings, traffic, and revenue. The teams that grow fastest are the ones who stop treating third-party numbers as report cards and start using them as maps.