What Is a Good Domain Rating? DR by the Numbers

What is domain rating?

Domain Rating, DR for short, is Ahrefs' score for the strength of the links pointing at a whole site. Ahrefs' help center defines it in one sentence: “Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to the others in our database on a 100-point scale.” Its glossary adds who owns the number: “Domain Rating (DR) is a proprietary SEO metric by Ahrefs.”

So the domain rating meaning, put plainly, is a grade for the sites that link to a domain, set against every other domain in Ahrefs' index. It reads neither traffic nor content, and it rates a domain rather than any page or link on it. That is why our catalog prints a no-equity mark beside the DR of a directory whose listing links pass nothing: the rating belongs to the directory; the link is what you get.

How is domain rating calculated?

Ahrefs keeps the formula to itself (“The exact formula of Domain Rating is not disclosed”, in the glossary's words) and lists what moves it: how many separate domains link to a site, how strong those domains are and how many other sites each of them links to. Nofollow links are left out. The help center explains the third factor: “The source domain splits its rating equally amongst the domains it links to.” Ahrefs repeats the calculation across its index and then scales the result into the 0 to 100 range.

The scale is logarithmic, and the glossary spells out what that does: “The term logarithmic scale of DR means that the gap between DR 75 and DR 76 is much bigger than between DR 20 and DR 21. In other words, the higher the DR, the more difficult it is to increase it.” Two things follow. Points come cheaper low on the scale than high on it, and since every rating is set against the others, a domain can lose points while its own links stay put.

What is a good DR score?

Ahrefs declines to name one. The question sits in its own help center, and the answer starts like this: “It’s not possible to say that a Domain Rating of 30 is good, or 50, or 60, or 70. It’s all relative.” The rule of thumb that follows is the part to use: “A general rule of thumb is that your Domain Rating (authority) is good if it’s higher than or comparable to similar sites.”

“Similar sites” means the ones you compete with for search results: the pages ranking for your keywords and the products your buyers compare you with. Look each of them up in our free DR checker and you have the range that counts as good for you. A DR 40 SaaS in a field of DR 20 rivals is ahead, and the same DR 40 among DR 70 incumbents is behind, though the number never changed.

Read a DR with its date

A rating that is relative and moves is a reading with a date on it, so run any site you might buy a link from through the same checker on the day, Submitator included. HuntScreens, a product directory we submit to, is upfront about what its links carry: its submit page has a short explainer headed “Dofollow vs Nofollow”, and the followed kind is its Permanent SEO Backlink at $79 one-time. On 30 October 2026 our checker, which reads Ahrefs, returned DR 36 for huntscreens.com.

The free listing is the one we file there, and it links out nofollow, which is why our catalog prints the no-equity mark beside its DR. For the same $79 as the add-on, Submitator submits your product to 100 directories, and $29 covers 30 of them, each with its DR beside its name when you choose.

Average domain rating: the DR spread of 177 directories

For a feel of the scale, here is one set of sites rated by the same tool. The average domain rating across the 177 directories we submit to is 40.9, and the median is DR 40. A quarter sit below DR 19 and a quarter above DR 61. At DR 70 and up sit 29 of them, about one in six, led by G2, Hacker News and Product Hunt at DR 91.

Read the bands as a map of the scale, not as a grade for the link a directory gives. Of the 177, 105 are recorded as dofollow with no no-equity mark, spread over every band, and a followed listing in the DR 30s counts toward your DR where a nofollow one at DR 80 does not. The directories in our catalog at DR 50 and up get a list of their own; the ones whose followed link we have counted on live listings get another, with the evidence.

What is a good domain rating for a new website?

For a new website, startup or SaaS, a good domain rating is one that keeps pace with the sites ranking for your first keywords, and everyone starts low: a domain with few followed links from other sites sits near the bottom of the scale. Our own six sites show how wide the range gets once links arrive.

Five of the six sit in the DR 30 to 49 band, the middle of the catalog, and Submitator's DR 40 on 22 October matched the catalog's median exactly. The rating and the count of linking sites do not move together. AlterBase has the highest DR of the six, 47, on the fewest referring domains, 335; Solvitor has 692 and sits at DR 18, because few of the sites linking to it send a followed link. The referring domains behind each of these ratings are broken down in a post of their own.

The 30 October column is the same six eight days later. Three moved: AffyList up six points, Submitator up one and ShareSpeak down one. A point either way in a week is ordinary for a relative score, so judge a DR over months and against the same competitors each time.

For a startup or a SaaS the practical target is the DR of the sites on page one for the searches you want, and on easy searches it can be low. For “saas directories”, the result in position three sat on a DR 4 site whose ranking page had one referring domain, by Ahrefs' reading of 23 October 2026. A young domain can win searches like that before its rating looks like much, and the rating catches up as the links arrive.

Domain rating vs domain authority (DR vs DA)

Domain Authority is Moz's score for the same idea, built on a different link index with a different method. Moz's own page describes it like this: “Domain Authority® (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz. It predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) compared to competitors.” And on the method: “Moz calculates Domain Authority using a machine learning algorithm that evaluates multiple factors, primarily focusing on backlink data.” So DR rates link strength against Ahrefs' index, and DA predicts ranking ability from Moz's.

Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR: which one to use

Either works, provided you compare like with like. One site can carry quite different numbers in the two tools without either being wrong: they crawl different link graphs and weigh them differently. So the answer to any DR vs DA question is to pick one and use it for you and every competitor. Lists of “high DA” sites describe Moz's index; our catalog, our checker and Ahrefs' reports all read DR.

Does domain rating affect rankings?

DR itself is a third-party estimate, made outside Google. Google's guidance on third-party SEO tools, last updated on 5 June 2026, draws the line in one sentence: “Third-party tools don't have access to our internal ranking data.” Moz says of its own score: “Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on the SERPs.”

What DR estimates does count, because links do. Google's guide to its ranking systems says of PageRank: “How PageRank works has evolved a lot since then, and it continues to be part of our core ranking systems.” So does domain rating matter? As an outside reading of your own link strength and of a site's strength before it links to you, yes. As a target in itself it matters less than the links of the pages you want to outrank. For single pages Ahrefs keeps a separate, page-level score.

How to increase domain rating

Ahrefs' own factors are the method. To increase domain rating, win followed links from domains that do not link to you yet and are strong themselves, then keep the links you have. Five steps cover it.

1. Aim for new referring domains

DR is built on referring domains. A tenth link from a site that already links to you adds no new domain, while a first link from a site that never has adds one. Plan in new domains.

2. Check the rel before you count a link

Nofollow links pass no DR by Ahrefs' own rule, and a link marked ugc or sponsored is not a followed link either. Before you count a link as one that raises your rating, read the rel on the anchor.

3. Mix the routes

Links that improve domain rating come from many kinds of site: articles on sites in your field, partner and integration pages, data or tools that others cite, launch platforms and directories. Directories are the most repeatable of these for a new product, since each directory is a separate domain and its link type can be checked before you submit. Our catalog prints what is recorded for each one.

4. Keep what you earn

Links disappear when pages are deleted, sites lapse or a badge comes off your footer. On a directory that asks for a badge, the followed link holds while the badge stays up. A lost referring domain takes its share of the rating with it.

5. Get the page with the link crawled

Ahrefs counts a link once its crawler has read the page that carries it. Google works the same way. A new listing deep in a directory can wait a while for that: how a listing page gets crawled and indexed has the details.

How long does it take to increase domain rating?

There is no fixed delay. A link counts after Ahrefs has crawled its page and run its calculation again, and the logarithmic scale means each point higher up needs more than the last. Low on the scale a few strong new domains can show up in the number; in the 70s it takes far more. Between our two readings, eight days apart, AffyList gained six points and ShareSpeak lost one, which is why a single week says little.

Why domain rating can drop

Losing links is one reason. The other is the scale itself. Asked why a DR fell with no links lost, the help center answers: “Most likely, other websites gained a lot of backlinks.” And it explains how: “when a DR100 website gets more backlinks, we can’t make it DR101. Instead, other websites are pushed down the scale.” A rating set against everyone else moves when everyone else does.

Directories as one route to new referring domains

A directory listing is one referring domain. It passes rating when its link is followed and its page gets crawled. Our catalog prints the link type recorded for each directory, so you see it as you pick: of the 177 third-party directories we submit to, 105 are recorded as dofollow with no no-equity mark. In our dashboard you choose yours with each one's DR on screen, from any band. To tell a listing worth having from one that is not, the checks a listing should clear before its link is worth having are set out step by step.

Once you have picked, the rest is ours. Each directory gets a description written for it and to its own length rules. Every form is filled on our side. The badges that some directories ask for all sit inside one component of ours, added to your site a single time; we keep every badge in it live, so no directory means a code change for you, and keeping the badges up through a redesign is on us. A directory goes into the catalog after a submission to it has run from start to finish.

Most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, every directory within 21 days at most. A directory that says no is swapped, by default, for one more of your choice, except on All Directories, whose selection is already the whole catalog. A refund can be requested within 30 days of purchase, on the conditions in our terms.

Payment is one-time: $29 covers 30 directories, $49 covers 60 and $79 covers 100. All Directories is $149, once, for every directory in the catalog now and each one we add. Every plan includes free indexing by IndexMachine ($25 value): as each listing page carrying your link goes live, we pass it to IndexMachine on your behalf, and you have nothing to install or connect. Whether Google indexes a page stays Google's decision.