Free SEO tool
Free domain rating checker
Use this free domain rating checker to see any website's Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) in seconds, with no sign-up. Type a domain, get its score from 0 to 100, and see what it means for your site.
What your DR score means
| 70–100 · Authority | A major publication or platform. Links from sites like this are rare and valuable. |
|---|---|
| 50–69 · Strong | A well-established site with thousands of referring domains. |
| 30–49 · Established | A real backlink profile. Most growing SaaS and media sites sit here. |
| 10–29 · Early | A handful of links from sites that matter. Typical for a product in its first year. |
| 0–9 · New | Few or no links that count yet. Every early do-follow link moves this number. |
What is Domain Rating?
Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' score for the strength of a website's backlink profile, on a scale from 0 to 100. It looks at how many unique websites link to a domain with do-follow links, and how strong those linking websites are themselves.
The scale is logarithmic: going from DR 10 to DR 20 is far easier than going from DR 60 to DR 70. It is also relative, so a site's DR can drop slightly when other sites grow faster, even if it lost no links.
What is a good Domain Rating?
There is no single good number. A DR is only meaningful next to the sites you compete with for the same searches. Check the domains ranking on page one for your main keyword: if they sit around DR 30, you do not need DR 70 to compete with them.
As a rough guide, new products start at 0 to 10, a product with a year of steady launches and mentions often reaches 20 to 30, and established SaaS sites tend to sit between 40 and 60.
How to increase your Domain Rating
DR goes up when new, distinct websites link to you with do-follow links. A second link from a site that already links to you adds little; a first link from a new site adds more, and more again if that site has a higher DR itself.
For a new product the reliable sources are launch platforms and directories that still give do-follow links, guest posts and podcast show notes, answering journalist requests, and free tools or data other sites want to cite. Launch sites are the fastest of these, because you can do several in a week.
Every approved product on Lifto gets a permanent product page with a do-follow link to its website, free. Founders who add the Lifto badge to their own site get a second do-follow link from the badge partners page.
Get a free do-follow link for your product
Every approved product on Lifto gets a permanent product page with a do-follow link to its website. List your product free, or see more free launch sites with do-follow backlinks.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this domain rating checker free?
- Yes. There is no sign-up and no paid tier. To keep it free, each visitor can check up to 10 new domains an hour, and a domain checked in the last 7 days is shown from that reading.
- Where does the Domain Rating come from?
- The score is Ahrefs' Domain Rating, read from Ahrefs' free public Domain Rating endpoint. Lifto does not calculate or adjust it.
- What is the difference between Domain Rating and Domain Authority?
- Domain Rating is Ahrefs' metric and Domain Authority is Moz's. Both estimate the strength of a site's backlinks on a 0 to 100 scale, but they use different link indexes and formulas, so the same site usually gets two different numbers. Compare sites using one metric, not a mix of both.
- Why did my Domain Rating drop when I did not lose any links?
- DR is relative to every other site in Ahrefs' index. When the sites at the top gain links faster than you do, the scale stretches and your score can fall slightly without anything changing on your side. Losing links from strong sites lowers it too.
- Does Domain Rating affect Google rankings?
- Google does not use Domain Rating. It is a third-party estimate of something Google does care about, links from other websites, which is why SEOs use it to compare sites and to judge which links are worth pursuing.
- How long does it take for a new backlink to change my DR?
- Ahrefs has to crawl the page that links to you first, which usually takes from a few days to a few weeks. A link from a page that is itself rarely crawled can take longer.