Here's a situation almost everyone who buys links runs into sooner or later. You find a site that looks like a great fit. One tool says it has a Domain Rating of 52. Another says its Domain Authority is 27. Same website, same week, and the two numbers seem to describe two completely different sites.
So which one is right? The honest answer is that both are right about what they measure, and neither one measures what you actually care about, which is whether a link from that site will be worth the money. This guide explains what DR vs DA really means, why the scores disagree so often, and how to use them sensibly when you're choosing where to publish.
First, a quick reminder: neither score comes from Google
It's easy to forget, because the numbers look official. Domain Rating is a metric made by Ahrefs. Domain Authority is a metric made by Moz. Google uses neither of them. Moz says so plainly in its own guide: Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on search results. Ahrefs makes a similar point in its article on what Domain Rating is good for, reminding readers that Google ranks pages, not websites.
Both are third-party estimates built from each company's own crawl of the web. They're useful, much like a weather forecast is useful, but they're models, not measurements of anything Google does.
What is Domain Rating (DR)?
Domain Rating is Ahrefs' score for the strength of a website's backlink profile. According to the Ahrefs help centre, DR shows how strong a site's backlink profile is compared with the other sites in the Ahrefs database, and the final value is scaled to a range of 0 to 100.
Two details are worth knowing:
- It's relative. A site's DR depends on how it compares with every other site Ahrefs tracks. If the web as a whole earns more links, your DR can drop even if nothing about your site changed.
- Links are shared out. Ahrefs explains that a linking site splits its rating equally among the sites it links to. A link from a strong site that links out to very few domains is worth more, in DR terms, than a link from a strong site that links out to thousands.
In short, DR is mostly about the quantity and quality of the domains that link to a site. That's useful, but it also explains its weakness. Ahrefs itself notes that DR doesn't filter out link spam, and that large amounts of low-quality links can actually push a DR up.
What is Domain Authority (DA)?
Domain Authority is Moz's score. Moz describes it as a prediction of how likely a website is to rank in search results compared with its competitors, on a scale from 1 to 100. It's calculated by a machine-learning model that looks at dozens of factors from Moz's link index, with the number of linking root domains and the quality of those links weighing heavily.
Moz also points out that DA is easier to grow at the bottom of the scale than at the top: going from 20 to 30 is much easier than going from 70 to 80. And like DR, it's relative, so it can move even when nothing changed on your site.
DR vs DA at a glance
| Domain Rating (DR) | Domain Authority (DA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | Ahrefs | Moz |
| Scale | 0–100 | 1–100 |
| What it tries to show | Strength of a site's backlink profile | Likelihood of ranking compared with competitors |
| Main inputs | Linking domains and their own strength | Linking root domains, link quality and other signals, combined by a machine-learning model |
| Relative or absolute? | Relative | Relative |
| Used by Google? | No | No |
Why DR and DA so often disagree
Once you know how each score is built, the gap between them stops being mysterious. The usual reasons are:
They crawl different parts of the web
Ahrefs and Moz each run their own crawler and keep their own index of links. Neither sees the whole web. A site whose links happen to sit in places one crawler covers well and the other covers poorly will score very differently in each tool.
They use different maths
DR is built around how link strength flows from linking domains. DA is a model trained to predict rankings using many signals. Even with identical link data, two different formulas would produce two different numbers.
They update at different times
A site that just gained, or lost, a batch of links may already show the change in one tool and not yet in the other. Scores also shift when either company updates its model.
They react differently to spammy links
This is the one that matters most when you're buying. Because DR focuses on linking domains and doesn't filter spam, a site that has collected lots of low-quality links can show a surprisingly high DR. DA's model weighs links differently, so the same pile of weak links may count for less there, which is one reason a site can show a high DR and a much lower DA. The reverse also happens. When the gap between the two is large, treat it as a reason to look closer, not as a reason to trust the higher number.
So which metric should you trust?
Neither one on its own. A better question is: what are you trying to find out?
- To shortlist sites quickly, either score works as a rough first filter, as long as you compare sites within the same niche and use the same tool for all of them.
- To judge whether a site is genuinely healthy, look at organic traffic and its trend over the last year. Real sites tend to have real visitors. A strong score with almost no traffic, or traffic that suddenly collapsed, is a red flag.
- To judge whether a link is worth paying for, look past the domain to the page and the audience. Will your article sit in a relevant section? Do the site's recent posts look like something people actually read?
If you want one rule of thumb: when DR, DA and traffic roughly agree, you can usually trust the general picture. When they strongly disagree, slow down and look at the site itself.
Where DR and DA genuinely help
None of this means you should ignore the scores. Used for the right job, they save a lot of time:
- Tracking your own progress. Checking your site's DR or DA every month or two, in the same tool, gives you a rough sense of whether your link profile is growing. Watch the direction rather than the exact number.
- Benchmarking competitors. If every site ranking for your main keyword has far stronger link profiles than yours, that tells you something about how much work lies ahead.
- Sorting a long list. When you're looking at two hundred possible sites, a quick filter by score and niche gets you to a shortlist you can actually review by hand.
The mistake isn't using the scores. It's letting a single score make the final decision.
A worked example
Let's compare two made-up sites a buyer might be choosing between for an article about home energy savings.
Site A shows DR 61 and DA 24. Its traffic estimate is low and has fallen sharply over the past six months. The homepage lists guest posts on crypto, CBD, sports betting, travel and plumbing, all published in the last two weeks, each with several commercial links.
Site B shows DR 38 and DA 35. Its traffic is modest but steady. It's a home improvement blog with named authors, practical guides, reader comments and a clear editorial focus.
Site A wins on the headline number, yet everything else suggests the score has been inflated and the site exists mainly to sell links. Site B scores lower but is relevant, readable and stable, and readers interested in home energy might actually click through. For most buyers, Site B is the better purchase, even though a pure "highest DR wins" approach would pick Site A.
What to check besides DR and DA
Before you pay for any placement, run through these quickly:
- Organic traffic and its trend. Steady or growing is good. A sudden cliff often means a penalty or an algorithm hit.
- Referring domains, not just the total count of links. Who links to the site? Real publications and businesses, or a long list of unknown sites?
- Topical focus. Does the site cover one clear subject, or everything under the sun?
- Outbound links per article. A post with one helpful external link is normal. A post with six links to unrelated businesses is a link farm sign.
- Content quality. Read two articles all the way through. Would you be happy to have your brand sitting next to them?
- The link attribute. Dofollow, nofollow, sponsored or UGC. Know what you're buying. Google's guide to qualifying outbound links explains what each one means.
We go deeper into the warning signs in how to spot a low-quality backlink site before you pay for it.
Can DR and DA be faked?
They can be pushed up artificially, which is why you shouldn't rely on them alone. Common tricks include buying large numbers of cheap links, using networks of sites that all link to each other, and redirecting old, expired domains to borrow their link history. Ahrefs openly says DR doesn't filter backlink spam, and any link-based score can be gamed by someone who knows how it's calculated.
The defence is simple: check things that are harder to fake, like real traffic, real readers, a consistent topic and a believable link profile.
How SerpMarket shows these metrics
Every SerpMarket listing shows DR, DA, monthly organic traffic, spam score, referring domains and the link attribute side by side, so you can compare them instead of relying on one score. In the interest of being upfront, these figures are reported by the site owner and reviewed by our team when the site is manually reviewed before listing; they aren't pulled live from Ahrefs or Moz. Use them as your starting point, and if a listing's numbers look wrong to you, contact support and we'll take a closer look.
Frequently asked questions
Is a higher DR always better than a higher DA?
No. They measure different things with different data. Compare sites using the same metric, within the same niche, and always look at traffic and relevance too.
What is a good DR or DA?
There's no universal answer because both scores are relative. A score that's strong for a local bakery blog would be low for a national news site. Compare a site with others in its own niche.
Why did my DR or DA drop when I didn't change anything?
Because both are relative and both tools update their data and models. Other sites gaining links, or the tool losing sight of some of your links, can lower your score without any change on your side.
Does Google use DR or DA?
No. Both are third-party estimates. Google uses its own systems, and Moz states directly that DA has no effect on search results.
The bottom line
DR and DA are helpful shortcuts for sorting a long list of sites, and nothing more. When they agree with each other and with the site's real traffic, they're a decent sign. When they don't, trust what you can see on the site itself. If you'd like to compare reviewed sites with all of these numbers side by side, create a free SerpMarket account, or read our practical guide to guest posting first.