If you have spent any time researching link building or SEO, you have almost certainly come across the term Domain Rating (DR). It appears on agency websites, in proposal documents, and in ranking analyses. But what exactly is DR, how is it calculated, and should it be the primary metric you focus on when building your backlink profile?
What is Domain Rating (DR)?
Domain Rating is a proprietary SEO metric developed by Ahrefs that measures the overall strength of a website’s backlink profile on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher the DR score, the stronger the site’s link profile — and generally, the more authority a link from that site will pass to your own.
DR is calculated primarily based on the number and quality of unique domains linking to a website. A site with links from 1,000 high-DR domains will have a significantly higher DR than a site with links from 1,000 low-DR or irrelevant domains.
How is DR Different from DA?
You will often see both DR (Domain Rating by Ahrefs) and DA (Domain Authority by Moz) referenced in link building. They measure similar things but use different methodologies and data sets. DR is generally considered more reliable for evaluating backlink quality because Ahrefs crawls the web more frequently and maintains one of the largest link indexes available.
Neither DR nor DA is a Google metric — Google does not use either. However, sites with high DR/DA typically correlate strongly with sites that Google already considers authoritative.
What DR Score Should You Target for Backlinks?
This is the most common question from clients. Here is a practical guide:
- DR 0–20: Low value. Only useful for niche-specific directories or very early-stage link profiles
- DR 20–40: Useful for newer sites building their first backlinks. Can provide meaningful early authority signals
- DR 40–60: Good quality. Solid for most campaigns and moves rankings for mid-competition keywords
- DR 60–80: Excellent. Highly impactful links that can move rankings for competitive keywords
- DR 80+: Top-tier. Links from national news sites, major publications, and industry leaders. Maximum authority transfer
At Inlinkbroker, our average placement is DR 60+ — because we refuse to place links on sites that do not meaningfully benefit your profile.
Why DR Alone is Not Enough
DR is a useful indicator but it should never be your only metric when evaluating a link. We have seen many link building agencies sell high-DR links from sites that are clearly link farms — they have gamed their DR artificially by linking to other sites in their network.
The metrics that matter alongside DR:
- Organic traffic: Does the site have real visitors? Check Ahrefs or Semrush traffic estimates
- Topical relevance: Is the site in your industry or a closely related niche?
- Link spam score: Does the site have a high percentage of outbound links to unrelated or low-quality sites?
- Content quality: Is the site publishing genuine, useful content?
- Indexed pages: Are the site’s pages actually indexed by Google?
Improving Your Own Domain Rating
Your site’s DR grows as you acquire more backlinks from high-DR domains. The relationship is not linear — earning links from a DR90 site has a much larger impact than 10 links from DR30 sites. Focus on quality over quantity.
A well-executed link building campaign with 5–10 quality placements per month will typically increase a new domain’s DR from 0 to 20+ within 6 months, and from 20 to 40+ within 12 months of consistent effort.
Want to grow your domain rating? Get a free backlink audit from Inlinkbroker and we will map out a strategy tailored to your current profile and target keywords.