Ahrefs Updating Its DR? All You Need to Know About DR4

Yes, Ahrefs is updating Domain Rating. On November 5, 2026, Ahrefs published a preview of DR4, the fourth version of the metric. It will appear in the regular Ahrefs interface on December 1. So most sites will see their DR change at least a little after that date.

We researched every Ahrefs page we could find on the change. That includes the DR4 announcement, the help center, the API docs and the DR license. Then we compiled what changed, why, and what you should do about it. Also, we kept to Ahrefs’ own dated pages for every claim about the update.

What Domain Rating Measures in Ahrefs’ Own Words

Domain Rating shows the strength of a site’s backlink profile compared with other sites in the Ahrefs database. It runs on a 100-point scale. Also, the scale is logarithmic, so each point gets harder to gain as the score rises. For example, Ahrefs’ glossary says moving from DR 75 to 76 takes far more effort than moving from DR 20 to 21.

The score is purely link-based. In fact, Ahrefs’ 2022 guide to DR says it ignores search traffic, domain age and brand popularity. Nofollow links pass no rating. Only the first link from each linking domain counts.

So how does the math work? Ahrefs gives a simplified version in three steps:

1. Find every domain with at least one followed link to the target site.
2. Count how many other domains each of those linking domains links to.
3. Pass a share of rating from each linking domain. That share is roughly its DR divided by its number of linked domains.

After that, the raw value is scaled into the 0 to 100 range. Ahrefs does not publish the full formula. Still, it uses DR inside its own product, for instance to decide how much of a site its crawler should visit.

The Two Changes Inside DR4

DR4 makes two main changes. Both affect which sites can pass rating and how subdomains are scored. Also, the basic idea stays the same, because DR4 is still a link-based score.

A Smaller Pool of Domains Can Now Pass Rating

First, DR4 uses a smaller set of domains that can influence the score. Roughly half as many sites get a DR4 score as got a DR3 score. Ahrefs says the new pool is higher quality.

In addition, DR4 puts more weight on links from sites that Ahrefs estimates get organic search traffic. Under DR3, a link from a site with no search visibility could still pass rating if that site had links of its own.

Subdomains Get Their Own Scores

Second, subdomains no longer inherit the DR of their root domain. For example, help.ahrefs.com moves from DR 91 under DR3 to DR 75 under DR4. Meanwhile, ahrefs.com itself stays at DR 92.

The change hits sites on shared platforms hardest. Ahrefs says subdomains on GitHub Pages, Blogspot and other site builders often ranked high in link reports. Yet many of them had weak link profiles of their own. A handful of domains already had separate subdomain scores under DR3. Now the rule applies across the board.

DR4 Rollout Dates and How to Preview Your Score

DR4 reaches the Ahrefs interface on December 1. Before that, you can preview it. The free Domain Rating API takes a version setting with two values, dr3 and dr4. The default is still dr3, so you must ask for dr4 by name.

Next, note the API’s basic rules. Each request can check up to 1,000 domains or URLs. You need a free Ahrefs account and an API key to call it. Also, any DR data you publish must carry the line “Domain Rating by Ahrefs” with a link to ahrefs.com. The license page that sets this rule was last updated June 11, 2026.

After the switch, DR3 scores stay available through the API for a short period. Ahrefs has not given an end date for that window on the pages we opened. So if you report DR to clients, pull your DR3 numbers soon and store them with the date.

Why Ahrefs Rebuilt the Score

Ahrefs says DR4 tracks Google rankings more closely than DR3. For example, its team tested both versions against Google ranking positions for 10 million domains and subdomains.

Group of sites	Sites tested	Top 3 positions: DR3 to DR4	Top 10 positions: DR3 to DR4
All hosts	10,000,000	0.128 to 0.332	0.140 to 0.359
Root domains only	5,231,436	0.382 to 0.295	0.407 to 0.304
Subdomains only	4,768,564	0.126 to 0.225	0.172 to 0.259

Across all hosts, the correlation more than doubles. Ahrefs puts it at more than 2.5 times higher. However, the table also shows a trade-off. For root domains alone, DR3 still correlates better than DR4.

Why would that happen? DR3 was built around root domains. So it did well on root domains alone, but poorly once subdomains entered the mix. DR4 gives up a little on root domains to score the whole web more evenly. In our view, that is a fair trade for anyone who vets links from blogs on shared hosts.

Which Sites Gained and Lost in Ahrefs’ Early Numbers

Ahrefs shared early results for the top 1,000 domains by estimated organic traffic. Most of them gained. Still, about one in five dropped.

Result for the top 1,000 domains	Share of domains
DR went up	64.3%
DR stayed the same	15.8%
DR went down	19.9%

For the domains that dropped, the average fall was 7.3 points. The median fall was 4 points. So most declines were small. The biggest example Ahrefs named was github.io, which fell 32 points. Even so, some of its subdomains, such as facebook.github.io at DR 86, stay high.

Ahrefs also listed a few familiar software brands. Monday.com moved from 91 to 90. Zoho dropped one point to 91. Teamwork.com stayed at 82, and Airtable rose slightly to 92.

Sites Flagged as Spam Saw the Largest Drops

Spam domains took the hardest hit. Ahrefs first added a Spam label using a hand-picked list. Then, in January 2026, it moved to a machine learning model to find spam domains. Under DR4, spam domains that had DR3 scores between 30 and 70 dropped the most. Their median fall was about 15 to 20 points.

By contrast, domains not flagged as spam stayed fairly stable. Their median change was close to zero. So if your site drops 20 points, check whether it carries the Spam label in Ahrefs.

Earlier DR Changes Ahrefs Has Documented

DR3 is the version in use today, and DR4 is the next one. Even so, the Ahrefs pages we opened do not give launch dates for DR1, DR2 or DR3. So we have not listed dates for those versions. We did not want to repeat dates we could not confirm on an Ahrefs page.

Still, Ahrefs has written about smaller fixes over time. Its May 2022 guide to DR, last modified in October 2024, says some people used link spam to inflate DR. It adds that Ahrefs has closed many of those methods. The same guide notes that some subdomains on service platforms, such as wordpress.com and blogspot.com, did not inherit the parent domain’s DR.

Next came the Spam label and, in January 2026, the switch to a machine learning spam model. In our reading, DR4 reaches furthest of all these changes. It changes the pool of linking sites. It also rescored every subdomain. Also, our earlier roundup of Ahrefs statistics covers the company’s index and crawler in more detail.

Why Your DR Moves Even Without an Update

Also, DR moves all the time, even between versions. Ahrefs’ help center lists four common reasons for a drop:

• Other sites gained links. DR is relative, so your score can slip when competitors grow faster, even if you lose nothing.
• You lost quality followed links. Check the Referring Domains report to see which ones went away.
• Followed links turned nofollow. Since nofollow links pass no rating, a changed attribute has the same effect as a lost link.
• Your linking sites lost DR. When a linking domain drops, it passes less rating to you.

Also, Ahrefs Rank is based on DR. So the same reasons explain a fall in Ahrefs Rank. For a wider view of authority scores, read our post on domain authority vs page authority.

What to Do When DR4 Lands on Your Dashboard

First, do not panic. A lower DR does not mean your site did anything wrong. Ahrefs makes the same point in its DR4 preview. The score reflects backlinks, and it says nothing about content quality.

Steps Worth Taking Before and After December 1

1. Save your DR3 numbers. Export DR for your site and your main rivals before the switch. Then you can compare like with like.
2. Preview DR4 through the API. Use the free endpoint with version set to dr4 for your site and five or more competitors.
3. Compare against close rivals. Ahrefs suggests this, since similar sites tend to see similar shifts.
4. Check your subdomains. If your blog or help center lives on a subdomain, expect a separate and possibly lower score.
5. Look for the Spam label. A large drop with that label points to a link profile problem, so review your referring domains.
6. Update client reports. Note the version change next to any DR figure, so a drop is not read as lost performance.

Moves to Avoid After a DR Drop

However, some reactions do more harm than good. Do not buy links just to push the number back up. Google’s spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam. Paid links are fine only when marked with rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”, and those pass no ranking credit. We explain this in our guide to link spam.

Also, do not judge a guest post site by DR alone after the update. A site that drops under DR4 may still be a good editorial fit, and one that rises may still get no traffic. Our list of guest posting marketplaces shows the other checks we use, such as traffic trend and topic match.

Finally, keep building links the slow way. Ahrefs’ own advice is to earn followed links from many different domains with content people want to cite. Our white hat link building guide covers the methods we use.

How DR Compares With Moz DA and Semrush Authority Score

DR is one of three common authority scores. Each tool builds its score from different inputs, so the numbers will never match. We used each company’s own help page for the definitions.

Metric	Owner	Scale	Main inputs	Update notes
Domain Rating (DR)	Ahrefs	0 to 100, logarithmic	Followed links from referring domains, weighted by their DR and outbound links	DR4 replaces DR3 in the interface on December 1
Authority Score (AS)	Semrush	1 to 100	Link Power, estimated organic traffic and six spam factors	Scores refresh once every two weeks
Domain Authority (DA)	Moz	Not restated here	Not restated here	Not restated here

Semrush’s Authority Score is a compound metric. So unlike DR, it mixes links with estimated organic traffic. It also checks six spam signals. For example, it flags sites with no top 100 rankings and sites with more than 90% dofollow referring domains.

For Moz Domain Authority, we could not open Moz’s own definition page while researching this post. So we left its scale and formula out of the table. We did not want to publish an unverified definition. Our separate posts on domain authority statistics and topical authority vs domain authority cover how site owners use these scores.

SEO Sandwitch’s Take on DR4

We think DR4 is a sensible fix. Under DR3, a subdomain on a free blogging platform could borrow a huge score from its host. That misled many people buying guest posts. So separate subdomain scores make link vetting more honest.

Also, the traffic weighting makes sense to us. A link from a site that Google sends visitors to is more likely to matter. Still, DR4 remains a third-party estimate. Google does not use it. So treat it as one signal among several, next to traffic, topic fit and editorial quality.

Our advice is plain. Record your DR3 numbers now, preview DR4 through the API, and explain the change to anyone who reads your reports. Then get back to earning links people choose to give.

DR4 Questions From Site Owners

Did My Site Do Something Wrong if DR Dropped After December 1?

No. Ahrefs says a lower DR under DR4 does not mean you did anything wrong. The score measures backlink strength compared with other sites, so a change in method can move it without any change on your side.

Will My Blog Subdomain Keep the Main Site’s DR?

No. Under DR4, subdomains get their own scores. For instance, help.ahrefs.com drops from 91 to 75, while ahrefs.com stays at 92.

Why Is a High DR Harder to Move?

Because the scale is logarithmic and relative. Ahrefs notes it is harder to go from 84 to 85 than from 54 to 55.

Does Google Use Ahrefs DR to Rank Pages?

No. DR is an Ahrefs metric. In fact, Ahrefs’ own guide says not to treat growing DR as a goal, because Google ranks individual pages.

Can I Give Feedback on DR4?

Yes. In fact, the DR4 preview links to a temporary feedback form for site owners who want to report odd scores.