📊 What the score means in Search Atlas
Search Atlas shows its own domain strength score for each site you track. It is a relative measure of how strong a domain looks based on the data Search Atlas collects, including links, site signals, and competitive context. It is not the same metric as Domain Authority from Moz or similar scores in other platforms.
A lower number in Search Atlas does not mean the site is weak, broken, or incorrectly verified. It means the site is being scored on a different scale with different inputs.
🔍 Why the number does not match other tools
Customers often compare a Search Atlas score, such as 8, with a score of 40 or higher in another tool. Those figures are not interchangeable. Each product uses its own formula, data sources, and scoring range.
- Different formulas. Other tools do not share their models, so the same site can score very differently.
- Different link data. Each crawler discovers a different set of links and may weight them differently.
- Different scales. A score of 8 in one system is not equal to 8 in another system.
- Different refresh times. One tool may have updated recently while another still shows older data.
Because of this, Search Atlas cannot change a displayed score so that it matches Moz, Ahrefs, Semrush, or any other product. Matching another vendor’s number would make the metric less accurate inside Search Atlas.
🛠️ What to check on your site
Before treating a score as incorrect, confirm that Search Atlas is looking at the right property.
- Open the project and confirm the domain is exactly the one you want to measure, including the correct host such as www or the root domain.
- Check that the site is verified and that recent crawls completed without errors.
- Compare trend inside Search Atlas over time, not a single number against another tool.
- Use the score to compare your site with competitors inside Search Atlas, where every domain is measured the same way.
If the domain, protocol, or subdomain is wrong, the score can look far off even when the calculation itself is working as designed.
⚙️ How scores are updated
Scores refresh on the platform’s normal data cycle. They are not edited by hand for individual domains. A manual override to match an outside tool is not available, because that would break comparisons across your projects.
If your site recently gained or lost links, the Search Atlas score may move on a later refresh. Large gaps versus other tools can remain even after a refresh, and that is expected.
💡 How to use the score with confidence
- Track movement over weeks and months rather than a one-time snapshot.
- Benchmark against competitors in the same Search Atlas view.
- Pair the score with rankings, traffic, and technical health instead of treating it as a standalone grade.
- Do not use another tool’s Domain Authority as a target that Search Atlas must reproduce.
💬 When to ask for a review
Contact support if the wrong domain is attached to the project, the site never finishes verification, or the metrics area is blank or clearly stuck. A difference versus another SEO tool, by itself, is not a data error and will not be corrected to match that tool.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be instantly connected with a member of our team.