Moz

Moz was founded in 2004 by Rand Fishkin and his mother Gillian Muessig. Rand Fishkin departed Moz in 2018, publishing a book about his experience titled 'Lost and Founder.' He went on to found SparkToro, an audience research SaaS platform. Gillian Muessig left Moz earlier. Neither founder remains involved in the company's operations.

Domain Authority is a proprietary metric Moz developed that scores websites on a 1–100 logarithmic scale. It predicts how likely a site is to rank in search engine results relative to competitors. Moz calculates it by aggregating dozens of link-related signals from its proprietary web index, including linking root domains and total backlinks. The metric is widely used by SEO practitioners as a comparative benchmarking tool, though it is not a Google ranking factor.

Moz is no longer independent. It was acquired by J2 Global — later rebranded as Ziff Davis — in June 2021 for an undisclosed sum. Ziff Davis is a publicly traded digital media and internet company that owns brands including Ookla, IGN, and RetailMeNot. Under the acquisition, Moz operates as a subsidiary within Ziff Davis's technology and shopping vertical.

Moz positioned itself early as an educator in the SEO space, building a strong community through its blog, Whiteboard Friday video series, and the MozCon conference. While Semrush and Ahrefs lean toward all-in-one marketing suites and aggressive link-index scale respectively, Moz historically emphasized data transparency — publicly releasing its Search Ranking Factors survey and maintaining an open API. Post-acquisition, the product suite includes local listing management via Moz Local, which Semrush does not replicate natively.

Moz Local is a location-data management tool that distributes business listings to directories, search engines, and mapping services to maintain accuracy and consistency. It addresses local SEO — the discipline of optimizing for searches tied to a physical location. The product is distinct from Moz Pro, which focuses on organic search keyword tracking and site auditing, though both sit under the same subscription platform.

Moz is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The company also maintains a presence in Vancouver, British Columbia, following its 2013 acquisition of STAT Search Analytics, a Canadian enterprise-SERP analytics firm. There are no other known international offices. The dual-office footprint in the Pacific Northwest supports engineering and product teams on both sides of the US-Canada border.

Moz does not publicly disclose revenue or any figure analogous to assets under management — the company is a SaaS subscription business, not an investment vehicle. Prior to its 2021 acquisition, the firm had raised approximately $29 million in venture funding from Foundry Group and a credit facility from Western Technology Investment, but ongoing financial performance has not been disclosed since being absorbed into the Ziff Davis portfolio.