What is a good Domain Rating?

DR is relative to your niche. As a rough guide: under 30 is early-stage, 30-50 is growing, 50-70 is strong, and 70+ is authority-level. What matters is being higher than the competitors you're trying to outrank.

Is this DR checker free?

Yes. It uses Ahrefs' free public Domain Rating endpoint, so you can check any domain instantly with no account or API key.

Free SEO Tool

Domain Rating Checker

Check any site's Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) on a 0-100 scale. Free, instant, no login.

What is Domain Rating?

Domain Rating (DR) is an Ahrefs metric, scored 0-100, that estimates the strength of a website's backlink profile relative to every other site Ahrefs tracks. It's logarithmic: moving from DR 20 to 30 is far easier than 70 to 80. DR is a useful proxy for off-page authority, but it's not a Google ranking factor on its own. It's one signal among many.

How is DR calculated?

DR is driven mainly by the number of unique referring domains linking to you, the DR of those linking domains, and how many sites each of them links out to. Quality and diversity beat raw quantity: a handful of links from high-DR, topically relevant sites moves DR more than hundreds of links from weak or spammy domains.

How to improve your Domain Rating

Earn links from high-DR, topically relevant sites (digital PR, guest features, original research).
Grow unique referring domains, not just total backlinks.
Publish link-worthy assets: tools, data studies, and definitive guides.
Clean up toxic links and fix lost/broken backlinks so you keep the equity you've earned.

Want a higher Domain Rating?

DR follows a real backlink + content strategy, not link buying. I help brands earn the authority that ranks, and now get cited in AI answers too.

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