We Published the Same Content on Two Sites with Different Authorities—Only One of Them Ranks

We published a blog post with the same content (slightly paraphrased) on two different sites.

The two sites in question have vastly different domain authorities. And, depending on which SEO tool you ask, the site with the higher authority changes.

Here’s what their domain authorities from different metrics look like:

So, site 1 (DRvsASexperiment .com) has higher authority from Ahrefs DR and Moz DA perspectives.

And site 2 (xamsor.com) has the higher authority from Semrush AS‘s perspective.

We published the same content (both posts were slightly paraphrased using AI) on these two sites.

Which site do you think ranked higher and faster?

Before we dive into that, here’s some backstory.

Context: Authority Matters In Rankings

Google ranks content faster and higher for websites it has higher “trust” in. This “trust” in websites is often referred to as “authority.”

We have deep-dived into website “authority” and Google rankings in our post on buying existing websites vs. building new websites.

In short, the higher the “authority” a site has in Google’s eyes, the better it will rank.

The problem?

We do not know which websites have real authority in Google’s eyes. All the SEO tools showing domain “authority” scores are approximations at best.

It doesn’t end there. These domain “authority” metrics do NOT agree with each other either.

Different Metrics Show Different Domain “Authority”

For the same site, the domain “authority” metrics from different SEO tools can be completely different.

Here is an example:

A big part of the problem here is “DR hackers.” These DR hackers easily manipulate a site’s domain authority metrics – especially Ahrefs DR and Moz DA for a price. We tested these on our research here.

So, to address this confusion, we did an experiment.

The aim of the experiment was two-fold:

Does the same content but on different sites rank differently on Google? I.e., Is there a site “authority” at play?

Which SEO tools’ authority metrics are more accurate or in line with Google?

Experiment: To Determine Which Site Has The “Real” Authority

Here’s what we did:

We published the same quality content on two different sites. The original content was paraphrased twice using ChatGPT into two versions, and both were published on two different sites.

The first version was published on drvsasexperiment.com: drvsasexperiment.com/canonical-tag-overview/

The second version was published on xamsor.com: xamsor.com/blog/canonical-tag-overview/

The experiment began on September 26, 2024, when the texts were published on both sites, and ended on October 10, 2024.

A background about these two sites:

Site 1 (DRvsASexperiment .com): We bought the site as a dummy domain for our research purposes and paid DR hackers to inflate its domain authority metrics. While the site has no real authority, traffic, or content, it has excellent DA and DR metrics.

Site 2 (xamsor.com): This is our main site and the one you are reading this research about. The site is built with lots of quality content, tools, backlinks from authoritative websites, and traffic from real people. And yet, the site has a lower DR and DA than our dummy site.

Here are the domain authority metrics for each of these sites:

Site 1: DRvsASexperiment .com

Moz DA: 54

Ahrefs DR: 44

Semrush AS: 2

In short, site 1 has a high Moz DA and Ahrefs DR of 54 and 44, respectively. But a low Semrush AS of 2.

Site 2: Xamsor.com

Moz DA of 9

Ahrefs DR: 25

Semrush AS: 24

Compared to site 1, site 2 has lower Moz DA and Ahrefs DR but a higher Semrush AS.

Putting it all together, here’s what the table looks like:

Domain “Authority” Metrics	DRvsASexperiment .com	Xamsor.com
Moz DA	54	09
Ahrefs DR	44	25
Semrush AS	02	24

Now, which site do you think ranked better? Take a guess.

Results

Here are the results from this experiment:

The text published on xamsor.com was immediately ranked and began receiving impressions for relevant keywords.

The text on drvsasexperiment.com struggled with ranking on the other hand, despite being indexed by Google almost immediately.

Bottomline.

The site with lower DA and DR scores but a higher AS ranked faster and higher. While the site with a higher DA and DR scores but a lower AS ranked lower.

Key Takeaways

Two main takeaways from this experiment:

First, this experiment shows that two texts of the same quality can rank very differently on two different sites.

The two sites have vastly different domain “authority” metrics.

And these domain “authority” metrics do not accurately reflect a site’s actual quality or “authority.”

Second, this experiment demonstrates that only Semrush AS objectively reflects a website’s authority.

It is more reliable to use True Domain Authority Checker to determine a site’s true authority rather than relying on other metrics that are not accurate at all.