What is Domain Rating?

Domain Rating (DR) is a 0 to 100 score invented by Ahrefs that measures how strong a website's backlink profile is. The more high-quality sites linking to you, the higher your DR.

DR is logarithmic. Moving from DR 10 to DR 20 is much easier than moving from DR 70 to DR 80. For most indie builders, the meaningful first goal is DR 20, which is where Google starts treating your domain as credible.

Why DR matters

• Higher DR ranks better on Google. Pages on high-DR sites tend to outrank pages on low-DR sites for the same keyword, all else equal.
• Higher DR makes your outbound links more valuable. When you link to someone, your DR amplifies their backlink too.
• Higher DR helps AI engines cite you. Modern AI search (Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google AI overview) weighs domain authority when picking sources.

Quick benchmarks

• DR 0 to 10: brand new domain, almost no backlinks
• DR 10 to 20: indie product with a few launches behind it
• DR 20 to 35: established indie tool, Google takes new pages seriously
• DR 35 to 50: mature SaaS, ranks for competitive keywords with the right content
• DR 50+: rare for indie tools without a content team

How to grow DR fast

The fastest lever for a new domain is submitting to dofollow directories. Each approved listing adds a referring domain. Twenty submissions can move DR from 0 to 20 inside a month.

If you'd rather skip the manual submission grind, Auto Launch handles 40 to 50 vetted directories for you, with an average DR gain of +19 in 30 days.