Moz Domain Authority (DA) and Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) are both 0 to 100 scores built from backlinks, but they answer different questions. DR is a pure link-graph score: Ahrefs counts the unique domains that send your site at least one followed link, weights each by its own DR and by how many other sites it links to, and scales the result logarithmically. DA is a machine-learned prediction: Moz trains a model on Google results to estimate how likely a domain is to rank, using linking root domains, link quality and spam signals.
So no, Domain Authority and Domain Rating are not the same thing, and a DR 40 is not a DA 40. Neither score is used by Google. Ahrefs does not use Moz data (each company crawls the web with its own bot), which is why the same site can show DA 25 and DR 45. Use DR to vet link prospects, DA to benchmark against the sites in your SERPs, and Search Console to judge whether SEO is working.
Key takeaways
- DR counts unique referring domains with followed links, weighted by their own DR and split by how many sites they link to; traffic, spam and domain age are ignored.
- DA is a machine-learned 1–100 prediction of ranking ability; since DA 2.0 (March 2019) it factors in Spam Score and link quality patterns.
- UR is the page-level version of DR: it uses PageRank-style maths over internal and external links and respects nofollow.
- Neither tool is provably "more accurate": Google doesn't publish an authority score to check against, so compare index coverage instead.
- There is no universal good score. Among 200 Outrank customer sites with Search Console data, the median DR fell between 20 and 29, and only 20 sites reached DR 45.
- In Outrank's study of 200 sites, DR 30+ sites earned 29× the AI citations of sites under DR 10, but Google impressions predicted citations far better (Spearman 0.80 vs 0.43 for DR).
DA vs DR vs UR vs PA at a glance
Four scores get confused in every "Moz vs Ahrefs" thread. Two measure domains, two measure pages.
| Moz DA | Ahrefs DR | Ahrefs UR | Moz PA | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Measures | A domain's predicted ability to rank | Strength of a domain's backlink profile | Strength of one page's backlink profile | A page's predicted ability to rank |
| Level | Domain or subdomain | Domain | Page | Page |
| Method | Machine-learned model trained on SERPs | Link graph: referring domains, their DR, their outlinks | PageRank-style link graph with damping | Machine-learned model |
| Spam signals | Yes (Spam Score since DA 2.0) | No, spammy links can raise it | Removes some link loops | Yes |
| Counts nofollow | Model decides | No | No (nofollow respected) | Model decides |
| Scale | 1–100, relative | 0–100, logarithmic | 0–100, logarithmic | 1–100, relative |
| Best use | Benchmarking against SERP competitors | Filtering link prospects | Judging a specific linking page | Comparing ranking pages |
Sources: Ahrefs on DR, Ahrefs help on UR, Moz on DA.
How Ahrefs calculates Domain Rating
Domain Rating is Ahrefs' measure of the relative strength of a website's backlink profile, on a logarithmic 0 to 100 scale. Ahrefs describes the calculation in three steps:
- 1
Find every linking domain
Ahrefs collects all domains that have at least one followed link to the target. Only the first followed link from each domain counts; a second or hundredth link from the same site changes nothing. - 2
Check how generous each linker is
For each linking domain, Ahrefs looks up how many other domains it links to. A site that links to 10 domains passes more than one that links to 10,000, because each source splits its rating equally across the sites it links to. - 3
Pass "DR juice" and scale it
Each linking domain passes an amount based on its own DR and its outlink count. After repeating the calculation across the whole link graph, the raw values are scaled onto 0–100.
What DR deliberately ignores: search traffic, domain age, brand popularity and spam. Ahrefs says plainly that DR "doesn't account for backlink spam", so a pile of low-quality links can push DR up. Nofollow links add nothing.
The logarithmic scale is why going from DR 20 to 30 is far easier than going from 70 to 80. It is also why DR is a decent first filter for link prospecting: it answers one narrow question ("how strong is this site's link graph?") and nothing else.
How Moz calculates Domain Authority
Domain Authority is Moz's 1 to 100 score that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search results compared with competitors. Moz's own explanation (updated March 2025) says DA comes from a machine learning algorithm that "primarily" uses backlink data from Moz's Link Explorer index: the number of linking root domains, the quality of those links, and "other signals that correlate with rankings across thousands of search results."
The big methodology change was DA 2.0 in March 2019. Moz's DA 2.0 guide says the model added "Spam Score and link quality patterns" into "a sophisticated machine-learned model". In practice, links from obviously spammy networks count for less in DA than they might in DR.
Three properties follow from that design:
- DA is relative. If a giant site gains a billion links, everyone else's DA can drop without anything changing on their side.
- New sites start at 1, and scores move when Moz's index, its model or competitors' link profiles change.
- Moz tells you to compare, not to chase. There is no universally "good" DA; aim to beat the sites ranking near you.
Where Semrush Authority Score fits
Semrush's Authority Score is the third domain metric you'll meet in link-building threads. It runs from 1 to 100 and blends three things: link power (followed referring domains and their authority), estimated organic traffic, and a "natural profile" check for suspicious patterns such as link-to-traffic imbalances and shared networks. Semrush updates it every two weeks.
Put side by side, the three scores behave differently:
- DR is the purest link count. It tells you how strong a site's link graph is and nothing else, which makes it easy to reason about and easy to game.
- DA is a ranking prediction. It's trained to correlate with rankings, so it blends link quantity and quality in ways Moz doesn't fully publish.
- Authority Score is the most skeptical. Because it weighs traffic and spam signals, a site with lots of links and no traffic scores lower than its DR would suggest.
Majestic's Trust Flow (0 to 100, based on closeness to trusted seed sites) is a fourth option, used mostly by link builders.
Ahrefs UR vs DR: page strength vs domain strength
URL Rating (UR) is the page-level version of DR: it scores the strength of a single URL's backlink profile on a logarithmic 0 to 100 scale. Ahrefs says UR follows "the same basic PageRank principles", counts both internal and external links, respects nofollow, applies a damping factor and strips some link loops that would inflate scores.
The practical difference:
- DR tells you how strong the whole site's link graph is.
- UR tells you how strong the specific page linking to you is. Ahrefs notes UR correlates with Google rankings better than DR does.
When you vet a link, check the UR of the page your link will sit on, not just the DR of the domain. A new guest post on a DR 70 site starts with almost no UR because nothing links to it yet. If you type a bare domain into Site Explorer, the UR shown is the homepage's.
Why DA and DR disagree for the same site
DA 50 and DR 50 are not the same number. They come from different crawlers, different link indexes, different maths and different goals.
The common patterns, and what they usually mean:
| What you see | Likely reason | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| DR much higher than DA | Lots of referring domains that Moz's model discounts: link networks, low-quality directories, spammy blogs | Spam Score in Moz, and the referring domains report in Ahrefs sorted by DR |
| DA much higher than DR | Fewer referring domains, but ones Moz's model rates as strong; or Moz's index has links Ahrefs hasn't crawled | Linking root domains in Moz Link Explorer vs referring domains in Ahrefs |
| Both jumped overnight | An index or model update, or a spike of new links | Whether competitors moved too (if they did, it was the tool, not you) |
| Both high, little organic traffic | Links without relevant content or rankings | Organic traffic estimate in Ahrefs, Search Console clicks |
Neither number is wrong in these cases. They are measuring different things with different data.
Is Ahrefs more accurate than Moz?
There is no way to prove either is more accurate, because the thing they estimate (how much authority Google assigns to a site) is not public. What you can compare is index coverage: how many of the links that actually point to your site each tool has found.
A quick test you can run in 15 minutes:
- Export the linking sites from Google Search Console (Links → Top linking sites → Export).
- Export referring domains from Ahrefs Site Explorer and linking root domains from Moz Link Explorer.
- Count how many of Google's linking sites each tool also found.
The tool that finds more of Google's list for your niche has the better index for you. Ahrefs says its bot is the second most active crawler on the web, and Moz says its index tracks trillions of links, but run the test on your own sites rather than trusting either vendor's claim.
Does Ahrefs use Moz data? No. Ahrefs runs its own crawler (AhrefsBot) and index; Moz builds its own Link Explorer index. Some third-party tools mix them: KWFinder, for example, builds its keyword difficulty from Moz DA and PA plus Majestic's Citation Flow and Trust Flow.
Does Google use Domain Authority or Domain Rating?
No. Both are proprietary scores from SEO software companies. Moz states that "Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on the SERPs," and Ahrefs points out that Google ranks pages, not websites. Google uses its own link analysis (PageRank among other systems), which no third party can see.
The scores are still useful because they correlate with what Google rewards, just weakly. In Ahrefs' 2025 study of 1 million keywords, Domain Rating correlated with rankings at 0.131, while referring domains to the ranking page correlated at 0.255. The lesson: the links pointing to the specific page matter more than the domain's overall score.
What is a good Domain Rating or Domain Authority?
A good DR or DA is one close to or above the sites that rank for the keywords you want. Both Moz and Ahrefs say the score only means something relative to competitors: a DA of 30 can be strong in a local niche and weak in personal finance.
For a sense of where real businesses sit, we looked at 200 randomly sampled Outrank customer sites, each with at least 500 Google impressions in 28 days. The median fell between DR 20 and 29, and only 20 of the 200 were at DR 45 or above (the chart in the AI search section below shows the full spread). Rough, practical bands for a business site:
- Under 10: new or barely linked. Long-tail keywords only.
- 10 to 30: typical for small businesses and young blogs. Low-competition keywords are realistic.
- 30 to 50: an established niche site. Mid-competition keywords open up.
- 50+: strong authority, usually years of links, PR or a well-known brand.
Moz Pro vs Ahrefs: which tool to pay for
If the real question is which subscription to buy, here are the October 2026 prices from each vendor's pricing page (Moz, Ahrefs).
Moz Pro vs Ahrefs plans (October 2026)
| Ahrefs Starter (keyword research and competitor lookups) | $29/mo | — | — | 1 |
| Moz Pro Starter (one site) | $49/mo | — | — | — |
| Moz Pro Standard | $99/mo | $79/mo | 300 | 1 |
| Ahrefs Lite | $129/mo | $107.50/mo | 750 | 1 |
| Moz Pro Medium | $179/mo | $143/mo | 1,500 | 2 |
| Ahrefs Standard | $249/mo | $207.50/mo | 2,000 | 1 |
| Moz Pro Large | $299/mo | $239/mo | 3,000 | 3 |
| Ahrefs Advanced | $449/mo | $374.17/mo | 5,000 | 1 |
Click a column header to sort.
Choose Ahrefs if backlink research and competitor analysis are the core of your work. Site Explorer, the link index and features like Content Explorer (from Standard) are why most link builders pay for it. The catch is credits: Lite gives each user 1,000 credits a month, which heavy users burn through.
Choose Moz Pro if you want a cheaper entry point, Domain Authority as your reporting metric (clients often ask for it), and AI prompt tracking bundled in: Standard includes 150 tracked prompts across GPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity.
Use the free versions first. Ahrefs' free Website Authority Checker shows any site's DR, and Ahrefs Free gives limited Site Explorer and Site Audit data for sites you own. Moz's free MozBar shows DA and PA in your browser. If neither tool fits your budget, our guides to Semrush alternatives and Ahrefs alternatives compare cheaper suites.
Does DR matter for AI search?
Somewhat, but less than you'd think. In our study of 200 Outrank customer sites, Ahrefs counted 53,068 citations across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode in September 2026. Higher-DR sites were cited far more often:
Median AI citations per site, by Domain Rating
3.5
42
67.5
98
100.5
DR under 10
52 sites
DR 10–19
37 sites
DR 20–29
46 sites
DR 30–44
45 sites
DR 45+
20 sites
The more useful finding is the chain behind it. Verified backlinks correlated with DR (Spearman 0.55), DR with Google impressions (0.46), and impressions with AI citations (0.80). DR on its own correlated with citations at only 0.43. Links seem to help AI visibility mainly by helping you rank in Google first. Note the curve also flattens above DR 30: median citations barely moved between DR 30–44 and DR 45+.
That matches what Ahrefs found from the other side: only 37.9% of pages cited in Google AI Overviews also rank in the top 10, down from about 76% in July 2025, so a domain score is a weak proxy for getting cited. Correlation is not causation in either study.
How to use DA and DR in link building
Sorting a prospect list by DR and emailing from the top is how people overpay for links. Use the scores at the end of the filter, not the start.
Interactive checklist
Vetting a link prospect
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Four habits keep the scores from misleading you once you're tracking them:
- Judge pages, not domains, when planning rankings. For a target keyword, compare referring domains to the ranking URLs, not the sites' DR.
- Watch the trend, not the number. Scores move when the tools recalibrate or when big sites gain links. A steady climb over months is the signal; a one-point drop is noise.
- Don't compare across tools. A DR 35 and a DA 35 describe different things.
- Treat a score as a filter, not a goal. A rising DR with flat traffic means the links aren't landing where they help.
For how many links you actually need, see how many backlinks you need to rank. For where they come from, our guide to building backlinks walks through outreach, digital PR and exchanges.
How to raise DR (and DA) without gaming it
Both scores rise for the same reason: more unique, relevant sites linking to you (our backlinks guide covers what makes a link worth having). Because DR counts only the first followed link per domain, ten links from one site do almost nothing; one link each from ten relevant sites does a lot.
That is how the Outrank backlink exchange is built: links go inside relevant, in-niche articles on other Outrank sites, at most once per site every 30 days, with no exact-match anchors. Here is the Ahrefs DR of three customers over the last year:
Ahrefs Domain Rating, August 2025 to September 2026
- Scalelist
- Moonb
- 24hourEDU
- Scalelist (B2B SaaS) went from DR 16 to 45 in twelve months, with 327 verified backlinks through Outrank.
- 24hourEDU (online education) went from DR 1.2 to 30 in about a year, with 127 verified exchange backlinks plus a one-time directory submission package.
- Moonb (creative agency) went from DR 22 to 43 between June 2025 and September 2026, with 336 verified backlinks through Outrank.
Notice the shape: fast early gains, then a slow grind past DR 40. That is the logarithmic scale at work, and it is why DR 30 is a more realistic first goal than DR 60.
Which score should you check?
- Vetting a backlink? DR first, then UR of the linking page, relevance and traffic.
- Sizing up competitors? DA (or DR) of the five to ten sites ranking for your target keywords. Ignore giant publishers.
- Judging whether SEO works? Neither. Open Search Console and look at non-branded clicks and the pages earning them.
If you're choosing a metric to track month to month, the tool you already pay for usually decides it. Three questions:
3-question decision helper
DR, DA or Authority Score: which should you track?
Question 1 of 3
Which SEO tool do you already use?
FAQ
Is Domain Authority the same as Domain Rating?
No. Domain Authority is Moz's 1 to 100 score that predicts how likely a site is to rank, from a machine learning model based mainly on link data. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score for the strength of a site's backlink profile, counting followed links from unique domains. The same site gets different numbers in each, so compare only within one metric.
What is DR in Ahrefs?
Domain Rating (DR) is an Ahrefs metric that shows the strength of a website's backlink profile on a logarithmic 0 to 100 scale. It is calculated from the unique domains linking to a site with followed links, weighted by each linking domain's own DR and by how many other sites it links to. It ignores traffic, spam and domain age.
What is a DA score?
A DA score is Moz's Domain Authority, a number from 1 to 100 that predicts a website's ability to rank compared with other sites. It is calculated mostly from the number and quality of linking root domains. New websites start at 1, and the score is relative, so it can change when other sites gain links.
What is the difference between UR and DR in Ahrefs?
DR measures the backlink strength of a whole domain; UR (URL Rating) measures the backlink strength of a single page. UR uses PageRank-style calculations over internal and external links and respects nofollow. When judging a link, the UR of the page your link sits on matters more than the domain's DR.
Is Ahrefs more accurate than Moz?
Neither can be proven more accurate, because Google doesn't publish an authority score to compare against. What differs is index coverage. Export your linking sites from Search Console and see which tool found more of them; run that test on your own site before paying for either.
Does Ahrefs use Moz?
No. Ahrefs crawls the web with its own bot, AhrefsBot, and calculates DR from its own link index. Moz builds DA from its own Link Explorer index. Some third-party tools combine both: KWFinder's keyword difficulty, for example, uses Moz DA and PA alongside Majestic metrics.
Moz vs Ahrefs: which is better?
Ahrefs is better for backlink research and competitor analysis, with plans from $129 a month (Lite). Moz Pro is cheaper to start ($49 Starter, $99 Standard), includes AI prompt tracking, and owns Domain Authority, which many clients and link sellers still quote. Most SEOs who do serious link building pick Ahrefs.
Does Google use Domain Authority or Domain Rating?
No. DA and DR are third-party estimates built by Moz and Ahrefs. Google ranks pages using many signals, including links through PageRank, as described in its ranking systems guide. Both Moz and Ahrefs say their scores are not Google ranking factors.
What is a good DR or DA score?
There is no universal good score, because both are relative. Compare yourself with the sites ranking on page one for your target keywords, and aim to close the gap with those, not with Wikipedia. As a rough guide, 10 to 30 is typical for small business sites, 30 to 50 for established niche sites and 50+ for strong brands. Among 200 Outrank customer sites, the median DR fell between 20 and 29, and the median DR of sites linking through Outrank's exchange is 26.
How do I check my Domain Rating or Domain Authority for free?
Use Ahrefs' free Website Authority Checker for DR, and Moz's Link Explorer or the MozBar extension with a free Moz account for DA. Semrush shows Authority Score in its tools, including a limited free account. Check the same metric each month so the trend is comparable.
What is the difference between domain authority and domain reputation?
Domain authority is an SEO score for how strong a site's backlink profile is. Domain reputation usually refers to email: how mailbox providers such as Gmail rate the emails sent from your domain, shown in tools like Google Postmaster Tools. The two are unrelated; a high-authority site can still have poor email reputation.
