Free Ahrefs DR checker

Enter any domain to see its Ahrefs Domain Rating, what the score actually means, and how it compares to the startups listed in our directory.

What this tool does

It queries the official Ahrefs free Domain Rating API and returns the same 0-100 score Ahrefs reports for that domain. There is no estimate or approximation involved: you are seeing Ahrefs' own number. Results are cached for 24 hours, and you can check up to five domains a day.

What Domain Rating is

Domain Rating measures the strength of a website's backlink profile on a 0-100 scale. It looks at the sites linking to you, weighs them by how strong those sites are themselves, and rolls that up into one number. The scale is logarithmic, so climbing from DR 20 to DR 30 is far easier than going from DR 70 to DR 80, and it is most useful as a comparison against your own past scores or against similar companies. We wrote a fuller explanation in What is Domain Rating and why it matters.

What counts as a good Domain Rating

No single number is the pass mark. What matters is your niche and the sites you are actually competing with for the same searches. Still, the ranges below are a useful rough map of where sites tend to sit.

DR rangeWhat it meansTypical sites
0-20New or very smallFresh startups, personal blogs, newly launched startups
20-40Growing authorityStartups past launch, niche tools, small agencies
40-60Solid authorityRecognised companies, popular industry blogs
60-80Strong authorityCategory-leading products, large publications
80-100Elite authorityThe handful of sites most of the web links to

A startup that launched this year sitting at DR 10 to 20 is exactly where it should be. Keep earning links steadily through quality directories, guest posts and press, and DR 30 to 40 inside a year is a realistic target. Most competitive companies level off somewhere between DR 50 and 70.

Be careful about treating the number as the goal, though. A DR 35 site with fifty links from blogs that genuinely cover its industry will often outrank a DR 50 site propped up by unrelated directory listings. Where your links come from matters as much as how many you have.

What Domain Rating is not

This is where most people go wrong, so it is worth being blunt:

  • It is not a Google metric. Ahrefs invented it. Google does not use it, does not see it, and does not care about it.
  • It does not measure quality, traffic or revenue. A thin site with aggressive PR can outscore a genuinely better product.
  • It does not predict rankings on its own. Strong backlinks correlate with ranking well, but DR itself causes nothing.
  • It is not comparable to Moz DA or Semrush Authority Score.Different indexes, different scales. Never compare them directly.
  • It is not worth inflating. Buying links to move the number is the fastest way to damage the site it is attached to.

Why the trend beats the number

A single DR reading tells you where a site stands today. The direction it moves tells you what is actually happening. A startup climbing from DR 8 to DR 15 over a few months is earning coverage and shipping things people link to. A site flat at DR 45 for two years may just be coasting. That is why Website Rating tracks Domain Rating weekly for every listed startup and surfaces momentum rather than a static score.

Domain Rating data is provided by Ahrefs.

FAQ

Domain Rating FAQ

Is this the real Ahrefs Domain Rating?
Yes. This tool queries the official Ahrefs free Domain Rating API, so the number you see is the same 0-100 score Ahrefs reports for that domain.
Why is my Domain Rating 0 or unavailable?
That is normal for a new site. DR is built from backlinks, so a domain with very few links scores 0, and a site Ahrefs has not crawled yet may have no rating at all. Neither means anything is wrong with your site.
How often does Domain Rating update?
Ahrefs recrawls the web continuously and DR shifts as links are found or lost. Results here are cached for 24 hours, so a check you run twice in one day returns the same number.
Is DR the same as Domain Authority (DA)?
No. DR is Ahrefs' metric and DA is Moz's. They use different link indexes and different scales, so a DR 40 and a DA 40 are not equivalent and should never be compared directly.
What is a good Domain Rating for a startup?
There is no pass mark. Most early startups sit between 0 and 20, which is completely normal. Our guide to Domain Rating breaks down what each range typically looks like.
Does a higher DR mean better Google rankings?
Not on its own. DR is a third-party estimate of backlink strength, not a Google metric, and Google does not use it. Strong backlinks do correlate with ranking well, but DR itself causes nothing.