Medium’s High Domain Authority Can’t Save You
Medium has a high “Domain Authority” or DA. This is cool but you shouldn’t care!
Many SEO people talk about Medium’s high “DA” or domain authority. Some think the high DA will make your articles rank higher on Google more easily.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
This quick guide teaches you how to treat Medium’s DA the right way.
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What Is Domain Authority?
Domain Authority or DA is a prediction as to how strong a website is in the eyes of Search Engines. It measures how likely your new article will rank high on Google and other search engines.
DA is a loosely specified approximation made up of SEO tool companies. A typical DA score is calculated based on the number of backlinks the website has. The more backlinks, the higher the DA score.
The point is that DA is not something search engines actually use to rank your content. Instead, it’s a made-up number that gives a better idea of the strength of a site.
As it turns out, high DA doesn’t have almost anything to do with how your content ranks.
Why Medium’s Domain Authority Doesn’t Matter?
Millions of Medium stories rank high on Google. Besides, there are hundreds of millions of backlinks to the domain. This makes the DA score really high, something like 95/100.
Writing on such a unique platform must be a gift from the writing gods, right? Every story will rank regardless of the quality of content…!
Not so fast.
Unlike some SEO “experts” claim, Medium’s high Domain Authority doesn’t guarantee your story ranks high.
As a matter of fact, you will probably not see any significant success in ranking your Medium stories.
But why?
The content is the king! No backlinks, domain authority, or other cool SEO trickery can save you.
Google Search is a product. Its main goal is to deliver the most comprehensive and detailed stories to the searchers. If your story is not the best one, it won’t rank, no matter what.
Medium’s high DA is not a shortcut to success. Don’t treat it like one! As a matter of fact, none of the SEO advice these days really matters.
To rank high, you need to write the best story on the entire internet about that topic. No technical skills are needed. Only writing!
To succeed in this, treat each story like a product. Make sure your reader doesn’t need another one!
To get some idea of what it takes to write content that ranks, here is a recommended article. It explains how to build a successful blog without SEO.
Even though this article talks about starting your own blog, all the information can be applied on Medium.
When Could Medium’s High DA Matter?
Sometimes your content might rank a bit faster on a site like Medium.com than on a brand-new site.
This is because Google trusts Medium more than a random new site.
For example, when I started my coding blog, it took months for an article to appear on Google. On the other hand, a similar Medium story was indexed on Google in a couple of hours.
So using a platform like Medium can get your stories to rank faster. But it always depends!
A Word about Niches and DA
If you write on a platform that has never touched a particular niche before, chances are it won’t rank any faster than a brand-new site.
This is because, in the eyes of a search engine, the platform is not a well-known and trusted resource around that topic.
So even though Medium has a high DA, it might not have any “topic-specific authority”.
This causes confusion. It is another reason why one shouldn’t care about the high DA of Medium.
