5 Surprising Truths About SEO Authority Hidden in Plain Sight

Every SEO professional knows the drill. You inherit a new project or start a new campaign, and one of the first tasks is to find link-building opportunities. Inevitably, this leads to searching for massive lists often titled “High Authority Web 2.0 Backlink Directories” or “Instant Approval Web 2.0 Sites,” promising powerful, authority-boosting backlinks from domains with impressive metrics. The process often becomes a numbers game: sort by Domain Authority, find the highest number, and try to get a link.

We all use these lists as a starting point, but it’s easy to get lost in the sea of data. We see rows of websites and their corresponding DA, PA, and other scores, but what stories do these raw numbers tell if we look a little closer? What happens when we compare these lists against each other and analyze the patterns that emerge?

This article does just that. By analyzing several common “High DA” site lists, we’ll deconstruct the numbers to build a more sophisticated and resilient link-building framework. These five counter-intuitive and impactful truths hiding in plain sight challenge common assumptions and offer a more strategic way to think about authority.

1. SEO Metrics Are a Moving Target, Not Gospel

The first and most immediate discovery is that a website’s authority score is not a fixed, universal constant. The exact same domain can have wildly different Domain Authority (DA) scores depending on which list you consult and, presumably, when the data was pulled. This highlights the fluid nature of these third-party metrics.

Consider the DA scores for these well-known platforms across different source lists:

• Blogger.com: Listed with a DA of 100, 99, 92, and 91.

• Wix.com: Listed with a DA of 94, 71, and 69.

• Medium.com: Listed with a DA of 96 and 95.

• Tumblr.com: Listed with a DA of 86 and 78.

This matters because these scores are calculated by proprietary algorithms based on periodic web crawls, meaning they can change due to new links found, old links lost, or algorithm updates by the tool provider (e.g., Moz, Ahrefs). If we treat a DA of 95 as an absolute truth, we might make different decisions than if we see it as a DA of 78 on another day. These metrics are incredibly useful for establishing a general sense of a domain’s authority, but they are directional guides, not gospel. They provide an estimate of potential, not a guarantee of performance.

2. The Ghosts of the Internet Have Surprising Clout

Scrolling through lists of high-authority sites is like taking a walk through a digital graveyard. It’s astonishing how many older, seemingly defunct, or culturally irrelevant platforms still possess formidable authority scores. These are the ghosts of Web 2.0, and they still have surprising clout in the world of SEO metrics.

Here are just a few examples pulled from a single list, all boasting a DA of 80 or higher:

• myspace.com (DA 95)

• tripod.lycos.com (DA 92)

• Angelfire.lycos.com (DA 92)

• squidoo.com (DA 90)

• geocities.ws (DA 89)

• friendster.com (DA 81)

This phenomenon is a powerful lesson in how authority metrics are calculated. Domain age and the sheer volume of inbound links accumulated over decades contribute significantly to these high scores. Even if a platform’s user base has vanished, the link equity it built over its lifetime persists. The lesson here is twofold: don’t automatically dismiss a domain based on its current cultural relevance, but more importantly, always investigate its current traffic and user engagement before investing time in acquiring a link.

3. A High-Authority Site Doesn't Guarantee a High-Authority Link

One of the most critical distinctions in link building is understanding the difference between Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA). DA measures the predictive ranking strength of an entire domain, while PA measures the strength of an individual page. A common mistake is to assume that a link from a high-DA site is automatically a high-value link. The data shows this is far from true.

Even the established homepages of these domains have a Page Authority significantly lower than the site’s overall Domain Authority. A brand-new profile page you create will start with a PA of just 1, making the gap even more extreme.

Website	Domain Authority (DA)	Page Authority (PA)
`Medium.com`	95	48
`microsoft.com`	98	79
`issuu.com`	94	46
`houzz.com`	89	43

This data tells a clear story: getting a link from a powerful domain is only the first step. This is where a multi-tiered link-building strategy becomes essential. A link on a fresh page from a DA 98 domain is an asset, but its true power is unlocked when you build secondary (Tier 2) links to that page, increasing its Page Authority and passing more ‘link juice’ to your target site.

4. Link-Building Opportunities Are Everywhere

The term “Web 2.0” often conjures images of simple blogging platforms like Blogger or WordPress.com. However, a deeper look at these authority lists reveals that the landscape of user-generated content is incredibly diverse. Link-building opportunities exist in a vast array of niche communities and specialized platforms that an SEO might otherwise overlook.

These platforms often have highly engaged, relevant audiences and still carry significant domain authority:

• Code Repositories: github.com (DA 96)

• Academic Sites: academia.edu (DA 93)

• Q&A Sites: quora.com (DA 93)

• Art Communities: Deviantart.com (DA 90)

• Anime Lists: myanimelist.net (DA 89)

• Gaming Wikis: giantbomb.com (DA 86)

• Data Science Hubs: towardsdatascience.com (DA 85)

This takeaway encourages a more creative and targeted approach. Instead of focusing only on generic blogging platforms, the real strategic advantage may lie in finding and engaging with high-authority communities that are directly relevant to your industry. A contextual, relevant link from a DA 75 data science hub will almost always outperform a generic profile link from a DA 95 blogging platform, both for targeted traffic and for signaling topical authority to search engines.

Conclusion: Beyond the Numbers Game

Lists of high-DA sites are a valuable resource and a useful starting point for any link-building campaign. They provide a broad map of the terrain and help identify potential targets. However, the real strategic value is found by looking beyond the raw numbers.

Ultimately, the data compels us to move from a mindset of metric harvesting to one of strategic evaluation. It teaches us to question the stability of the metrics (Takeaway 1), to understand the historical context behind them (Takeaway 2), to differentiate between domain and page-level power (Takeaway 3), and to seek relevance over raw authority (Takeaway 4). By understanding these nuances, we can move beyond a simple numbers game and build a more effective, context-aware, and resilient backlink strategy.

Instead of asking “How high is the DA?”, what if we started by asking “How relevant is the audience?”