Domain Rating vs Domain Authority: Ahrefs DR vs Moz DA Explained (2026)

If you check the same website in Ahrefs and Moz, you can easily get two very different authority scores. A site might look strong in Ahrefs Domain Rating and much weaker in Moz Domain Authority, or the other way around.

Nothing is broken.

Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) and Moz Domain Authority (DA) are two separate third-party metrics built from different web indexes and different formulas. They use similar-looking scales, but they do not measure exactly the same thing, and there is no reliable DR-to-DA conversion.

That distinction matters because these scores are everywhere in SEO: backlink outreach, competitor research, directory lists, guest-post offers, domain acquisitions and agency reports. The problems start when people treat DR 50 and DA 50 as the same score, or assume that raising either number will make Google rank a site higher.

In this guide, I looked at how Ahrefs and Moz currently define their metrics, what goes into DR and DA, why the same domain scores differently, what independent data shows about the gap, and which metric makes more sense for different SEO decisions.

The short version: use DR to judge backlink-profile strength inside the Ahrefs ecosystem, use DA when you need Moz's prediction of ranking potential, and never compare one site's DR with another site's DA.

TL;DR: Ahrefs DR vs Moz DA

Ahrefs defines Domain Rating as the strength of a website's backlink profile compared with other sites in its database. Moz defines Domain Authority as a proprietary score that predicts how well a domain is likely to rank, using a machine-learning model built on link metrics.

Both compress a complicated backlink profile into one easy number. The important part is that the numbers are not interchangeable.

Is Ahrefs DR the same as Moz DA?

No. This is probably the most useful answer in the entire article.

Both are site-wide authority metrics on a roughly 100-point scale, but they answer slightly different questions:

• DR asks: how strong is this domain's backlink profile relative to other domains in Ahrefs?
• DA asks: based on Moz's link data and model, how strong is this domain's ranking potential?

They overlap heavily because links drive both, but they are built on different data and different logic.

What is Ahrefs Domain Rating?

Domain Rating is Ahrefs' site-wide backlink metric, scored from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale. Because the scale is logarithmic, moving from DR 20 to 30 is much easier than moving from DR 70 to 80.

The calculation is based on three things:

• how many unique domains have followed links pointing to the site
• the DR of those referring domains
• how many other unique websites each referring domain links to

That last point is easy to overlook. A linking domain splits its rating across every site it links to, so a link from a selective DR 60 site can be worth more than a link from a DR 80 site that links out to thousands of domains.

Only the first followed link from a referring domain adds DR. Fifty links from the same website still count as one referring domain.

DR is purely link-based. Search traffic, domain age, brand popularity and content quality are not part of it, and it does not account for link spam. That is why I describe DR as a backlink strength metric, not a score for overall website quality.

You can check any site's current DR with RankBuddy's free Domain Rating Checker:

What is Moz Domain Authority?

Domain Authority is Moz's site-wide metric. Moz describes it as a proprietary 1–100 score that predicts how well a domain will rank in Google, based on a machine-learning model of link metrics.

That wording matters. DA is not simply Moz's count of strong backlinks. Moz is trying to predict ranking potential from signals in its own link index, and the model is retrained over time, so the inputs and weighting can change.

If your DA changes, it does not mean Google suddenly thinks your site became stronger or weaker. It means Moz's current data and model now assign your domain a different relative score.

You can check DA for free in Moz Link Explorer or with the MozBar extension:

Domain Rating vs Domain Authority: the main differences

"Ahrefs has DR, Moz has DA" is technically correct but not very helpful. These are the differences that actually matter.

1. They use different backlink indexes

Ahrefs and Moz each run their own crawler and backlink database, and neither sees exactly the same web at the same time. If Ahrefs knows about 300 referring domains for a site while Moz knows about 240, the two calculations start from different evidence before any formula is applied.

2. They are calculated differently

DR is deliberately focused on the link graph: followed referring domains, their DR, and how widely those domains link out. DA uses a machine-learning model on Moz's link metrics to estimate how likely the domain is to rank. The same backlink profile can be interpreted differently by each.

3. DR measures links, DA predicts rankings

If a site's DR rises, I read that as a change in its relative backlink profile, not as "the website got 10% better at SEO." DA is framed around ranking potential, which makes it broader in purpose, although it is still built mostly on link data. Neither predicts how an individual page will rank.

4. Both scores are relative

Both metrics compare your domain with every other domain in the vendor's index. When the rest of the web gains links, your position can move even if your own profile stays the same. That is another reason not to treat either metric like money in a bank account.

What independent data shows about DR vs DA

The size of the gap between metrics is not a theory. In Xamsor's study of 150 websites (2024), which compared Ahrefs DR, Moz DA, Semrush Authority Score and Majestic for the same domains:

• The gap between the highest and lowest authority score for the same domain averaged 26 points.
• Average DR and average DA both landed around 50, so the metrics are on a similar overall scale, yet individual sites still differed widely.
• One site scored Semrush AS 5, Ahrefs DR 51 and Moz DA 70 at the same time.
• Among link-selling "donor" sites, 32% had zero organic traffic, and Moz gave the highest score of the four tools to 81% of those zero-traffic sites.

The takeaway is simple: a single site can look strong in one tool and weak in another, and a high score does not prove that a site gets real traffic.

Why can one site have DR 50 and DA 30?

Because there is no rule saying the numbers should match.

A site with links from a small number of very strong, selective domains may score well in Ahrefs, because DR rewards strong referring domains that do not link out excessively. Moz may reach a different result from its own index and model. A site with many more referring domains of mixed quality can produce the opposite pattern.

Neither number is "wrong." What matters is which dataset and metric you are using for the comparison:

• My site at DR 28 against competitors at DR 25, 31 and 34 is a useful comparison.
• My site at DR 28 against a competitor's DA 34 means almost nothing.

Is there an Ahrefs equivalent of Moz Domain Authority?

In practice, yes: Domain Rating is the closest Ahrefs equivalent to Moz Domain Authority. Both are site-wide authority metrics designed to make domains easier to compare.

But "equivalent" does not mean "the same." If someone asks about "Ahrefs DA," the answer is that Ahrefs does not have a metric called Domain Authority. Its closest domain-level metric is Domain Rating. For the same reason, you should not relabel DR as DA in a client report just because the client knows the term "Domain Authority."

Can you convert DR to DA?

No reliable conversion exists.

You will find calculators and tables claiming that DR 20 = DA 18 or DR 40 = DA 35. I would not use them. A conversion table assumes a stable mathematical relationship between two metrics built from different indexes and algorithms, and there is none. Two domains with the same DR can have different DA scores, and the other way around.

If you need Moz DA, check Moz DA. If you need Ahrefs DR, check Ahrefs DR.

Does Ahrefs have something like Moz Spam Score?

Not as a single equivalent metric.

Moz Spam Score is the percentage of sites with similar features that Moz found to be penalized or banned by Google. Moz itself says a high Spam Score does not automatically mean a site is spam; it is a signal for further investigation.

Ahrefs does not provide a spam score, because it is uncertain which factors Google weighs when judging link quality. Instead, it recommends filtering links by DR, organic traffic, outgoing links and its "Best links" filter.

So the Ahrefs equivalent of Moz Spam Score is: there is no direct equivalent. And a low DR is not a substitute. A legitimate new site may simply have very few backlinks.

What about MozRank vs Domain Authority?

You may still see searches for MozRank vs DA or sites offering "MozRank checkers." MozRank was an older Moz link-popularity metric that Moz has since retired, and its API fields are deprecated. In 2026, Domain Authority is the relevant domain-level metric in the Moz ecosystem.

MozRank also never meant your Google position. An authority metric and a keyword ranking are completely different things.

DR vs DA vs UR vs PA

Another source of confusion is mixing domain-level and page-level metrics.

Ahrefs URL Rating is page-level and counts both internal and external links. Moz makes the same split between Domain Authority and Page Authority.

This matters when you evaluate a SERP. A competitor may have a DR 80 domain while the individual page ranking for your keyword has very little direct link strength. That is why I would not abandon a keyword just because the domains in the results look intimidating. Domain-level authority is context, not the whole ranking equation.

Does Google use DR or DA?

No. Neither Domain Rating nor Domain Authority is a Google ranking factor. They are metrics created by Ahrefs and Moz, and Google's John Mueller has repeatedly said that Google does not use Domain Authority.

That does not make the metrics useless. The things they summarize, especially backlinks, still matter for SEO. The mistake is this reasoning:

My DR increased from 30 to 40, so Google should rank me higher.

Google never saw the DR change. Ahrefs did. A better reading is: my backlink profile looks stronger in Ahrefs than before, so now I need to check whether that strength is helping the pages and keywords that matter.

Which is better: Domain Rating or Domain Authority?

There is no universal winner. I choose the metric based on the job.

I use DR when I am evaluating backlink strength. It is deliberately link-focused, which makes it easy to reason about when comparing backlink profiles, filtering link prospects, or checking whether a competitor has much stronger referring domains.

I use DA when the workflow already lives in Moz. If a team uses Link Explorer and MozBar, or clients and partners already talk in DA, switching every conversation to another metric does not improve decisions.

I use both when the decision is expensive. Before buying a domain, paying for a major sponsorship or trusting an important link partner, I would not decide on one score. If a site looks exceptionally strong in one index and much weaker in the other, I want to know why. That disagreement is useful information.

If you are choosing between the tools themselves rather than the metrics, I compared the options in my Moz alternative and free Ahrefs alternative guides.

What is a good Domain Rating?

There is no universal good DR. Ahrefs itself says your DR is good if it is higher than or comparable to similar sites, because it is a relative metric.

Suppose my site is DR 18. If the domains ranking for my target keywords are DR 12, 17, 23 and 26, I am in roughly the same range. If every result is DR 70+, ranking is not impossible, but the SERP deserves more investigation before I invest months of work.

You can check your own score and your competitors' with the Domain Rating Checker, and my how to check Domain Rating guide walks through the full workflow.

What is a good Domain Authority?

The same logic applies. I would not use a generic table that says DA 10 is bad, DA 30 average and DA 50 good. Those labels remove the competitive context: a small local business does not need the authority profile of a national finance publisher.

The useful question is not "Is DA 35 good?" but "How does DA 35 compare with the domains I am actually competing against?" That also stops authority metrics from becoming vanity goals.

Why your DR can change when you did not build or lose links

Because DR is relative, your score can move even when your own backlink profile looks stable. The top of the scale is fixed at 100, so when strong websites keep gaining links, other sites are pushed down the scale.

Your DR can also change because:

• a referring domain's own DR changed
• a referring site started linking to many more domains
• a followed link became nofollow
• Ahrefs found or lost links in its crawl

That is why I never investigate a DR movement by looking at the number alone. I open the referring domains and backlink history first. If you want to monitor that automatically instead of checking every few weeks, see my comparison of backlink monitoring tools.

Why DA can move when your rankings do not

DA is also a relative third-party score. Moz may discover new links, lose access to links it crawled before, or retrain its model. Your Google traffic can stay completely stable while your DA moves.

That is not necessarily a problem. It means the metric changed, not that your search performance did. I verify the real outcome in Google Search Console before reacting.

A high DR or DA does not make a backlink good

This is one of the most expensive mistakes these metrics create. When I evaluate a backlink opportunity, I look at several things together:

• topical relevance
• whether the site receives real organic traffic
• whether it publishes legitimate content
• which page would contain the link, and whether that page has links of its own
• how many unrelated sites the domain links to
• whether the site exists mainly to sell links
• whether the link is editorially logical
• the authority metric

A DR 75 cryptocurrency site is not automatically a great backlink for a local dental clinic. A relevant DR 35 industry publication may be far more useful.

Authority scores can also be manipulated. People sell guest posts, expired domains and directory placements partly on DR and DA, and whenever a metric has financial value, people optimize the metric itself. The Xamsor data above, where a third of link-selling sites had no organic traffic, shows how easily a good-looking number can hide an empty site. If a site is DR 60, I want to know where that strength comes from.

How I use DR and DA in practice

Competitor research

Consistency matters more than picking the "perfect" metric. If I start in Ahrefs, I compare every competitor using DR, never my DR against DA values copied from another tool.

I identify the domains that actually rank for the same topics, then compare their DR, referring domains, strongest pages and organic visibility. Then I check whether I am genuinely competing with them or benchmarking against a giant publisher. A lower-DR competitor can still outrank a stronger site because its page matches intent better, has stronger page-level links or better internal linking.

That is how RankBuddy's backlink analysis works: the useful output is not "your DR is 22," but how your backlink profile compares with the domains you actually compete with and where the gap comes from.

Link prospecting

I treat authority as a filter, not a verdict. With 500 potential websites, using DR or DA to remove obvious low-value candidates is reasonable. But I would not sort the rest by authority and pursue the top of the list. The second pass should check relevance, traffic, editorial quality, link placement and the referring-domain profile, and if a domain looks unusually strong in one tool and weak in the other, I investigate before trusting either score.

Content decisions

I never choose a keyword on domain authority alone, but it helps me read the competitive environment. If most ranking domains are in my DR range and several results come from small specialist sites, the SERP is more interesting. If every result belongs to a much stronger publisher, I want to understand why before investing, because the answer is sometimes still to publish: the content may be weak, the intent narrow, or the individual ranking pages may have little direct authority.

DR and DA for a new website

For a new site, I would not obsess over either score. A low DR or DA is normal when few websites link to you.

The useful early goal is not "get DR 30." It is to earn the kind of links that naturally move the metrics: relevant directories, legitimate mentions, partnerships, useful content that earns references, integration and customer pages, PR, and links from sites in the same market.

The score should be the result of good work, not the work itself. Chasing the number is exactly what pushes founders into buying irrelevant backlinks because a seller advertises a high DR.

Should you track DR or DA over time?

Yes, if backlinks are an important part of your SEO strategy. But track one primary metric consistently instead of switching between DR and DA every month.

At RankBuddy I mainly use DR, because our Domain Rating Checker and backlink workflow run on Ahrefs data. That does not make DA wrong; consistency just makes trends easier to read.

If your site moves from DR 12 to DR 22 over a year while the number and quality of referring domains also improve, that is useful context. Then compare it with what matters to the business: organic clicks, impressions, ranking pages, conversions and revenue. If the authority score keeps rising while search performance stays flat, the answer is probably not "get even more DR." Something else deserves attention.

The practical rule

Compare DR with DR. Compare DA with DA. Never optimize a website for either number.

Use authority metrics to make faster decisions about competitors and backlinks. Use Google Search Console and analytics to judge whether SEO is actually working. And whenever an authority score changes unexpectedly, inspect the backlink profile before drawing conclusions from the number.

To check the Ahrefs side of the comparison, use the free Domain Rating Checker. It gives you the current DR for any domain, so you can compare your site with the competitors you are actually trying to outrank.