Ahrefs Domain rating is another popular metric we, as a SEO professionals, use to evaluate the website authority.
And as per some studies conducted by Ahrefs, proven that the more DR, the more possibility of ranking on Google SERP.
Note: Don’t get confused. DR is a metric from Ahrefs, AS is a metric from Semrush, and the most popular DA is a metric from Moz.
How Ahrefs Measure the Domain Rating?
Ahrefs Domain Rating measures the relative strength of your website’s backlink profile (considering both the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website).
In simple terms, Ahrefs DR tells you how powerful your website’s backlinks are compared to your competitors.
This DR score is calculated on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.
How is Ahrefs Domain Rating calculated?
1. Referring Domains
The first and most important factor is the number of unique websites linking to your domain.
A few important things to note here:
- Only do-follow links are counted (but as per our experience, nofollow links also play a slight important plus it creates a healthy and diversified backlink profile)
- No-follow, UGC, and sponsored links are not impactful.
- Multiple backlinks from the same website don’t increase your Domain Rating.
So, getting 10 links from one website won’t increase your DR, it still counts as one referring domain only. Instead focus on getting 1 backlink from 10 different and relevant websites in your niche.
2. Domain Rating of Linking Domains
Ahrefs doesn’t just count how many websites link to you. It also evaluates how strong backlink profiles those websites have.
In simple terms:
- Links from high-DR websites pass more authority.
- Links from low-DR websites pass less authority.
So if your site earns a backlink from a website’s with a strong DR, your own website DR is more likely to improve quickly.
Note: A low-DR site can still be valuable if it’s growing steadily and relevant to your industry. If that site’s DR goes up over time, the backlink you got earlier becomes more valuable too. So you shouldn’t judge a site only by its current DR.
3. Number of websites referring domain links to
If a website that links to you starts linking out to many other domains, its link juice gets divided. The more websites it links to, the less value (link juice) each linked website receives.
As a result, the DR juice passed to your site may be reduced. And, in some cases, your DR can slightly decrease.
What is a Good Domain Rating?
A good domain rating (DR) primarily depends on your industry, competition, and how strong other websites backlink profile in your niche, especially on the SERP.
In general, a higher Domain Rating means your site has stronger authority. But remember, DR is a relative metric, there’s no absolute “good” score.
For example,
- A DR of 30 might be good in a low-competition niche
- But the same DR could be weak in a highly competitive niche like “best productive tools” where most competitors sit at 60+. And the same DR: 80+ is also average when it comes to niches like “website builder platforms”.
That’s why DR is always used as a comparison metric.
| DR Range | What it means |
| 0-20 | Very low authority |
| 20-34 | Low authority |
| 35-49 | Medium authority |
| 50-80 | High/Strong authority |
| 80+ | Exceptional authority |
How to check Domain Rating in Ahrefs
Ahrefs offers both free and paid ways to check a website’s Domain Rating (DR).
Using Ahrefs Website Authority Checker (Free)
- Go to the Ahrefs Website Authority Checker page.
- Enter your domain or subdomain that you want to check.
- Click on “Check Authority”.
It will show metrics like:
- Domain Rating (DR)
- URL Rating (UR) (authority score of a specific page)
- Total number of links coming from other websites to your site
- Number of unique websites that link to your domains
Using Ahrefs Site Explorer (Paid)
- Log in to your Ahrefs account
- Open Site Explorer
- Enter the domain/ subdomain and click on search
- Once the results load, you’ll land on the Overview page, which shows key metrics like
- Domain Rating (DR)
- URL Rating (UR)
- Backlinks
- Referring Domains
- Organic Traffic & Keywords
- Shows AI citations across Google AI Overview, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot.
How to increase your Domain Rating?
1. Invest in quality backlinks
Getting backlinks from trusted, high-quality websites helps improve your DR. Focus on earning links from sites that are relevant and having good DR.
For example, if you’re having a SaaS startup, you must have a backlink from G2.com, Capterra and many more small to mid-sized SaaS business directories.
Note: Don’t go for spammy directories, paid link farms or links from irrelevant websites just to increase your domain authority. This approach might help you increase your domain authority but harm your organic traffic and overall business.
Remember, Ahrefs values quality over quantity. So a few strong, relevant backlinks and brand mentions will always do more for your DR than hundreds of low-value ones.
Need some backlink agencies suggestions, check our article on best backlink agencies.
2. Create content that people actually want to link to
Ranking on SERPs is not enough anymore. Your content also needs to be clear and citable, especially as AI Overviews and AI models pull information directly from web pages.
When your content is useful, easy to reference, and backed by original facts, it naturally attracts backlinks from higher-authority websites.
Content that attracts links usually includes:
- In-depth guides
- Case studies
- Step-by-step tutorials
- Statistics or data-backed insights
And, if you’re unsure what to create, look around your niche. If you can do some study that can help your readers or in the market in general.
Note: The days are gone when your curated top 30 SEO stats works – such strategies not working that effective nowadays, try to do some of your own research and study. That have more possibilities to get 100s of backlinks and brand mentions.
3. Fix broken and lost links
Your DR can drop when backlinks pointing to your site either break or disappear, so it’s important to check them frequently.
Use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or GSC to spot broken or lost links. This usually happens when a page gets deleted, a URL changes, or a site removes your link. Once you find them, reach out politely to the site owner and ask if they can update the link to the correct page.
If you’ve changed a page URL on your own site, make sure a 301 redirect is in place so link authority isn’t lost.
Conclusion
Don’t stress much about your Domain Rating. Ahrefs DR is another SEO tool that helps you rank better on SERP. Use it to analyse your competitors and if they’re very active in backlink building, then you should also replicate the similar strategy.
Otherwise, it’s just a vanity metric that doesn’t directly impact your business revenue.
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