• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 1, 2020

Moz, which focuses on search engine optimization, has announced plans to update its Page Authority algorithm.

The changes, announced Tuesday, are aimed at increasing the accuracy of predictions of a page’s ability to rank on a search engine results page (SERP).

The Page Authority metric is powered by a machine-learned, neural network model that uses more than 40 link-related factors to gauge a page’s strength and ranking potential.

The newest iteration, Page Authority 2.0, will launch September 30, 2020. It incorporates factors such as Spam Score, which represents the percentage of sites with similar features found penalized or banned by Google, and link quality pattern identification.

Rob Ousbey, vice president of product at Moz, says the company build authority metrics into its product “to give SEOs more clarity on the strength of their pages and domains, and to help identify where link-related efforts should be prioritized.”

Moz’s Page Authority is a metric that does not directly affect search engine rankings. Instead, it informs SEOs about the strength of an individual page on a 100-point logarithmic scale.

"With the upcoming change to the model, SEOs may notice fluctuations in their own Page Authority scores, but these should be examined within the context of their competitors and industry space," the company explains. "Page Authority and Domain Authority should always be used as relative metrics, rather than absolute ones, to compare ranking potential against direct SERP competitors."