If you've ever peeked at Moz, SEMrush, or an SEO report from your agency, you've seen numbers like Domain Authority, Page Rank, or Authority Score.

They sound official and feel legit, but what do they really mean?

Think of them as your website's credit score.

It’s a helpful indicator, but it’s not cash in the bank. These metrics are becoming less and less relevant as more searches are handled by AI engines.

For years, SEO was treated like a scoreboard.

How many backlinks do we have? What’s our Domain Authority? Can we jump from a DR of 18 to 36?

SEO tools gave marketers a way to compare websites. Moz created Domain Authority (DA), Ahrefs had Domain Rating (DR), and SEMrush had its Authority Score.

If a competitor had more referring domains or stronger backlinks, it was a clue that they had more trust in the market. But here’s the thing: these scores are all different across the various tools, and most importantly, they aren't Google metrics. They are third-party interpretations.

Now the game has fundamentally changed.

We've moved from a link-counting web to a citation-first web. Google still values signals like backlinks, a strong brand, and great content—that hasn't gone away. But AI search engines like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini are changing how information gets surfaced.

They’re asking a different question. It’s no longer just about who has the highest score. It’s about: Who has the clearest, most relevant, and most trusted answer to this exact question?

To win in this new environment, you need to think about authority in three distinct layers.

1. Domain Reputation

This is your website's overall credibility, and it acts as a rising tide that lifts all your pages.

The scores from Moz and SEMrush are trying to measure this. For a local business, a strong domain reputation comes from a mix of factors like backlinks, reviews and general online presence.

All of these signals work together to increase your entire website's credibility.

2. Page Authority

While a strong domain helps, Google ultimately ranks pages, not websites.

Each page on your site competes on its own merits, with a helpful boost from the domain's reputation. This is where metrics like Moz’s Page Authority or Ahrefs’ URL Rating can be useful.

A weak service page on a high-authority domain will still lose to a fantastic, highly useful page on a weaker domain. Because users and search engines want the best possible answer.

3. Topical Authority

This is the layer that matters most to AI engines.

Topical authority is about the depth of expertise your website demonstrates on a specific subject. It’s not about having one page; it’s about creating a comprehensive resource hub.

If you want to be known for "plumbing," for example, you need content covering everything your customers care about: blocked drains, burst pipes, call-out fees, fixing toilets, and service response times for specific suburbs.

When you cover a topic from all angles, you send a powerful signal to AI that you are a true expert.

Knowing these three layers makes the path forward much clearer. Here’s what to do next.

Step 1: Benchmark Where You're At

First, figure out your starting point. Use tools like Moz or SEMrush to get a baseline for your domain and page metrics. This isn't your main goal, but it provides a snapshot of your current domain reputation. From there, focus on improving the quality of your mentions through industry associations, PR, and your Google Business Profile.

Step 2: Win A Niche

You can't be an expert in everything. Pick a few core commercial topics that are critical to your customers and build deep content clusters around them. This focused approach makes it easy for AI engines to recognize you as the go-to authority in that specific niche.

Step 3: Track Your "Share of Voice"

The new scoreboard is your "share of voice" within AI. Open up ChatGPT or Claude and ask it questions your customers would ask, like, "Who are the best [your industry] companies in [your suburb]?" or "What are the top [your service] providers near me?"

If your business isn't mentioned in those responses, your authority hasn't translated into the visibility that matters most today.

Those old ways of thinking about website authority are still useful context, but they're incomplete.

Today the real prize is being trusted enough for AI engines to reference you directly.