Bulk Ahrefs DR Checker

What Is Domain Rating (DR) in Ahrefs?

Domain Rating is Ahrefs' score for the strength of a website's backlink profile, on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100, compared with every other site in Ahrefs' index. Ahrefs, the Singapore based SEO software company founded by Dmitry Gerasimenko in 2010, builds that index with AhrefsBot, one of the busiest crawlers on the web, and shows the same data in its Site Explorer.

DR in Ahrefs stands for Domain Rating, but people search for it under plenty of other names: Ahrefs domain authority, Ahrefs domain rank, domain ranking or website authority. Strictly, Ahrefs has no metric called Domain Authority; that name belongs to Moz. So if you came here for an Ahrefs domain authority checker or an Ahrefs DA checker, Domain Rating is the number you want, and this DR checker returns it. Ahrefs does have a separate Ahrefs Rank (AR), which orders every site in its index by the strength of its backlink profile, so AR 1 is the strongest site on the web. A domain rank check here returns DR, the score behind that ordering.

Ahrefs publishes how DR is worked out, and it's simpler than most people expect:

1. Count the unique domains that have at least one dofollow link to the site. Extra links from the same domain add nothing.
2. Weigh each of those domains by its own DR.
3. Divide that weight by how many different sites each linking domain links out to. A DR 80 site that links to 20 domains passes far more than a DR 80 site that links to 20,000.
4. Turn the total into a raw score and place it on the 0 to 100 scale.

Two things follow from that. First, one link from a strong site that rarely links out can lift DR more than a hundred links from directories. Second, DR ignores everything that isn't a link: traffic, topical relevance, content quality, and whether the link was bought. That's why a domain can sit at DR 60 with almost no visitors, and why you should never judge a site on DR alone.

DR is not a Google ranking factor, and Ahrefs says so itself. Google has its own link signals, starting with PageRank, and doesn't read any third party score. DR is useful because it tracks the thing Google does care about, links from other websites, closely enough to compare sites quickly.

Domain Rating vs URL Rating (UR) in Ahrefs

Ahrefs URL Rating (UR) is the same idea applied to a single page. Ahrefs calculates it much like Google's original PageRank: it follows dofollow links to that exact URL, counts internal links from the same site as well as external ones, and scores the result from 0 to 100.

The checker reports the UR of each domain's homepage. A big gap between the two is worth noticing: DR 70 with homepage UR 15 usually means the site's links point at a few deep pages, while a guest post on that site will land on a brand new URL with a UR near zero, so most of its value comes from the domain. That's Ahrefs UR and DR explained in one line: DR rates the site, UR rates the page.

What Is a Good Domain Rating?

A good DR is one that matches or beats the sites ranking for your keywords. Paste the top ten results for your main search term into the checker and look at the spread; that's your real target, not a round number. As a rough map of Ahrefs' scale, where DR 10 means a site with only a handful of real referring domains, usually a few months into link building:

Because the scale is logarithmic, the steps aren't equal. Going from DR 10 to 20 can take a few dozen decent referring domains; going from 70 to 80 takes thousands. Our article on how long it takes to increase Domain Rating puts real timelines on each stage.

How to Read Your DR Check Results

Every row in the results carries these numbers. Switch on Complete Details to see the backlink totals as well.

• Domain Rating (DR): Strength of the whole site’s backlink profile, 0 to 100.
• URL Rating (UR): Strength of the homepage’s own backlink profile, 0 to 100.
• Ref Domains: How many unique websites link to the domain.
• Domain Traffic: Ahrefs’ estimate of monthly visits from Google organic search.
• Organic Keywords: How many keywords the site ranks for in Google’s top 100.
• Backlinks (Complete Details): Total links to the domain and to the homepage, plus homepage traffic.

The useful part is reading them against each other. A few patterns we look for when vetting a list:

• High DR, near zero traffic: the classic sign of a private blog network or an expired domain rebuilt to sell links. Real sites with DR 50 almost always rank for something.
• High DR, few referring domains: a handful of very strong links propping up the score. Open the site and check where they come from before you pay for a placement.
• Traffic falling while DR holds: the site may have been hit by a Google update. Links still count in Ahrefs' maths, but Google has stopped rewarding the content.
• Modest DR, strong traffic and keywords: often the best link you can get, because Google clearly trusts the site.

DR can't tell you whether those links are trustworthy. For that second opinion, paste the same list into our Trust Flow checker; a Majestic Trust Flow far below Citation Flow is the quickest flag for a link profile built from junk.

Is Ahrefs DR the Same as Moz DA?

No. Ahrefs DR, Moz Domain Authority, Majestic Trust Flow and Semrush Authority Score each come from a different crawler and a different formula, so one domain can easily read DR 62, DA 41 and TF 18 on the same afternoon. DR is the purest link count of the four: it only looks at referring domains and their strength. DA is a machine learning prediction of ranking ability, Trust Flow measures how close a site is to trusted seed sites, and Semrush blends links with organic traffic. Nor is DR the same as MozRank, Moz's old link popularity score, which Moz has since retired. Our breakdown of DA vs DR explains why the two most quoted scores disagree.

Link sellers tend to quote whichever number looks best, which is a good reason to check more than one. The DA, DR and TF framework shows how we combine all three to judge a site in about a minute.

When a client or marketplace asks for Semrush's number instead, the Semrush Authority Score checker runs a list the same way.

Why Domain Rating Drops, Jumps or Shows 0

Ahrefs recalculates DR continuously as AhrefsBot finds new links and notices lost ones, so the number can move on any day, not just after a monthly update. When a score changes and you didn't do anything, it's almost always one of these:

• You lost referring domains. A strong site removed its link, deleted the page, or turned it nofollow.
• Your linkers got weaker. DR flows downhill, so when a site that links to you loses DR, you lose a little too.
• Your linkers started linking out to more sites. Their DR is now split more ways, so each link passes less.
• Everyone else grew. DR is relative to the whole index. When the top of the web gains links, the scale stretches and mid range scores can slip.
• Spam links were discounted. A sudden jump from a burst of low quality links often falls back once those links disappear or Ahrefs stops counting them.

URL Rating drops for the same reasons, with one extra. Because UR counts internal links, taking a page out of your menu, footer or internal links can lower its UR even though no other site changed anything.

A DR of 0 means Ahrefs hasn't found a single dofollow link from another domain, which is normal for a new site. If you know you have links, check that you entered the domain the site actually lives on. After a move to a new domain, many of the links can still point at the old address, so check both.

What a Bulk DR Checker Is Good For

Checking DR one site at a time is fine for two domains and tedious for two hundred. These are the jobs where a bulk check saves the most time:

• Checking a guest post price list: vendors send sheets of sites with a quoted DR. Paste the domains and see the live numbers, because quoted DR is often months old or rounded up.
• Shortlisting outreach prospects: set a DR floor, drop everything under it, then judge the survivors on relevance and traffic.
• Expired domain due diligence: DR, referring domains and traffic together tell you whether a dropped domain has a real history or was propped up.
• Competitor benchmarking: use it as a domain rank checker for the sites ranking above you to see how much link authority your keyword actually demands.
• Client reporting: agencies track DR for every client domain monthly and use the report cards as proof of progress.

Guest posts and directory listings don't move DR equally, and we tested which ones do in guest post vs directory link.

This page tells you how strong a site is, not who links to it. To see the actual links behind a score, with the DR of every linking site next to each one, use the free backlink checker.

How to Increase Ahrefs Domain Rating

Since DR is built only from referring domains, raising it comes down to earning dofollow links from new sites, ideally ones that are strong and don't link out to everyone. In order of what moves the number:

1. Win links from new domains, not more links from old ones. The tenth link from a site that already links to you adds nothing to DR.
2. Favour sites that link out sparingly. An editorial mention on a DR 50 blog with a tight outbound profile beats a listing on a DR 70 resource page with ten thousand links.
3. Create something worth citing. Original data, free tools and clear explanations pick up links without outreach, and those links tend to come from real sites.
4. Reclaim what you already earned. Redirect old URLs that still have links with a 301, and ask sites that mention you without a link to add one.
5. Keep anchors natural. A profile full of exact match keyword anchors is a spam signal to Google even when DR rises.

Avoid shortcuts built to inflate DR: link farms, private blog networks and pages selling sitewide links to anyone. They can lift the score for a while, but they don't pass much value in Google and the score usually falls back once Ahrefs discounts them. Our guide to anchor text and authority covers the anchor mix that stays safe.

If you'd rather hand it off, our team runs white hat Domain Rating campaigns with manual outreach on relevant, real sites.