Domain Rating (DR): how it works and why more backlinks do not always raise it

Domain Rating (DR) is a metric from Ahrefs, an SEO tool company. It rates the strength of a domain's backlink profile on a scale of 0 to 100. Thousands of backlinks can fail to raise DR if they all come from only a few domains, pass on no value, or come from sites that link to too many other domains.

A high DR, on the other hand, does not guarantee traffic, because DR only looks at links. Ahrefs itself states that its calculation ignores search traffic, domain age and brand popularity. Use DR to compare link profiles, and measure SEO success by traffic and by what visitors do.

What Domain Rating means and what it is for

DR answers one question: how strong are the links pointing to a domain compared with other domains in the Ahrefs database? The scale is logarithmic, so going from DR 75 to 76 takes far more effort than going from DR 20 to 21.

The number is useful for three things: quickly comparing link strength between sites, screening potential link sources, and tracking which way a backlink profile is heading over time. You can check the DR of any domain with the free checker from Ahrefs.

DR is not a Google number. The Google documentation we checked does not mention DR, and Ahrefs points out that Google ranks pages, not sites.

How Ahrefs calculates DR

The full formula is not published, but the Ahrefs help center explains the logic.

1. Ahrefs finds the domains that have at least one followed link to your site.
2. Each of those domains splits its value evenly across all the domains it links to.
3. The shares your site receives are added up.
4. The result is scaled to a range of 0 to 100 and compared with other domains.

The split in step two explains why a link from a big name is not always worth much. The table below uses a simplified calculation for three made-up sites: DR divided by the number of domains the site links to. The figures only illustrate the principle; they are not results from Ahrefs.

Linking site (made up)	DR	Domains it links to	Rough share per domain
Selective industry blog	60	50	1.2
Large media outlet	90	30,000	0.003
Open directory	40	20,000	0.002

Why thousands of backlinks have not raised your DR

The number of backlinks and the number of domains are two different figures. Check these four causes.

• The links come from only a few domains. According to Ahrefs, only the first link from each domain is counted. A thousand links from one site, in its footer for example, still count as one domain.
• The links are nofollow. Ahrefs states that nofollow links do not pass on DR. Links from comments and forums are often marked this way.
• The source links to too many domains. The share your site receives becomes very small, as in the table above.
• The scale is logarithmic. At high numbers, a new link of the same strength adds less and less.

The Links report in Search Console, Google's tool for site owners, can serve as a free first check. Its top linking sites section shows the domains that link to you most. The data is incomplete and does not show nofollow status, so do not compare it directly with the Ahrefs figures.

Why a high DR does not always bring traffic

Traffic comes from pages that appear for searches people actually make. DR does not measure that. A domain with a high DR can have almost no traffic if its pages are not indexed yet, nobody searches for its topics, or its content loses to competitors' pages. Ahrefs reports a correlation between DR and search traffic, but does not say how strong it is, and a correlation is not proof of cause and effect.

Another cause is the quality of the links. Ahrefs admits that spam links can raise DR, although many of the ways to do it are already blocked. Its checker page also says that DR does not take spam into account. A high number may come from links that search engines do not value.

Read DR together with organic traffic, then decide the next step based on both.

• Low DR, low traffic: normal for a young site. Fix the main pages, then look for your first links from relevant sites.
• Low DR, high traffic: your pages already match what people search for. Keep them that way, then point links to the pages that bring results.
• High DR, low traffic: check indexing, search intent and where the links come from. The order of the checks is in the guide to diagnosing a site that will not rank.
• High DR, high traffic: a healthy state. Watch for lost links and for pages that start to slip.

Why DR can drop when nothing changed on your site

DR is relative, so the number moves with the whole Ahrefs database. Ahrefs names several causes, and all of them can happen without you losing a single backlink.

• Other domains gain many new backlinks. The scale still tops out at 100, so the positions of other sites on it shift.
• Sites that link to you lose link strength of their own.
• Sites that link to you start linking to more domains, so your share gets smaller.

Moz, another SEO tool maker, describes the same pattern for Domain Authority. A drop like this is not a penalty from Google, because the number does not come from Google. If the Ahrefs figure falls at the same time as your traffic, look for the cause in your Search Console data.

The difference between DR, DA and Authority Score

The three scores, from Ahrefs, Moz and the SEO platform Semrush, are often treated as the same, but they are built from different inputs. DR 60 is not equal to DA 60.

Metric	Made by	Scale	Basis of the calculation
Domain Rating	Ahrefs	0 to 100	Link data only
Domain Authority	Moz	1 to 100	Machine learning model, mainly from link data
Authority Score	Semrush	1 to 100	Link strength, estimated organic traffic and spam factors

Moz states that DA is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on search results. Google has said so repeatedly too. Search Engine Journal, an SEO trade publication, quotes Google's John Mueller saying in 2022 that Google does not use DA at all. The same article cites his 2020 statement that Google has site-level metrics that may be similar to that concept. So site-level signals may exist in Google's systems, but scores from Ahrefs or Moz are not part of its calculation.

Sensible ways to raise DR

Aim for new, relevant domains, because that is where DR and the benefit to readers line up. The order below puts the cheapest work first.

1. Recover lost links. Find backlinks that point to 404 pages on your site, then set up a redirect to an equivalent page or ask the site owner to update the link.
2. Claim unlinked mentions. Find articles that mention your business name without linking to it, then ask the writer to add a link.
3. Create pages worth citing, such as original data, templates or calculators. Ahrefs itself recommends focusing on content and on links to that content, because DR tends to follow.
4. When you look for links, give priority to sites that are selective about what they link to and relevant to your topic.
5. Tidy up your internal links so that visitors and other writers can easily find your most important pages.

How to get these links, including how to contact site owners, is covered in the guide to getting free backlinks.

What not to do when chasing DR

Cheap backlink packages can push DR up quickly, but they still put your site at risk with Google. Google's spam policies treat the following as link spam: buying and selling links, excessive link exchanges, automated links and paid guest posts with followed links.

If you find many bad links that you did not build, there is no need to panic. Google states that its systems can usually work out which links to trust, and that Search Console's disavow tool is only for specific cases: when those bad links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action (action taken against a site by a human reviewer at Google). Using it wrongly can harm the site.

Metrics to read alongside DR

• The number of referring domains and how it changes from month to month, because it tells you more than the total backlink count.
• Organic traffic and the positions of your target keywords in Search Console.
• The most-linked pages, and whether those pages matter to your business.
• Anchor text, and whether it looks natural or too uniform.
• Quote requests, orders or other actions that come from organic pages.

If DR rises while traffic and visitor actions stay flat, evaluate the pages rather than the number. To understand what Google looks at besides links, read our explanation of what Google actually rates.