What Domain Rating is, and what it isn't
Domain Rating (DR) is a score from Ahrefs, an SEO software company. It estimates how strong a site's backlink profile is compared with the other sites in Ahrefs' link index, on a 0 to 100 scale. The scale is logarithmic, so moving from 70 to 80 takes far more than moving from 10 to 20.
DR is not a Google metric. Google doesn't use it and doesn't publish anything like it. It doesn't measure traffic, content quality or how relevant a site is to yours. It's a useful shorthand for how well linked a site is, and nothing more.
What changes with DR4
Ahrefs previewed DR4 on 5 November 2026 and says it becomes the default score in its app on 1 December 2026. Until then the app and the API show DR3 unless you ask for DR4. According to Ahrefs' announcement, the main changes are:
- Links from sites with organic search traffic count for more. Ahrefs says the pool of sites that can pass DR is about half its old size, so links from sites with little search traffic count for less.
- Subdomains are scored on their own. Under DR3, a subdomain shared its root domain's score. Under DR4, blog.example.com or yourname.notion.site is rated on the links that point to that host.
- Less room for spam. Ahrefs reports that sites it labels as spam lost the most, while most large, well-known domains stayed level or went up.
Ahrefs also reports that, across the 10 million hosts it tested, DR4 correlates more closely with Google rankings than DR3 did.
How to use this checker
- Enter up to five domains or subdomains, separated by commas, like yoursite.com, blog.yoursite.com.
- Press Compare DR3 and DR4. Results are sorted by DR4, with the change between the two.
- Check subdomains you rely on, such as a docs site, a blog on a separate host, or a page on a site builder. Those are the scores most likely to move.
- Before you pay for a directory or ask a site for a link, check its DR4, not just the DR3 shown in older lists. Our launch directories table lists both for dozens of launch sites.
Frequently asked questions
- Is DR a Google ranking factor?
- No. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' own estimate built from its link index. Google doesn't use it. Links themselves matter to Google, so DR can be a useful proxy, but a higher DR doesn't move your rankings by itself.
- Why did my DR drop under DR4?
- The most common reasons are links from sites with little or no search traffic, which count for much less in DR4, and sites that inherited a high score from a root domain, such as a subdomain on a blogging or site-builder platform. A drop in DR doesn't mean your links disappeared or that Google sees your site differently.
- Why is my subdomain's DR so different from my main domain's?
- DR4 scores each host on the links that point to it. Under DR3, a subdomain such as blog.example.com showed the same DR as example.com. Under DR4 it has its own score, which is usually lower unless people link to that subdomain directly.
- When does DR4 replace DR3?
- Ahrefs says DR4 becomes the default in its app on 1 December 2026. It says DR3 will stay available through its API for a short time after that, for comparison.
- Where do these numbers come from?
- From Ahrefs' free Domain Rating API, asked once for DR3 and once for DR4. We keep each result for up to a day, so a score you check twice in one day won't change.
- Is this the same as the domain authority checker?
- No. Our domain authority checker shows Open PageRank, an open 0 to 10 score from a different dataset. Both estimate link strength, so they often agree on which site is stronger, but the numbers aren't comparable.