What Domain Rating measures
Domain Rating is Ahrefs’ score for the strength of a site’s backlink profile compared with the other websites in its database, on a 100-point scale. Ahrefs describes the method roughly like this: a linking domain passes on more when its own DR is higher, and it splits that value equally among every domain it links to. A link from a site that links out to thousands of others is worth less than one from a site that links to a few. And only the first link from a domain raises your DR. More links from the same site add nothing.
The scale is logarithmic, so the steps aren’t even. Ahrefs says climbing from DR 20 to 30 takes a handful of links, and from 70 to 80 can take thousands. Ahrefs’ dashboard lists DR as updating every 12 hours. We cache each lookup for up to 7 days and show when it was fetched.
What is a good Domain Rating?
There is no universal number, and Ahrefs doesn’t claim one. In its 2026 analysis it says to judge your DR three ways: against your competitors, against your industry and against the keywords you want to rank for. Its numbers show why. The overwhelming majority of domains sit at DR 0 to 10. Across 600 SaaS companies the bottom quartile was DR 38 and the median was DR 62. And a DR 29 site ranks on page one for “best running shoes”, while the results for “best CRM software” average DR 89.
So a new site near zero is normal, and the benchmark that matters is the sites already ranking for your search. Find them in the SERP checker, paste their domains into the bulk DR checker, and test the keyword itself with the keyword difficulty checker. Our result card adds a plain label: under 10 is very low, 10 to 29 low, 30 to 49 moderate, 50 to 69 strong, 70 to 89 very strong, 90 and up top tier. That is our rule of thumb, not an Ahrefs scale.
What it doesn’t tell you
- It isn’t a Google metric. Google ranks pages, and it says third-party tools don’t have access to its internal ranking data. Ahrefs’ own study found “a small positive correlation, and far from definitive” between DR and rankings.
- It says nothing about traffic or relevance. A DR 60 site in an unrelated niche can send you nothing. A DR 25 blog your buyers read can send customers. Check a site’s search traffic with the website traffic checker.
- It can be inflated. Ahrefs says DR doesn’t account for link spam, and large amounts of low-quality backlinks may increase it. Google’s link spam policy lists buying or selling links for ranking and excessive link exchanges. Look at what ranks on the site before you trust the number.
How founders use it
DR is a quick filter, not a score to grow: Ahrefs advises not to focus your efforts on growing it directly. Use it to rank a list of directories, blogs or podcasts you might get a link from, spot obvious junk, and see how your own link profile grows over time. Sort the shortlist by DR, then drop sites with no search traffic or no connection to your topic. To weigh one specific link, including its rel attribute and the page’s own traffic, try the backlink value calculator. For DR next to backlinks, Tranco rank and domain age, use the website authority checker.
Our directory database shows DR next to each directory once we’ve looked it up. A new product’s first real links usually come from launch sites and directories: launching free on LaunchRanked gets you a permanent product page and a followed link while our badge is on your site.
Common mistakes
- Counting nofollow-only links. Ahrefs says nofollow links don’t pass DR, so a site that only links to you that way won’t increase it. They can still send visitors. See dofollow vs nofollow.
- Comparing scores from different tools. Semrush’s Authority Score and Moz’s Domain Authority use their own formulas. The same site scores differently in each. Compare within one tool.
- Buying links to lift DR. Links bought for ranking purposes are link spam under Google’s rules, and they buy you a number, not customers. Read is backlink exchange safe? first.
Where the data comes from
Every Domain Rating this tool shows comes from Domain Rating by Ahrefs, fetched from Ahrefs’ free public API and cached for up to 7 days. If Ahrefs doesn’t answer, or today’s lookup allowance is used up, we say DR is unavailable. We never show an estimate in its place. Use of the data is subject to Ahrefs’ Domain Rating License.