SEO Term Definition
Domain Rating / Domain Authority
Domain Rating (Ahrefs) and Domain Authority (Moz) are third-party metrics that estimate a website's overall link-based authority on a 0–100 scale. Higher scores indicate a stronger backlink profile.
Reviewed by Alexander Yarovenko · Updated: 2026-07-03
What are Domain Rating and Domain Authority?
Domain Rating (DR) and Domain Authority (DA) are proprietary metrics created by SEO tools (Ahrefs and Moz respectively) to estimate the overall authority of a website's backlink profile on a 0–100 logarithmic scale. They are NOT Google metrics — Google does not use DR or DA as ranking signals. However, they are widely used in the SEO industry as proxies for assessing relative site authority.
DR vs DA vs Other Authority Metrics
| Metric | Created by | Based on | Logarithmic? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | Quantity and quality of unique referring domains | Yes |
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | Multiple link factors | Yes |
| Authority Score (AS) | Semrush | Links + organic search data | Yes |
| Trust Flow (TF) | Majestic | Quality of links from trusted seed sites | Yes |
How to Use DR/DA in Practice
- Prospecting for link opportunities — filter outreach lists by DR 40+ to prioritise high-value sites
- Evaluating competitors — if a competitor has DR 70 and you have DR 30, expect to take longer to outrank them for competitive keywords
- Tracking your own progress — DR growth over time is a lagging indicator of link building success
- NOT as an absolute rule — DR 20 sites in highly relevant niches can pass more contextual authority than DR 60 irrelevant sites
Common Misunderstandings
- Google does NOT use DR or DA — don't confuse these with actual Google ranking factors
- High DA does not guarantee rankings — relevance and on-page quality still matter enormously
- DA can be artificially inflated — sites with large link quantities but low link quality can have inflated scores