Key takeaways
- Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs’ 0–100 logarithmic score for how strong a domain’s backlink profile is.
- This checker returns the live DR score for any domain, free, with no Ahrefs account and no signup.
- It also reports domain age, HTTPS certificate health, redirect behaviour, on-page SEO tags and an outbound link audit.
- DR is not a Google ranking factor. It is a useful proxy for authority, not a cause of rankings.
- Backlink counts, referring domains and organic traffic need paid Ahrefs endpoints, so they are not part of this free tool.
What is Domain Rating (DR)?
Domain Rating is Ahrefs' measure of how strong a website's backlink profile is. It runs from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale, so the gap between DR 70 and DR 80 is far larger than the gap between DR 10 and DR 20. The score is relative: Ahrefs compares each domain against every other site in its index.
Two things about DR are worth being clear on. First, it describes the whole domain, not an individual page — Ahrefs has a separate URL Rating (UR) for single pages. Second, DR is not a Google ranking factor. It is a useful proxy for authority when you are judging a link prospect, a competitor or a domain you might buy, but SEO tools do not cause rankings.
Domain Rating data on this page is provided by Ahrefs, as required by the Domain Rating License.
How to check a Domain Rating
- 1Enter a domain — type or paste a domain name or a full URL, for example
github.com. A bare domain is fine; we strip the protocol and any path. - 2Click Check DR— the score is fetched from Ahrefs' free public API and the site checks run at the same time.
- 3Read the report — the DR gauge and authority tier come first, followed by site health, on-page SEO tags and the outbound link audit.
- 4Check another — enter a new domain to run another report. No signup, though checks are rate limited per visitor.
What this free DR checker reports
- Domain Rating (DR) — the live Ahrefs DR score for the domain, from 0 to 100, with an authority tier so the number means something at a glance.
- Domain age — registration and expiry dates, the registrar, and how long the domain has existed, looked up over RDAP.
- HTTPS health — whether the certificate actually validates, who issued it, and how long is left before it expires.
- Redirect behaviour — the full hop-by-hop chain, so you can see whether http upgrades to https and whether www and the bare domain disagree.
- On-page SEO tags — title and length, meta description and length, H1 and H2 counts, word count, canonical, Open Graph tags and meta robots.
- Outbound link audit — the dofollow, nofollow, sponsored and UGC split of the links on the page. These are links going out, not backlinks coming in.
What is a good Domain Rating?
There is no single pass mark. A good DR is one that is competitive for your niche — a local service business and a global SaaS platform are not playing the same game. As a rough guide:
| DR range | Tier | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| 0 – 10 | Minimal | Brand-new or lightly linked sites. Normal for a launch. |
| 11 – 30 | Low | Small but established sites with some earned links. |
| 31 – 50 | Moderate | Sites with consistent content and link building. |
| 51 – 70 | Strong | Recognisable companies, publications and popular SaaS. |
| 71 – 100 | Very strong | The largest domains on the web, such as major platforms. |
DR vs DA vs Authority Score
Every major SEO platform has its own authority metric, and they are not interchangeable. The same site will show different numbers in each, because each company crawls a different slice of the web and weights links its own way.
| Metric | By | Scale | Measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | 0 – 100 | Backlink profile strength |
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | 0 – 100 | Predicted ranking ability |
| Authority Score (AS) | Semrush | 0 – 100 | Overall domain trust and authority |
How is Domain Rating calculated?
Ahrefs builds Domain Rating from its own crawl of the web rather than from Google data. It counts the links pointing at a domain, weights each link by how strong the linking site is, and normalises the resulting figure onto a 0–100 scale relative to every other domain in its index.
Two consequences follow. The scale is logarithmic, so lifting a site from DR 70 to 80 takes far more link authority than lifting it from 10 to 20. And a single link from a strong, topically relevant site can outweigh dozens of links from weak or unrelated ones — which is why the quality of who links to you matters more than the raw count.
How to improve your Domain Rating
- Earn links from stronger domains — DR is weighted by the authority of the linking site, so one link from a DR 80 publication can outweigh dozens from DR 10 blogs.
- Build things worth citing — original data, free tools, and genuinely useful reference pages attract links without outreach.
- Be listed where your buyers look — reputable industry directories and roundups are a steady source of relevant links. Browse directories ranked by DR to find ones worth submitting to.
- Stay topically relevant — a link from a site in your own field carries more weight than a higher-DR link from an unrelated one.
- Clean up, but do not obsess — disavowing genuinely toxic links is worthwhile; chasing every low-quality link is not.
What this tool does not do
Being straight about the limits of a free tool is more useful than pretending they do not exist, so:
- No backlink counts or referring domains. Ahrefs exposes those only through paid API endpoints. A free tool that shows them for any domain is either scraping Ahrefs or estimating from a different index, and either way the number you see is not the Ahrefs number.
- No organic traffic estimates. Same reason — traffic and keyword data are paid endpoints.
- The dofollow figure is about outbound links, not backlinks. We audit the links on the page you submitted. That tells you how the site links out, which is genuinely useful, but it says nothing about who links to it. The report labels it accordingly.
- One domain per check. Bulk checking needs queued background work to stay inside the free API rate limit.
Domain Rating FAQ
What is Domain Rating (DR)?
Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' metric for the strength of a website's backlink profile. It runs from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale and is measured against every other site in Ahrefs' database, so a DR of 60 means a stronger backlink profile than roughly 60% of the sites they track. It describes the domain as a whole, not an individual page.
Is this Domain Rating checker really free?
Yes. There is no signup, no account, no credit card and no trial. Domain Rating comes from the free public Ahrefs API, and every other check on the report runs on our own server. Checks are rate limited per visitor so the shared service stays available to everyone.
Do I need an Ahrefs account to check a Domain Rating?
No. You do not need an Ahrefs account, an Ahrefs login or a paid Ahrefs plan to use this tool. We call the free public Domain Rating API on your behalf, so you can check any domain rating without signing up for anything.
Where does the Domain Rating data come from?
Directly from Ahrefs, through their free public Domain Rating API. The score is not scraped, estimated or cached from an old copy, so it is the same domain_rating value Ahrefs publishes. Attribution is required by Ahrefs' Domain Rating License and is shown with the score: Domain Rating by Ahrefs.
Does this tool show backlink counts, referring domains or organic traffic?
No, and that is a deliberate limitation rather than an oversight. Ahrefs exposes backlink counts, referring domains, dofollow-backlink share and organic traffic only through paid API endpoints, so any free tool claiming to show them for every domain is either scraping or estimating. Instead we report things we can measure honestly and for free: domain age and registration date, HTTPS certificate health, redirect behaviour, on-page SEO tags and a dofollow/nofollow audit of the links on the page.
What is the difference between Domain Rating (DR) and Domain Authority (DA)?
They are competing metrics from different companies. Domain Rating is Ahrefs'; Domain Authority is Moz's. Both aim to summarise the strength of a site's link profile on a 0-100 scale, but they use different link indexes and different algorithms, so the same site will usually score differently in each. A DR score is not a Google ranking factor and neither Ahrefs nor Moz claim it predicts rankings directly.
What is the difference between Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR)?
Domain Rating measures the whole domain, using every backlink Ahrefs has recorded pointing anywhere on that site. URL Rating measures a single page, using only the backlinks pointing at that one URL. A site can have a high DR and a low UR for a brand-new blog post, which is normal: the domain is strong but that page has not earned links yet.
Is Domain Rating a Google ranking factor?
No. Domain Rating is a third-party metric calculated by Ahrefs from its own crawl of the web. Google does not use it, and Ahrefs does not claim it predicts rankings directly. DR is best treated as a quick proxy for how much authority a domain has accumulated, which is useful when judging a link prospect, a competitor or a domain you might buy.
What is a good Domain Rating?
It depends on your goal and your niche. Brand-new sites typically sit at DR 0-10. DR 11-30 is common for small but established sites, DR 31-50 for sites with a steady link building effort, DR 51-70 for well-known companies and publications, and DR 71-100 for the largest domains on the web. What matters most is how your DR compares with the sites you actually compete against.
What does a Domain Rating of 0 mean?
Either that the domain is real but has not attracted a meaningful backlink profile yet, which is normal for new sites, or that the domain does not exist. To tell the two apart we also check whether the domain resolves in DNS and whether a website responds. If neither works, we tell you the domain could not be found instead of reporting a score of 0.
How is Domain Rating calculated?
Ahrefs builds DR from its own index of the web. It counts the links pointing at a domain, weights each one by the authority of the linking site, and normalises the result onto a 0-100 logarithmic scale relative to every other domain in the index. Because the scale is logarithmic, moving from DR 70 to 80 takes far more link authority than moving from DR 10 to 20, and links from strong, topically relevant sites count for much more than links from weak ones.
How often does Domain Rating change?
Ahrefs recalculates Domain Rating as its link index updates, and DR moves slowly - often by a point or two over weeks, not days. We cache each domain score for 24 hours, which keeps repeat checks instant and respects the rate limit on the free API.
How can I improve my Domain Rating?
Domain Rating tracks the strength of the domains linking to you, weighted so that links from high-DR sites count for more. In practice that means earning links from authoritative, topically relevant sites rather than accumulating easy low-quality ones, creating content worth citing, and being listed in reputable directories and industry roundups. Disavowing genuinely toxic links is worth doing, but it is a cleanup step rather than a growth strategy.
Can I check more than one domain at a time?
The tool checks one domain per request. Bulk checking needs a queued job to stay inside the free API rate limit, so it is not part of this version.
Keep going
Browse directories ranked by DR to find places worth listing your product, or compare tools side by side on features, pricing and platforms before you commit.
This DR checker is part of FindAlternate's free toolset. The aim is simple: make the SEO data founders actually use during a launch available without a subscription. Explore FindAlternate to discover and launch software products, or read the blog for more on launching and getting found.