What Is Domain Rating (DR)? How Ahrefs Scores It

Domain Rating (DR) is an Ahrefs metric that scores the strength of a website's backlink profile from 0 to 100. The scale is logarithmic, so moving from DR 70 to 71 is far harder than 20 to 21. Only followed links from unique domains count, and Google does not use DR in rankings.

You open a prospect's site in a tool, see "DR 54", and have to decide whether a link from them is worth chasing. That is exactly what the number is for. It is a quick way to compare sites on links alone. It is not a verdict on traffic, quality or whether Google trusts the site.

How is Domain Rating calculated?

DR is based on how many unique websites link to a site and how strong those websites are. According to Ahrefs' own explanation of Domain Rating, it finds the domains with at least one followed link to the target, checks how many other domains each of them links to, and passes along a share of each linking domain's own DR. The result is scaled from 0 to 100.

Four consequences follow:

Only the first followed link from a domain counts. Ten links from the same site add nothing beyond the first.
Nofollow-only links do not raise it. Ahrefs states that a site linking to you only with nofollow links will not increase your DR.
A link from a strong site that links to few others is worth more than the same link from a site that links out to thousands.
The score ignores traffic, domain age and brand popularity, and it does not filter spam on its own.

What is a good Domain Rating?

A good DR is one that is competitive for your niche, not a fixed number. A DR of 30 can be a leader in a small hobby niche and far behind in finance. Compare your DR with the sites that rank for your target keywords, not with a universal scale.

Because the scale is logarithmic, early points come fast and later ones slow down. A new site can climb quickly with a few strong links, while a site at DR 70 needs a flood of them to gain a single point.

Is Domain Rating a Google ranking factor?

No. DR is Ahrefs' proprietary metric, and Google does not use it. Ahrefs itself says Google ranks pages, not websites, and describes DR as correlating with search traffic rather than causing it. Treat it as a comparison tool, not a target to optimise.

This is also why DR differs between tools. Moz's Domain Authority and Semrush's Authority Score use different data and formulas. The comparison is in domain authority vs domain rating.

How do you use DR sensibly?

Use DR to compare, to screen link prospects and to track your own progress over time. Do not use it to promise results.

Screen prospects. Before asking for a link or accepting a swap, check the partner's DR as one signal beside relevance, real traffic and content quality.
Benchmark competitors. If every top result has DR 50 or above and you have DR 12, you know the gap.
Track yourself. Watch the trend monthly, not the daily number. It moves in steps when a crawler finds new links.
Never buy links just to raise it. DR does not filter spam, so a spammy network can inflate it while doing nothing for Google, and may draw a link spam action.

To look up a score without paying, see how to check domain rating for free. For a plan to raise it, see how to improve domain rating in 6 months.

Backlinkster members trade 1-for-1 in-content links on their own domains. Each swap is verified by API, and DR is one of several things to weigh when choosing a partner. See how it works.

Frequently asked questions

What is a domain rating? A score from 0 to 100 from Ahrefs that shows how strong a website's backlink profile is. Higher means more and stronger referring domains.

What does DR mean in SEO? DR stands for Domain Rating. It is used to compare sites on backlink strength and to judge link prospects.

What is a good domain rating? It depends on your niche. Compare yourself with the sites that rank for your target keywords. There is no universal good number.

Does domain rating affect Google rankings? Not directly. Google does not use DR. It correlates with traffic because strong sites tend to have many good links, but raising DR does not by itself move rankings.

What does domain rank mean? Usually the same idea under another tool's name. Ahrefs uses Domain Rating (and a separate Ahrefs Rank), while other tools use Domain Authority or Authority Score. Numbers do not transfer between tools.

How can I increase my domain rating? Earn followed links from more unique, strong, relevant domains. Several links from one domain do not help beyond the first.

The bottom line

Domain Rating is a useful, imperfect shortcut for comparing backlink strength. Use it to screen partners and benchmark competitors, remember that Google does not use it, and never chase the number at the expense of relevant, real links.