When it comes to AI visibility, meaning how often your business is mentioned in answers from AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Claude, one question keeps coming up:
“Does Domain Authority still matter?”
The short answer is directly, no, but indirectly, absolutely yes.
Unlike Google Search, which still uses backlinks and site authority as core ranking factors, AI engines don’t have an internal “Domain Authority (DA)” score. They don’t rank websites. They generate answers.
However, the sources AI models use to build those answers often favor high-authority websites, and that’s where the real connection begins.
Let’s break down how this works, and why your website’s domain authority still plays a major role in whether AI mentions your brand.
What Is Domain Authority, and Why It Still Matters
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric developed by Moz (and similar scores like Domain Rating by Ahrefs or Authority Score by Semrush). It predicts how well a website might rank in traditional search engines based on factors like:
Backlink quantity and quality
Referring domains
Overall trust and reputation
Site age and consistency
Although AI search engines don’t use Moz or Ahrefs data, these metrics represent how well your site is known and cited across the internet.
And that visibility is exactly what large language models (LLMs) rely on when they decide which sources to pull information from.
AI Engines Don’t Rank, They Reference
AI engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity don’t index websites the same way Google does.
They don’t crawl billions of pages every second looking for keyword matches. Instead, they:
Pull from their training data, massive text datasets built from trusted, publicly available sources.
Combine that with real-time search connectors (like Bing, Google, or internal APIs).
Rank sources based on trust, relevance, and recency, not just keyword matching.
So when you ask, for example,
“What are the best AI rank tracking tools in 2025?”
The AI might not “rank” websites but rather mention those it considers trustworthy, often based on how frequently they appear across other credible pages.
If your brand is referenced in high-authority publications or directories, you’re much more likely to appear in AI-generated answers.
The Indirect Link: Mentions Build Visibility
Think of Domain Authority as your online reputation score.
AI doesn’t look up your DA directly, but it learns from the pattern that higher DA websites are:
More cited across the web
More up-to-date
More likely to provide accurate information
When AI models are trained or when real-time retrieval happens, they often prioritize the same content signals that make DA strong.
For instance:
If Forbes, HubSpot, and Entrepreneur mention your brand, AI sees your name connected to trustworthy data.
If your website has hundreds of backlinks from industry blogs, those links exist in the model’s dataset, indirectly boosting your mention probability.
That’s why websites with high domain authority tend to dominate AI answers, not because AI measures their DA, but because those websites shape the internet’s collective knowledge.
Real-World Example: Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity’s Sources
Let’s look at two examples that show this indirect impact in action:
Google AI Overviews
When Google launched AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience), it started showing AI-generated summaries at the top of search results.
But the sources cited underneath were often the same sites that rank on the first page of Google, those with high authority.
In other words, Google’s AI trusts what Google Search already ranks well.
So even though AI Overviews are not traditional search results, authority still determines who gets mentioned.
Perplexity AI
Perplexity pulls live web data to generate answers.
When you click “Sources,” you’ll often see Wikipedia, major news outlets, or high-authority blogs.
It rarely shows a random new site with a DA of 10, unless that site has a viral or exclusive piece of content.
This pattern proves that AI visibility favors authority, even without measuring it directly.
Why Backlinks Still Matter in the AI Era
Some marketers think the age of backlinks is over. It’s not, it’s just evolved.
In AI search:
Backlinks increase your mention density across the web.
The more you’re cited, the more likely AI engines are to encounter your brand name or content.
Citations help AI engines associate your brand with specific topics, industries, or expertise.
For example, if “AI Rank Checker” is mentioned on 50 blogs discussing “AI visibility tools,” that association becomes strong in AI models’ semantic memory.
When someone later asks, “What are the best AI visibility platforms?”, the AI can connect the dots and include your brand naturally in the answer.
Backlinks aren’t about PageRank anymore, they’re about data presence.
High DA = High Data Confidence
LLMs make decisions based on confidence.
If multiple trustworthy sources say something similar, the AI becomes more confident in that fact.
That’s why it prefers high-authority domains, they represent consensus and reliability.
If your content exists mostly on low-authority sites, the AI might treat your data as uncertain or niche. But if your content is echoed by authoritative sources, AI perceives it as verified knowledge.
In short:
High DA = High mention frequency = High AI confidence = Higher chance of inclusion in answers.
What You Can Do to Improve AI Visibility Through Authority
Even though DA isn’t a direct AI ranking factor, you can intentionally use authority-building strategies to improve your AI presence.
Here’s how:
1. Earn Mentions on Authoritative Sites
Pitch guest posts, partnerships, and case studies to reputable publications.
Each mention acts as a signal to AI engines that your brand is credible.
2. Get Listed in Directories and Databases
LLMs often pull from structured sources like Crunchbase, ProductHunt, LinkedIn, Allabolag, or G2.
Make sure your brand is visible and well-described there.
3. Publish Consistently Fresh, Accurate Content
AI tools value recency. Updating old pages and posting new insights shows your brand is active, a key signal for real-time models like Perplexity and Gemini.
4. Build Topic-Specific Authority
Instead of trying to cover everything, dominate one niche.
For example, being “the best tool for AI visibility” is far more powerful than being a general marketing platform.
LLMs recognize niche expertise better than generic content.
5. Strengthen Internal and External Linking
Interlink your pages to reinforce your topical relevance.
Externally, aim for backlinks from industry-relevant pages rather than random directories.
Relevance is now more important than raw link count.
Google’s Role Still Matters, For Now
Even though AI search is growing fast, Google remains the largest data source feeding AI models.
That means:
Pages ranking higher in Google are still more likely to be seen and learned from by AI.
If Google ranks your site well, AI retrieval systems (that use Bing or Google Search) are more likely to display you.
So improving your DA and SEO doesn’t just help you with Google, it indirectly improves your AI ranking potential too.
The Bottom Line
AI search engines may not use Domain Authority as a formal metric, but the ecosystem they rely on does.
Here’s the reality:
AI doesn’t read DA scores.
But AI reads the web.
And the web favors sites with authority.
So if your brand consistently earns backlinks, builds citations, and gets mentioned on trusted websites, you’re effectively improving your AI domain authority, even if it’s not a number you can track in Moz.
In the new world of AI visibility, the rules haven’t disappeared; they’ve just changed form.
Authority, credibility, and consistency still win, only now, instead of ranking you on a page, they determine whether you’re part of the answer.
In short:
Domain Authority doesn’t directly affect AI ranking, but it shapes every signal AI uses to decide whom to trust.
And in 2025 and beyond, trust is the new ranking factor.