Free DR4 checker.

DR4 vs DR3 at a glance

How to read a DR4 score

Domain Rating is relative. A DR4 of 40 means the backlink profile sits at a certain point compared with every other rated site in Ahrefs' index. It does not mean that the website is 40% authoritative, 40% likely to rank, or 40% complete.

The scale is logarithmic. Each point gets harder to gain as the score rises. Moving from 20 to 21 takes much less than moving from 70 to 71. A five-point gap near the top can represent a much larger difference than a five-point gap near the bottom.

Use a fair comparison. Check direct competitors, sites in the same topic, and the domains already ranking for searches you care about. Then open the backlink report and inspect the referring domains behind the score. The number is a summary, not a diagnosis.

Source: Ahrefs' Domain Rating guide.

Why your DR4 went up or down

A higher DR4 means your backlink profile compares more favorably under the new model. Links from hosts with estimated organic traffic may count more, while links from weaker or spam-labeled hosts may count less. A subdomain can also move sharply once it stops borrowing the score of a strong root domain.

A drop is not a manual penalty. Ahrefs did not review your copy, product, or brand and decide it was worse. The model changed the comparison. Ahrefs found that spam-labeled domains in the old DR30–70 range dropped by a median of about 15–20 points. Non-spam domains were generally much more stable.

Check close competitors under the same model before drawing a conclusion. If most sites in your comparison group moved in the same direction, your relative position may have changed very little.

Source: Ahrefs' DR4 model preview.

DR4 gives subdomains their own score

Under DR3, a hosted site could appear strong because it lived on a powerful root domain. A small project on a site builder, documentation host, or publishing platform might inherit a score that said little about links pointing to that specific subdomain.

DR4 scores hosts separately. Ahrefs used help.ahrefs.com as an example: the subdomain received DR 75 while ahrefs.com received DR 92. In the published sample, some hosted subdomains fell much further. That is expected when the host has few backlinks of its own.

Enter the exact host you want to inspect. Checking example.com and docs.example.com can now return different DR4 scores, even when both belong to the same company.

Source: Ahrefs' subdomain examples.

What counts as a good DR4?

There is no useful universal cutoff. DR 30 can be strong in a narrow market and ordinary in a field dominated by large publishers. Ahrefs recommends judging DR against similar sites rather than treating 30, 50, or 70 as fixed grades.

Build a comparison set with direct business competitors, sites that publish on the same topics, and domains ranking for your target searches. If your backlink profile is close to theirs, DR can help you decide which content gaps or link prospects deserve a closer look. It cannot promise that a page will rank.

A low score does not prove that a site is spammy. New and legitimate sites often start with few links. Ahrefs recommends a manual review of the site and its backlink profile instead of using DR alone as a quality filter.

Source: Ahrefs' guide to a good Domain Rating.

Google does not use DR4

Domain Rating belongs to Ahrefs. Google does not read a site's DR4 and plug the number into its ranking systems. Ahrefs also says there is no evidence that search engines use DR, Domain Authority, or a comparable third-party sitewide score as a ranking factor.

The connection is indirect. Sites with strong backlink profiles often have strong pages and more internal-link equity to distribute. The links behind DR can matter for search. The DR number itself does not rank a page.

This is why chasing a number can waste time. A relevant editorial link to a useful page can be valuable even when the linking domain has a modest DR. Context, relevance, and the page receiving the link still matter.

Source: Ahrefs on DR and Google rankings.

What Ahrefs found while testing DR4

• 10 millionhosts and subdomains were included in the published ranking-correlation test.
• 2.5×+stronger overall correlation was reported for DR4 across all hosts and subdomains.
• 64.3%of the top 1,000 domains by estimated organic traffic saw their score rise.
• 19.9%of that top-1,000 sample saw a decrease; 15.8% stayed the same.

Source: Ahrefs' November 5, 2026 DR4 preview. Correlation does not prove that DR causes rankings, and Domain Rating is not a Google metric.

A sensible way to use DR4

1. 01

   Check the exact host

   Use the root domain for the main site and the full subdomain when you want to inspect docs, a hosted blog, a store, or another separate host.

2. 02

   Compare like with like

   Check competitors and search-result peers under DR4. Mixing old DR3 numbers with new DR4 numbers produces a bad comparison.

3. 03

   Open the backlink report

   Look for new and lost referring domains, followed links, relevance, and suspicious patterns. The report explains more than the score alone.

4. 04

   Track the links, not the vanity number

   Earn links from relevant sites, repair broken links, and publish resources people can cite. DR may follow, but the links are the asset.

Frequently asked questions

DR4 checker FAQ