Moz and Ahrefs built two different scoring systems, Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR), and you may use them as if they mean the same thing. But they aren’t.
DR measures link profile strength based on the quantity and quality of backlinks, while DA combines link data with many ranking-related factors. Neither one is a direct Google ranking signal. If you get confused between the two, you’ll end up chasing the wrong number.
What You’ll Learn
- Domain Authority and Domain Rating measure different things.
- The same site can score high on one and low on the other.
- Google tracks its own internal authority signal, and it isn’t either of those scores.
- A working DR range can tell you whether a backlink or guest post is worth pursuing.
- Both scores can be artificially inflated, though most attempts aren’t worth the risk.
Why the Same Site Shows a Different DA and DR Score
The same site shows different DA and DR scores because Moz and Ahrefs use different data, calculation methods, and update schedules.
Each tool crawls its own part of the web.
Moz shows Domain Authority (DA) on a 1 to 100 scale, while Ahrefs shows Domain Rating (DR) on a 0 to 100 scale for the same site.
The image below shows the domain rating score (taken from Ahrefs) for a health and wellness website.
While Moz shows domain authority for the same website, but with different numbers.
Moz’s crawler and Ahrefs’ crawler don’t find the same pages, so they don’t see the same links pointing to your site. A smaller crawl means a tool can miss real links that would have pushed your score higher.
What is a Crawler?
A crawler is a bot that roams the web, follows links page to page, and fetches and stores data (pages, links, content) into the tool’s index.
The formulas behind DA and DR also weigh things differently.
Domain Rating counts mostly how many separate websites link to you and how strong those linking sites already are.
Domain Authority incorporates a broader mix of signals than links alone.
Ahrefs refreshes Domain Rating close to daily. While Moz refreshes Domain Authority on its own slower cycle. A guest post you published last week may already appear in one score but not the other.
None of this means one tool is broken. But it means Moz and Ahrefs never built the two numbers to match in the first place.
DA vs DR: What’s the Difference?
Domain Authority and Domain Rating Both Try to Answer the Same Rough Question: How Strong is This Website? They Score it Differently Enough That You Shouldn’t Treat the Numbers as the Same.
This is the difference between DA and DR.
| QUESTIONS/ATTRIBUTES |
DOMAIN AUTHORITY (DA) | DOMAIN RATING (DR) |
|---|---|---|
| Who built it? | Moz | Ahrefs |
| What’s the range? | 1 to 100 | 0 to 100 |
| What’s the main input? | Links and ranking signals | Links only |
| Best for what? | Overall ranking potential | Backlink strength alone |
| What’s the update cycle? | On Moz’s own refresh cycle | Close to daily |
| Google use this? | No | No |
Domain Authority is a 1 to 100 score from Moz that predicts how well a site is likely to rank in search, based on link data and other ranking signals.
Domain Rating is a 0 to 100 score from Ahrefs that measures backlink strength alone, based on the number and quality of referring domains.
It separates websites that link to yours from those that point at your site.
Both scores use information about the websites linking to yours to estimate how strong your site’s backlink profile is. But they are only estimates, and Google didn’t create either score.
A high DA or DR does not automatically mean that every link from that website is valuable.
That’s a question of what makes a backlink high quality, and it matters more than either number alone. If you only have time to check one number before moving on, DR is the faster read. It’s link-only, and it updates fast.
How Each Score Gets Calculated
Most tools analyze backlinks and assign your website a score from 0 to 100, except Moz, which uses a 1 to 100 scale for domain authority.The higher your score, the harder it is to increase it further.
Domain Rating Looks Almost Entirely at Referring Domains.
Ahrefs finds every domain linking to you, checks how strong each linking domain already is, and passes on a share of that strength to your site. A powerful site that links out to thousands of other domains passes you less than the same site linking to only a handful.
Domain Authority also looks at backlinks, but Moz uses additional signals to calculate the score. Moz doesn’t publicly share all of the details behind its formula.
Climbing from DR 20 to DR 21 takes far less new link strength than climbing from DR 70 to DR 71. That’s why a site can climb fast in its first few months, then stall for a long stretch higher up the scale, even while it keeps earning new links.
None of this requires memorizing formulas.
If you want the full picture of your own site rather than checking one score at a time, that’s astep-by-step backlink audit, and it’s worth doing before you obsess over either number.
What Google Actually Tracks Instead
Google computes its own internal authority score for every site, called siteAuthority. Google has said it doesn’t use Domain Authority, and that’s true, but the denial gets misread as “Google tracks nothing like site-wide authority.
Google’s own leaked ranking documentation shows the exact entry: a site-wide authority score that Google builds from its own signals and uses to rank pages from that site.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Google doesn’t use DA or DR to rank websites, but it does look at many of the same things when assessing a website’s strength. That’s why chasing a specific DA or DR score isn’t the goal.
The number you can see was never the number that mattered. But does that make DA and DR useless? No, instead, they give you a visible way to estimate signals you can’t see.
A proxy is still worth watching. You just stop treating the exact number as the finish line.
Which Score to Trust When You’re Vetting a Backlink
When you’re checking a website for a backlink or guest post, look at its Domain Rating first, then check its real traffic before making a decision.
DR is the closest read on backlink strength alone.
That’s exactly the question you’re asking when you’re staring at one site and deciding if a link from it is worth pursuing.
DA is better suited to a different job: quickly scanning a long list of sites to see which ones deserve a closer look.
- Start by pulling the site’s DR, as it’s a faster, more specific signal for a single placement decision.
- If a site has a DR of 60 but a DA of 15, take a closer look before you trust either score.
- A high-DR site pulling almost no organic search visits has links that don’t carry much real weight.
- A site that carries links from unrelated industries sends a different risk signal than a site with a clean, topically focused backlink profile.
As a reference point, Outreach Desk’s own guest-posting vetting falls within the DR 40 to 95 range. The team checks organic traffic before approving any placement.
This is where Outreach Desk’s team draws the line.
If you’d rather have someone run that check for you, our guest posting service does exactly this before every placement goes live.
What Counts as a Good DA or DR Score
There’s no fixed “good” DA or DR. A good score is one that’s competitive within your specific niche.
A DR 25 news blog in a niche where every competitor sits at DR 15 to 20 is in a strong position.
A DR 25 SaaS site competing against DR 60+ competitors is not, even though the numbers themselves look identical in both cases. The most useful way to read your own score is to compare it with your closest competitors.
Pull the DR and DA for the 3 to 5 sites you’re actually trying to outrank. Treat the gap between you and them as the real target. A new site starts at or near 0 on both scores. Building a zone-by-zone plan to raise DA requires consistent work over months, rather than a single campaign.
If you’re not sure what’s already contributing to your current number, a beginner’s breakdown of backlink profile is a good place to start.
Can Someone Inflate DA and DR Scores?
Yes, someone can artificially inflate both scores, but for a legitimate site, the cost of manipulation usually isn’t worth it.
The most common approach is to buy links from a large network of low-quality sites that exist mainly to pass authority to one another.
Another is routing old, already-strong domains through redirects into a new site to transfer their score without transferring anything real underneath. Both tactics can move a number in weeks.
Neither builds a site real editors would ever choose to link to on their own. Ahrefs and Moz both actively look for these patterns, and when they catch one, the score drops back down, sometimes faster than it went up.
A site showing these patterns is one you’d exclude from a vetting list on sight. DA and DR are one input, not the whole call.
A bad link already pointing at your own site is a separate worry.
It’s when a toxic backlink is actually worth worrying about, and that’s rarer than most people assume.
DA, DR, and the Other Authority Scores You’ll See
DA and DR aren’t the only authority scores you’ll run into. Majestic built its own version, called Trust Flow, around link quality rather than raw link count.
Some all-in-one platforms compute their own blended score instead of showing DA or DR directly.
None of these replace the others. They’re different formulas asking a similar question from a different angle. Pick one as your main reference point. Ahrefs DR is the most common default among link builders, so use it consistently and keep your own numbers comparable over time.
Software that tracks link building at scale can pull most of these scores into one place if you’re checking them often enough that tab-switching between tools gets old.
Still Unsure Which Score to Trust on a Specific Site?
Get expert guidance on evaluating the authority and backlink strength that actually matter when choosing link opportunities.
Is a DR increase alone proof of a real gain in authority?
No, a DR increase only proves that your backlink profile got stronger according to Ahrefs’ specific formula. Treat a rising DR as a good sign worth watching. It doesn’t confirm that rankings will follow.
Do I need to track both DA and DR?
Not closely. You can pick one as your working default; most link builders default to DR, and check the other only when you need a second opinion on a specific site. Tracking both every week just adds noise. It doesn’t add a decision you can actually act on.
Is a higher DA or DR always better, or does it depend on the site?
Higher is generally better, but not in isolation. A high-score site with no relevance to your industry often does less than a moderate-score site that’s genuinely relevant.
Neither score factors in topical relevance or real traffic on the linking page, and those two signals matter more than the number itself. That’s a case worth reviewing with a reliable link building agency before ruling a link opportunity in or out based on score alone.
How often should I recheck a site’s DR before approving a placement?
Recheck it right before you approve, not when you first added the site to your list. Say a site looked strong at DR 45 when you flagged it three weeks ago. If Ahrefs hasn’t recrawled it since, or the score has dropped, that’s worth catching before the placement goes live, not after.
