Domain Rating(DR)

Long definition

DR is Ahrefs' answer to Moz's DA, computed entirely from Ahrefs' own crawl index. The algorithm cares about unique referring domains (not raw link count) and the DR of those referring domains in turn — a recursive computation conceptually similar to PageRank, run on Ahrefs' data.

The scale is logarithmic. Going from DR 10 to DR 20 is far easier than DR 80 to DR 90. The top of the scale (90+) is occupied by sites like wikipedia.org, youtube.com, and amazon.com. Most small business sites live in the DR 10-40 range; most established mid-market sites in DR 40-70.

DR differs from DA in a few mechanical ways:

• Inputs — DR uses unique referring domains as the dominant signal; DA uses a broader machine-learned mix.
• Update cadence — Ahrefs recomputes DR in near-real-time (within days of new link discovery), Moz refreshes monthly.
• Index size — Ahrefs and Moz have different crawl footprints. A link discovered by one but not the other won't influence both scores.

Practical use mirrors DA: relative comparison between competitors, outreach filtering, your own trend-line over time. A DR-45 site outranking a DR-70 site for a specific query is normal — query intent, content quality, and topical relevance often dominate raw link strength.

Note Ahrefs publishes its DR documentation — but treat the formula as a black box that approximates link-graph strength, not as a precise authority measurement.

Common misconceptions

• "DR is more accurate than DA." Both are vendor estimates trained on different data. Neither is "right" — they're proxies. Use the one whose tool you trust most for backlink data.
• "A DR-80 link is always better than a DR-30 link." The linking page's authority (UR, PA), topical relevance, and editorial context matter more than the homepage DR of the source domain.
• "DR loss means a Google penalty." It often means Ahrefs recrawled and found fewer/weaker referring domains, or recalibrated its index. Manual penalties are reported in Search Console, not via DR drops.
• "You can buy DR." You can buy links that temporarily inflate DR, but Google's link-spam systems (Penguin 4.0+) discount manipulative links automatically. The score moves; the rankings don't.