What Is Domain Rating (DR)?

How Domain Rating is calculated

Ahrefs bases DR on the backlinks a site has: how many unique domains link to it, how strong those linking domains are, and how many other sites each of them links to. A linking domain splits its rating equally among all the domains it links to, so a link from a modest site that links out to three domains can count for more than a link from a strong site that links out to thousands.

Because DR is relative to the rest of the web, it is much easier to move a low score than a high one. A new site often starts near zero, and its first relevant links move it quickly.

What DR does not tell you

• Traffic. A high-DR site can get almost no organic visitors.
• Relevance. DR is the same whether a site is about your topic or not.
• Google's view. Google does not use DR. Ahrefs itself notes that DR correlates with rankings less strongly than URL Rating, its page-level score.
• Manipulation. Like any link-based score, DR can be inflated by link schemes, which is why "DR 50+ for $10" offers are a warning sign.

Other third-party authority scores

Other SEO tools publish their own versions, such as Moz's Domain Authority, each built on its own link index, so scores for one site rarely agree and none is a Google metric. For a side-by-side comparison, see DA vs DR explained.

How to use DR sensibly

Use DR as a quick filter and a way to compare your link profile with competitors, then judge each link by relevance, real organic traffic and editorial context. When a service guarantees a DR increase, remember that any new site's DR rises with its first links; that is not the same as rankings or customers. See our comparison of directory submission services for how this plays out.

Illustrative examples

Hypothetical scenarios that show how the term applies. They are not reports of real cases.

• A new SaaS site goes from DR 0 to DR 12 after its launch-week listings and articles go live, while its organic traffic is still near zero.
• Two link offers both promise DR 40+, but only one is on a site about your topic with steady organic traffic. That one is worth more.