Quantify the link authority delta to prioritize campaigns and unlock fast, defensible ranking lifts with surgical budget allocation.
Authority Gap Score quantifies the delta between your page or domain’s link/topical authority and that of the current SERP leaders for a target query, revealing the precise authority lift—usually measured in quality backlinks or trusted mentions—needed to compete. SEO teams use it to triage link-building budgets and update roadmaps, focusing effort where closing the gap will most quickly translate into higher rankings and revenue.
Authority Gap Score (AGS) measures the numerical distance between the authority of your page (or domain) and that of the current ranking pages for a given query. Most teams calculate it with a normalized metric—e.g., Ahrefs DR, Moz DA, or in-house topical authority scores—then express the delta as a single figure. An AGS of –12 DR, for example, tells you your page sits 12 points below the median DR of the top-10 results. In plain business terms, AGS quantifies how much link equity or trusted mentions you must secure before Google will even consider you a plausible alternative.
B2B SaaS: A cybersecurity platform identified 14 mid-funnel pages with AGS ≤ –5. After securing 37 relevant links (average DR78) over five weeks, 11 pages hit top-3, adding $240k in pipeline—$18 ROI per dollar spent.
Global retailer: The merchandising team overhauled its content calendar, shelving keywords with AGS < –20 and reallocating the $60k budget to digital PR campaigns. Organic revenue rose 13% YoY while link acquisition cost per incremental dollar fell 27%.
Expect $250–$600 per high-quality link via curated outreach or thought-leadership placements. A –10 DR gap on a conversion-critical page often requires a $10k–$25k outlay. Factor in:
By aligning AGS with revenue projections, teams can defend link budgets, avoid wasted sprints, and systematically outpace competitors both in classic SERPs and AI-generated answer panels.
The score quantifies the difference between your domain-level authority (often a logarithmic metric like Domain Rating) and that of the ranking competitor. A gap of 15 indicates the competitor’s backlink profile is significantly stronger and that you likely need more high-quality links—or links from higher‐authority referring domains—to be considered a realistic contender for that keyword. Understanding the magnitude of the gap helps allocate resources: a double-digit gap suggests a long-term campaign or a shift toward lower-competition topics, whereas a small gap might justify short, focused outreach sprints.
Subtract your page’s UR from the SERP average: 58 − 42 = 16. That 16-point deficit is the page-level Authority Gap Score. To close it, you can: 1) Secure a handful of contextually relevant backlinks from pages with UR 60+. 2) Internally link from your own pages with strong backlink profiles to funnel authority. 3) Refresh the content to attract natural links—e.g., original data or a tool. Combining selective outreach with internal linking usually moves the UR needle faster than chasing dozens of low-quality links.
Authority Gap Scores don’t account for every ranking factor. If keyword intent, content depth, or technical health differ, the same numerical gap can mask very different competitive realities. You’d examine: 1) Topical relevance of existing backlinks (are they from pages about the same subject?). 2) Content comprehensiveness versus the SERP winners. 3) Page speed, Core Web Vitals, and schema usage. A page that already meets intent perfectly may leapfrog competitors with a few authoritative links, while a thin page might need a full content overhaul plus links.
Assess payback period (≈1.6 months), sustainability of rankings, and risk tolerance. Consider: 1) Expected link decay—will the authority stick? 2) Seasonality of the keyword’s traffic. 3) Opportunity cost—could the same budget yield higher ROI on lower‐difficulty terms? 4) Existing brand equity that might attract organic links post‐launch. To the CFO: present a forecast showing breakeven in under two months, a conservative scenario where rankings fluctuate, and a sensitivity analysis on conversion rate changes. Framing the spend as a capital investment with a short payback window and compounding returns clarifies the financial upside.
✅ Better approach: Cross-check the gap against real SERP factors (query intent, content depth, on-page optimization, featured snippets). If the gap is <10 points and the top results aren’t perfectly aligned with intent, proceed with a content-led approach first; reserve link acquisition for gaps >15 points where competitors also have strong on-page signals.
✅ Better approach: Benchmark the score against your own historical ranking data and against at least two other tools. Build an internal reference scale (e.g., 0-5 easy, 6-12 moderate, 13+ hard) per vertical and revisit quarterly to adjust for algorithm updates.
✅ Better approach: Prioritize links from sites already covering the same subject cluster, map internal links from high-authority pages you already own, and consolidate orphaned pages to pass equity efficiently before pursuing new external links.
✅ Better approach: Compare URL-level authority (incoming links, age, crawl depth) alongside domain metrics. Target keywords where competitor pages have thin backlink profiles even if their root domain is strong, then strengthen your own target URL with focused internal links and a small number of high-relevance external links.
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