What Domain Rating measures
Domain Rating, or DR, is a score from 0 to 100 that Ahrefs gives a website for the strength of its backlink profile: how many other sites link to it, and how strong those sites are in turn. It is not a Google metric and Google does not use it. It is a widely used yardstick, and on Backlink Market it is the rating every listing is filed under. The scale is logarithmic, so going from 20 to 30 is far easier than going from 70 to 80.
The five tiers
Every rating also belongs to one of five tiers, the same ones used across the marketplace, so the same number always means the same thing.
- Zeus: DR 80 and up. Household names.
- Poseidon: DR 60 to 79. Established publications and strong brands.
- Athena: DR 40 to 59. Solid sites with a real link profile.
- Apollo: DR 20 to 39. Growing sites.
- Hermes: DR 0 to 19. New or small sites.
Using it to choose where to buy a link
Paste the shortlist, one site per line, and sort by rating. Filter out everything below the DR you will accept, then copy the table straight into a spreadsheet next to the prices you were quoted. A site that costs twice as much as another at the same DR needs a reason.
DR is a start, not a verdict. Before you pay, also look at:
- Real traffic. DR can be raised with links alone. A high-DR site that nobody visits passes little.
- Relevance. A link from a site on your topic is worth more than the same DR from an unrelated one.
- Whether the page is indexed and the link is followed. Check the page with the Backlink Checker.
- How the profile is built. Very high DR on a thin, young site can mean links were bought in bulk.
Subdomains and rating
Ahrefs rates whole domains. If you enter blog.example.com you get the rating of example.com, and the result says so. A site hosted on a shared domain, such as a page under github.io or vercel.app, is not rated for itself, so its number would describe the host, not the site.
Reading the other numbers
The summary shows the average and median of what you checked, the highest rating, and how many sites fall in each tier. The median is the better guide when one very strong site sits in a list of weak ones. Domains that are for sale on Backlink Market are marked, with the lowest price listed.
Frequently asked
Is this the same number as on ahrefs.com?
Yes. It is read from Ahrefs' own public Domain Rating service, rounded to a whole number. Ratings here are refreshed once a day.
Why does a site show no rating?
Ahrefs has not rated it yet, which is common for very new domains, or the lookup did not answer. The second case has a button to try again.
How many sites can I check?
Up to 50 at a time, with a daily limit per connection so the service stays available for everyone.
Is my list stored?
The domains you enter are looked up and not kept on our side. The last list you typed is remembered in your own browser so it is there next time.