Here’s the short answer before anything else: Ahrefs doesn’t actually have a metric called “Domain Authority.” That name belongs to Moz — it’s their trademarked term. What people usually mean when they search “Ahrefs domain authority” is Ahrefs’ own equivalent metric, called Domain Rating (DR).
It’s an easy mix-up. Both metrics run on the same 0–100 scale, both try to answer the same underlying question — how strong is this site’s backlink profile — and both get used almost interchangeably in everyday SEO conversation. But they’re built differently, calculated differently, and (importantly) rarely produce the same number for the same website. Here’s what Ahrefs’ metric actually is, how it works, and what it’s actually useful for.
Does Ahrefs Have a “Domain Authority” Metric?
No — and understanding why clears up most of the confusion. Domain Authority (DA) was developed and is owned by Moz, a separate SEO software company. When Ahrefs built its own platform, it didn’t license or adopt Moz’s metric — it built its own from scratch, based on the specific backlink data its crawler collects. That metric is called Domain Rating.
Also Read: How to Optimize Content for Search Engines: A 2026 Guide
So when someone says “Ahrefs domain authority,” they’re almost always referring to one of two things:
- Domain Rating (DR) — Ahrefs’ actual metric, and the one they mean 95% of the time.
- A general concept of “website authority” — the broader idea both DR and DA are trying to estimate, regardless of which tool measures it.
Worth noting: Ahrefs itself explicitly distinguishes between the generic concept of “website authority” and Moz’s trademarked Domain Authority — which is part of why DA vs. DR debates go in circles so often. People frequently think they’re comparing the same score when they’re actually comparing two different models of the same idea.
What Is Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR), Exactly?
Domain Rating is Ahrefs’ proprietary metric that scores the strength of a website’s backlink profile on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100. A higher score generally indicates a stronger, more authoritative set of links pointing to that domain; a lower score indicates a thinner or weaker backlink profile.
The key word is “logarithmic” — DR isn’t a linear scale. Moving from a DR of 20 to 30 is meaningfully easier than moving from 80 to 90, because each additional point at the higher end requires disproportionately more (and stronger) backlinks to earn.
A few things DR deliberately does not measure, which Ahrefs is transparent about:
- Traffic volume
- Content quality
- Technical SEO health
- Domain age
- Spam signals
DR is, in Ahrefs’ own framing, purely a link-graph score — it tells you about the shape and strength of a site’s inbound links, and nothing else.
How Is DR Actually Calculated?
Domain Rating is built from a few specific inputs:
- The number of unique referring domains pointing to a site — not total backlinks, since many links from the same domain count far less than links from many different domains.
- The authority of those referring domains — a link from a well-linked-to site passes more weight than a link from an obscure one.
- How link equity flows and dilutes — each linking domain splits its authority across everywhere it links out to. A modest-DR site that links to only a handful of domains can actually pass more equity than a high-DR site that links out to millions of pages.
- Only dofollow links count. Nofollow links are excluded from the calculation entirely.
This is why quality consistently beats quantity: one link from a genuinely authoritative, topically relevant site can move DR more than dozens of weak or irrelevant ones — and weak links from low-quality or unrelated sites are sometimes ignored or flagged outright rather than counted at face value.
DR vs. DA vs. Authority Score: How Do the Metrics Compare?
Three tools, three different (but related) metrics — and none of them agree with each other by design:
| Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) | Moz Domain Authority (DA) | Semrush Authority Score (AS) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Backlink profile strength only | Broader ranking potential (links + other signals) | Backlink + on-site signals |
| Update frequency | Frequent / near real-time | Roughly monthly | Regular, tool-dependent |
| Scale | 0–100, logarithmic | 0–100, logarithmic | 0–100 |
| Best used for | Backlink prospecting, link-building decisions | Broad SERP benchmarking | Cross-referencing with Semrush’s other data |
Because each tool uses its own crawler, its own link index, and its own formula, a site with a DR of 62 in Ahrefs might show a DA of 48 in Moz — and that’s completely normal, not an error. As a rough industry rule of thumb, Semrush’s Authority Score tends to run 15–20% lower than Moz DA on average, which is worth knowing if you’re cross-referencing scores from different platforms.
Practical takeaway: track whichever metric matches your primary toolset, and use it as a consistent internal benchmark over time rather than trying to reconcile it against a different tool’s number.
What Is a Good Domain Rating Score?
There’s no single “good” score — it depends heavily on your niche and how established your competitors are. That said, general benchmarks hold up reasonably well across most industries:
- DR 0–20: New or minimally-linked sites; normal starting point for most new domains.
- DR 20–40: Established small business or niche sites with a growing backlink profile.
- DR 40–60: Solidly authoritative sites, often competitive in moderately difficult niches.
- DR 60–80: Strong, well-established domains — the range where most recognizable industry publications and larger businesses sit.
- DR 80–100: Reserved almost entirely for major platforms, global brands, and high-authority publishers — this range is extremely difficult to reach organically.
One useful data point worth knowing: research analyzing millions of search results has found that top-ranking pages average roughly 3.8 times more backlinks than pages sitting in positions two through ten — which is part of why DR correlates so strongly with ranking position, even though it isn’t a ranking factor itself.
Does Domain Rating Affect Google Rankings?
No — not directly, and this is worth being precise about. DR is not a Google ranking factor. Google has publicly confirmed it does not use any third-party authority metric — not Ahrefs’ DR, not Moz’s DA, not Semrush’s AS — anywhere in its ranking algorithm. Google’s own search advocates have stated directly that Google doesn’t evaluate or assign a site-wide “authority score” at all.
That said, DR is highly correlated with rankings, for a straightforward reason: the underlying signal DR measures — a strong, diverse backlink profile from authoritative sites — genuinely is one of the components Google’s own ranking systems weigh, just not through Ahrefs’ specific formula. So DR functions as a useful proxy and directional indicator, even though it’s not the thing Google itself is measuring.
How Do You Increase Your Domain Rating?
Since DR is built entirely from backlink data, improving it comes down to a few consistent practices:
- Earn dofollow links from relevant, higher-DR sites. Relevance matters as much as the linking site’s own score — a topically related link generally does more for both DR and actual rankings than an unrelated one with a slightly higher score.
- Prioritize quality over volume. A handful of strong, relevant links reliably outperforms a large batch of weak or irrelevant ones, and low-quality links can actively work against you.
- Use internal linking to distribute authority. Once a page earns strong backlinks, internal links help spread that equity to other important pages across your site.
- Publish content genuinely worth linking to. Backlinks earned organically because content is useful tend to be more durable and diverse than links acquired through outreach alone.
- Guest posting on authoritative, relevant sites remains one of the more reliable ways to build dofollow links deliberately, provided the sites are genuinely relevant to your niche rather than chosen for score alone.
Expect diminishing returns as your score climbs — the jump from DR 20 to 30 is achievable with a modest, consistent effort, while DR 80 to 90 requires sustained authority-building over a long period, since each additional point demands disproportionately more link equity than the last.
How Do You Check a Site’s Domain Rating?
Checking DR is straightforward and doesn’t always require a paid subscription:
- Ahrefs Site Explorer — the full paid tool, giving DR alongside referring domains, backlink history, and competitor comparisons.
- Ahrefs’ free DR checker — a lighter tool that shows a site’s current DR along with basic supporting metrics like total backlinks and unique linking domains, without needing a full account.
- Browser extensions — several third-party SEO toolbars display DR (and often DA and AS side by side) directly on search results pages, useful for quickly sizing up competitors while browsing.
When checking DR for competitive research or link prospecting, it’s worth looking at the accompanying data — referring domains, link growth trend, and the quality of individual linking pages — rather than treating the single DR number as the whole story. Two sites with an identical DR of 45 can have very different backlink profiles: one broad and diverse, the other concentrated in just a few links from a handful of domains.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Ahrefs Domain Rating the same as Domain Authority? No — Domain Rating is Ahrefs’ own metric and Domain Authority is Moz’s trademarked metric; both measure a similar concept (backlink strength) but use different data and formulas, so the same site typically gets different scores in each tool.
What is considered a good Domain Rating score? It depends on your niche, but broadly: DR 20–40 is typical for small or niche sites, DR 40–60 indicates solid authority, and DR 60+ generally reflects strong, well-established domains that are harder to compete with.
Does Domain Rating directly affect my Google rankings? No — DR is not a Google ranking factor and Google doesn’t use any third-party authority score, though DR is strongly correlated with rankings because it measures a similar underlying signal (backlink strength) that Google’s own systems do weigh.
Why is my Ahrefs DR different from my Moz DA? This is completely normal — each tool uses its own crawler, backlink index, and calculation method, so DR and DA are “cousins, not twins” and rarely match exactly for the same site.
How often does Domain Rating update? Ahrefs updates DR relatively frequently as its crawler discovers new and lost backlinks, making it a more “live” metric compared to Moz’s DA, which typically updates on a roughly monthly cycle.
Can a low DR site still outrank a high DR site? Yes — DR only measures backlink profile strength, not content quality, relevance, or technical SEO, so a lower-DR site with better on-page relevance and stronger topical depth can and often does outrank a higher-DR competitor.
Final Thoughts
“Ahrefs domain authority” is really just a naming mix-up for Domain Rating — Ahrefs’ own 0–100 measure of backlink strength, distinct from (and not directly comparable to) Moz’s Domain Authority. Neither metric is a Google ranking factor, but both function as useful directional benchmarks for understanding where your site stands and where link-building effort is likely to pay off.
Since DR is built almost entirely from the quality and relevance of your backlinks, the fastest lever most sites have for moving it is deliberate, well-placed link acquisition — which is exactly where Hello To Guestpost comes in. We secure guest post placements on genuinely relevant, authoritative sites rather than chasing volume, which is the kind of link that actually moves both your DR and your real search visibility. Get in touch if you’d like a look at where your current backlink profile stands.
