Domain Rating.

Domain Rating (DR) is a link-based metric developed by Ahrefs, scored 0–100, that measures the overall strength of a website's backlink profile. It's calculated based on the quantity and quality of unique websites linking to the domain, weighted by their own DR scores. DR is logarithmic—moving from DR 20 to DR 30 is much easier than moving from DR 80 to DR 90.

How DR Is Calculated

Ahrefs' DR algorithm considers: how many unique domains link to the target website, what DR those linking domains have, and how many unique domains each linking site links to (to account for link dilution). A link from a DR 90 site that only links to 3 other sites passes much more authority than a link from a DR 90 site that links to 10,000 others.

DR in Practice

DR is widely used in SEO as a proxy for organic ranking potential. When evaluating link building opportunities, targeting sites with DR 40+ is a common baseline for meaningful authority transfer. When benchmarking against competitors, a significant DR gap (20+ points) typically indicates substantial link building investment is needed before a domain can compete for the same keywords.