Is a low Domain Authority bad for backlinks?

Question

I know that a rating of "domain authority" is a bit subjective and different engines can have different parameters.

But let's say I have a newly created website for my aunt. It is new and has NO authority whatsoever.

On a page like moz.com, it has the lame authority of 0.

Two questions:

1. Is it bad to put a backlink on my aunt's webpage pointing at my website: "Website designed by my beloved nephew example.com"? It could be just neutral, not good but not bad.

2. But then it comes the second question, Imagine some backlinks from spammy websites can be attacking my website. Is there any way to find harmful websites with some kind of negative domain authority?

Related questions: Is page authority or domain authority more important for backlinks?

How to identify spammy domains giving backlinks to my site (to submit in disavow links in WMT) (but links on this answer are no longer active)

Answer 1

Answers to your questions:

1. It's not bad at all, it's perfectly fine. Just realize that as long as your aunt's web page has almost no search presence, it won't really change the SEO standing of either of your sites. But if your aunt's site ever gains any backlinks/juice, a small fraction of that juice will count for your own site, since she backlinked to you.

   Also to note: with backlinks, 99% of the benefit goes to the site being linked to, so I wouldn't expect such a link to help your aunt's website in any significant way.

2. While negative SEO is not a myth, it's also not nearly as simple as the "bad guy" aiming his death ray at your website. Negative SEO requires a dedicated attacker launching a hand-crafted attack, so as long as you're not in a competitive niche with an attacker who stands a lot to gain, you really don't have to worry about it.