Trade Union Website League Table 2021
Every year I carry out an analysis of all the websites of the TUC affiliated unions, so see how they rank for Domain Authority. The focus is to see how authoritative the website is, as measured by the leading Domain Authority metric from Moz.com. Previous results can be see for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012.
This metric reflects how often a website is mentioned and linked to across the web and social media and considers both quality and quantity of links. It’s important to note that Domain Authority doesn’t measure how good the actual website is.
Search engines look at signals like links and mentions when deciding how high to rank a website in search results. The higher the Domain Authority, the better the chance the union has of influencing online through higher ranking in search results. This is especially effective if the website has been optimised for search engines.
| No | Union | Domain Authority |
|---|---|---|
| 1 (1) | BDA | 69 |
| 2 (2) | Unite | 66 |
| 3 (3) | Chartered Society of Physiotherapy | 62 |
| 3 (5) | RCM | 62 |
| 3 (3) | UNISON | 62 |
| 6 (6) | NUJ | 60 |
| 6 (7) | UCU | 60 |
| 8 (7) | GMB | 59 |
| 9 (9) | PFA | 58 |
| 10 (10) | BALPA | 57 |
| 10 (11) | Royal College of Podiatry | 57 |
| 12 (11) | Equity | 56 |
| 12 (15) | Musicians’ Union | 56 |
| 12 (11) | NASUWT | 56 |
| 12 (11) | RMT | 56 |
| 16 (15) | PCS | 55 |
|
17 (17) |
BECTU (Section of Prospect) | 53 |
| 17 (17) | CWU | 53 |
| 19 (19) | NAHT | 52 |
| 19 (21) | NEU | 52 |
| 19 (19) | TSSA | 52 |
| 22 (21) | FBU | 51 |
| 22 (25) | Prospect | 51 |
| 22 (21) | The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain | 51 |
| 25 (27) | Society of Radiographers | 50 |
| 25 (21) | USDAW | 50 |
| 27 (25) | ASLEF | 49 |
| 28 (31) | EIS | 47 |
| 29 (29) | BFAWU | 46 |
| 29 (28) | Community | 46 |
| 29 (31) | NSEAD | 46 |
| 32 (30) | NAPO | 45 |
| 32 (33) | Nautilus | 45 |
| 34 (34) | POA | 43 |
| 35 (37) | AEP | 40 |
| 35 (36) | FDA | 40 |
| 35 (35) | NUM | 40 |
| 38 (38) | British and Irish Orthoptic Society | 39 |
| 39 (40) | Artists' Union England | 38 |
| 39 (38) | HCSA | 38 |
| 41 (41) | Accord | 33 |
| 43 (42) | URTU | 28 |
| 43 (46) | UCAC | 25 |
| 44 (44) | NGSU | 23 |
| 45 (44) | Aegis | 22 |
| 46 (43) | NARS | 20 |
| 47 (47) | Advance | 18 |
Source: Moz.com July 2021
For the third year in a row, the British Dietetic Association comes top of the table, punching above their weight for a small, specialist union. Hosting informative content on food and health appears to be encouraging other websites to link to their pages.
In second place again is Unite, followed by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, RCM and Unison in joint 3rd. The NUJ, UCU, GMB and PFA come next respectively, with BALPA and Royal College of Podiatry tied for 10th place. There has only been some minimal movement in the top ten this year.
Biggest risers
| Union | Positions moved up |
| EIS, Musicians’ Union, Prospect, UCAC | 3 |
| AEP, NEU, NSEAD, RCM, Society of Radiographers | 2 |
The fastest risers are the EIS (28th), Musicians’ Union(12th), Prospect (22nd) and UCAC (43rd). They all move up three places from last year’s league table.
Biggest falls
| Union | Positions moved down |
| USDAW | 4 |
| NARS | 3 |
| ASLEF, NAPO | 2 |
USDAW sees the biggest fall, moving down four places to 25th. The National Association of Racing Staff move down three places to 46th and ASLEF and NAPO both drop two places.
Over the last few years, the league table has become more settled. I think this reflects how union websites have matured and how most unions have now grasped the effective use of social media to promote content. I’ve seen a similarly consistent trend emerge in my annual trade union Twitter metrics analysis.