Domain Authority vs Domain Rating: Which Score Should You Watch?
Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are two third-party scores that estimate how strong a website is — DA comes from Moz, DR comes from Ahrefs, and neither is a Google ranking factor. The short version: DA tries to predict how likely a site is to rank in search results, while DR measures only the strength of a site's backlink profile.
If you run both tools on the same website, you'll get two different numbers. That's normal. They use different data and different formulas. This guide explains what each score means, how they're calculated, when to use one or the other, and — most importantly — what actually moves them.
DA — Moz
DR — Ahrefs
Two scores, one website — two different numbers. That's normal.
What Is Domain Authority (DA)?
Domain Authority is a score from 1 to 100 that Moz created to predict how well a website will rank in Google compared to other sites. A higher DA suggests a stronger ability to rank.
Moz calculates DA with a machine learning model that looks at dozens of SEO signals — mainly backlinks — and matches them against real search results. Per Moz, the model samples data from over 43.8 trillion links across 8 trillion pages and 743 million domains (Moz, checked October 2026).
Two things make DA unusual:
Related: if you want a sense of what score you should aim for, see our guide on what makes a good Domain Authority. DA also has a sibling metric, Page Authority, which scores individual pages instead of whole domains — we cover that in Domain Authority vs Page Authority.
What Is Domain Rating (DR)?
Domain Rating is a score from 0 to 100 that Ahrefs uses to measure the strength of a website's backlink profile — nothing else. Per Ahrefs, DR is calculated from the number of unique websites linking to you, the DR of those websites, and how many other sites each of them links to (Ahrefs, checked October 2026).
Think of it like a referral network. If a handful of well-connected sites link to you, each vote counts for a lot. If a site with a high DR links out to hundreds of other sites, its vote gets diluted.
Each link is a vote — but the vote is only as strong as the site casting it, and it gets split across everything else that site links to.
Unlike DA, DR ignores traffic, content quality, spam signals, and domain age. It answers one question only: how strong is this site's link network? Ahrefs studied the correlation between DR and keyword rankings across 218,713 domains and found they correlate well — again, a correlation, not a guarantee (Ahrefs, checked October 2026).
If you want a full walkthrough of this metric, read our Domain Rating guide.
Domain Authority vs Domain Rating: The Key Differences
Both scores run on a similar 1–100 scale, but they measure different things and behave differently. Here's the side-by-side comparison.
| Domain Authority (DA) |
Domain Rating (DR) |
|
|---|---|---|
| Who created it | Moz | Ahrefs |
| What it measures | Overall likelihood of ranking in search | Strength of the backlink profile only |
| Scale | 1–100, logarithmic | 0–100, logarithmic |
| Data used | Backlinks plus dozens of SEO signals, matched to real rankings via machine learning | Referring domains, their DR, and their outbound link counts |
| Changes when competitors improve? | Yes — it's a relative score | No — it only reflects your own links |
| Sensitive to content and traffic? | Indirectly, through its multi-factor model | No |
| Is it a Google ranking factor? | No | No |
| Best used for | Benchmarking overall SEO strength against competitors | Vetting link prospects and tracking link-building progress |
Neither score is "better." They answer different questions. DA gives you a big-picture ranking prediction; DR gives you a focused look at link strength.
When Should You Use DA, and When Should You Use DR?
Use DA when you want a general read on how your site stacks up against competitors, and DR when you're making link decisions.
DA is the better benchmark because it blends many signals. Compare your DA to the sites that outrank you in search results — the gap tells you roughly how much authority work you have left.
DR is the better tool here. Before you pursue a guest post or buy a placement, check the site's DR and who else it links to. A site with a decent DR and links to your competitors is worth pursuing; a high-DR site that links out to hundreds of unrelated domains is probably not.
DR moves directly when you earn new quality links, so it's a clean way to see whether your outreach is working.
Most executives recognize DA because Moz popularized it. Report DA for the big picture and DR for link specifics.
What's a Good Score? (And Why "Good" Depends on Your Niche)
There's no universal "good" DA or DR — both are comparative. A DA of 30 is strong for a brand-new local business and weak for a national news site.
As a rough reference, most established websites land in the 30–50 range, while dominant players in a niche sit at 60 or higher (Search Atlas, 2026). BBC.com and NYTimes.com, for example, have DR scores in the 90s because thousands of high-authority sites link to them (Ahrefs, checked October 2026).
Reference points, not targets: where a score is "good" depends entirely on who you're competing against.
The practical benchmark is simple: find the sites that outrank you for the keywords you care about, check their DA and DR, and treat those numbers as your targets. Being at DA 35 is fine if the sites you're competing against are at 30–40 — and a problem if they're all above 60.
How Do You Check Your Domain Authority and Domain Rating?
Both vendors offer free checkers, and many third-party tools show both scores together.
Moz's Domain Analysis tool
Shows DA, spam score, and linking domains for free at moz.com/domain-analysis.
Ahrefs' Website Authority Checker
Shows DR for free at ahrefs.com/website-authority-checker.
Such as the tools from Rhino Rank and others — display DA and DR side by side for a single URL.
Votrix AI pulls the whole picture automatically
If you want both scores plus everything around them — your backlinks, your competitors' authority, and the link gap between you and the sites outranking you — Votrix AI pulls this data automatically from DataForSEO and lays it out in one place, so you don't have to run three separate checkers.
How to Increase Your DA and DR (the Same Way)
Here's the good news: both scores respond to the same core work — earning quality links from real sites. A tactic that raises DR almost always raises DA too, and vice versa.
One link from a respected industry publication beats dozens of links from random directories. Focus on relevance first, authority second.
Original research, useful tools, and genuinely complete guides attract links passively over time.
Pages sitting on the second page of Google often just need better content, internal links, or a few targeted backlinks to break through. This is usually the fastest authority win available.
Most valuable links come from an email someone actually answered. Personalized, relevant outreach to sites that already cover your topic works; mass blasts don't.
Links from spam networks can drag your profile down. Review your backlinks periodically and disavow anything that looks manufactured.
Steps 3 and 4 are where most teams stall — rewriting pages and chasing outreach emails takes hours every week. This is exactly the part Votrix AI automates: it finds the pages that are stuck just below ranking positions and rewrites them, then sends personalized link-building and mention-invitation emails on its own, so authority work happens continuously instead of only when someone has free time.
The Bigger Picture: Authority Now Extends Beyond Links
DA and DR were built for a Google-only world. In 2026, buyers increasingly find brands through AI answers — ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. A site can have a strong DA and still be invisible in AI search if AI crawlers can't read it or if nobody has mentioned it anywhere AI systems look.
That means modern "authority" has a third dimension: being cited. Alongside classic link building, it's worth checking whether AI crawlers can access your site and whether AI answers mention your brand at all.
ChatGPT
Claude
Google AI Overviews
Votrix AI covers this side of authority too. It checks whether Google and AI crawlers can read your site, tracks whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews mention you, and connects to Google Search Console so you see your real rankings, clicks, and impressions — the ground-truth data that third-party scores can only estimate.
The Bottom Line: Which Score Should You Watch?
Watch both, but don't worship either. Use DA to benchmark where you stand overall, DR to make link decisions, and Google Search Console to judge whether any of it is actually producing traffic. A rising score that comes with flat traffic means you built the wrong links; flat scores with growing traffic means you're doing something right that the metrics don't capture.
If you'd rather have one system handle the whole loop — research, backlink gap analysis, content fixes, outreach, and AI-visibility tracking — see how Votrix AI's SEO manager works.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Domain Authority of 30 good?
It depends on your niche. DA 30 is respectable for a new or local site and below average for a competitive national niche. Compare your DA to the sites that actually outrank you — that gap matters more than the number itself.
What does Domain Authority mean?
Domain Authority is a 1–100 score from Moz that estimates how likely a website is to rank in Google compared to other sites. It's based mainly on backlinks plus dozens of other SEO signals, and it's a relative score that shifts as competitors improve.
Is Domain Authority important?
Yes, as a benchmark — but it's not a Google ranking factor. Google doesn't use DA directly. A high DA correlates with good rankings because the same things that raise DA (strong content and links) also improve rankings.
How do I know my Domain Authority?
Use Moz's free Domain Analysis tool, or a combined checker that shows both DA and DR for your URL. You can also track DA automatically alongside your other SEO data with a tool like Votrix AI.
Can I fake a high DA or DR?
Yes — link farms and spam networks can inflate both scores, which is why smart marketers sanity-check a "high authority" site with real traffic data before buying or pursuing links from it.
Which is more accurate, DA or DR?
Neither is more accurate; they measure different things. DR is a tighter, more transparent measure of link strength. DA is a broader ranking prediction. Use DR for links and DA for overall benchmarking.
- Ahrefs — Website Authority Checker: https://ahrefs.com/website-authority-checker (checked October 2026)
- Moz — Free Domain Authority Checker: https://moz.com/domain-analysis (checked October 2026)
- Search Atlas — Domain Rating vs. Domain Authority: What's the Difference?: https://searchatlas.com/blog/domain-rating-vs-domain-authority/ (2026)
- Loganix — Domain Rating vs Domain Authority: What To Know in 2026: https://loganix.com/domain-rating-vs-domain-authority/ (checked October 2026)
- Rhino Rank — Domain Authority (DA) & Domain Rating (DR) Checker: https://www.rhinorank.io/tools/da-dr-checker/ (checked October 2026)