Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are prevalent ranking factors used by SEO experts. Many agencies and consultants use these key metrics to test new campaigns’ performance or benchmark existing campaigns’ performance. But often, beginners get confused between DA and DR metrics. In this Domain Rating vs Domain Authority beginners guide, you will learn about both these key SEO metrics.

From calculating them to their importance in SEO, let’s cover everything in this article. So, without wasting any further time, let’s begin.

Let’s cover everything in this comparison, starting with the definition of Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) to their working and ways to increase them.

Domain Authority (DA)

1.  What is DA and How does it work?

DA is the abbreviation of Domain Authority. It is a website ranking prediction metric developed by Moz that measures the ranking of a website in search engines. A higher DA score increases the likelihood of a website’s ranking in search engines.

Previously, the working of this metric used to be simple. But over the years, Moz has worked on this metric to meet the growing needs of bloggers, SEO experts, and webmasters. Therefore, this metric now predicts a website’s ranking by considering more than 170 factors. The number and quality of backlinks pointing to a domain are among those 170 factors.

Moz measures websites’ Domain Authority (DA) score on a logarithmic scale. So, increasing a website’s Domain Authority (DA) score from 60 to 70 is far more challenging than boosting the DA score from 10 to 20.

2.  How to increase the DA score of a website?

A website’s Domain Authority (DA) score depends on several factors. So, in order to increase a website’s DA score, a web admin, blogger, or SEO expert should focus on the following points.

• The first point to focus on for increasing the Domain Authority (DA) score of a website is the domain age of a website. An old website will have a better domain authority in the eyes of search engines than a new website.
• The quality of unique backlinks is the second point to consider for a better Domain Authority (DA) score. So, a blogger should focus on having backlinks from websites with a higher DA score. Moreover, having one backlink from a single website is more beneficial for the DA score than using multiple backlinks from the same website.
• Google is one of the most famous search engines. So, it focuses on the mobile-friendly aspect of a website to rank and index it. That is why a web admin should concentrate on creating a mobile-friendly website because a mobile-friendly website will have a higher DA score than a non-mobile-friendly website.
• The number of social signals is the fourth thing to consider for a higher DA score. A website with more social shares will have a higher DA score than other websites.
• Quality and quantity of content is another critical thing that DA checkers consider while measuring a website’s Domain Authority (DA) score. A website with a more significant number of high-quality content will have a better DA score than other websites.
• Other than the aforementioned factors, an SEO expert or webmaster should focus on improving his blog or website from the technical, off-page and on-page SEO point of view because doing so will boost the DA score of his website or blog.

3.  How to measure the DA score of a website?

To calculate the Domain Authority (DA) score of a website, a webmaster, blogger, or SEO expert can use the built-in tool of Moz – the Moz DA checker. Although this tool is free, it doesn’t allow the users to check the DA score of multiple websites simultaneously. So, to do that, users can use other DA PA Checker tool, which is primarily a free domain authority checker and allow you to check 20 websites in a go.

Domain Rating (DR)

1.  What is DR and How does it work?

DR is the abbreviation of Domain Rating. It is a website backlinks profile analyzing metric developed by Ahrefs that determines the quality of a website’s backlinks profile. A website with a higher DR score indicates a website with a high-quality backlinks profile.

Compared to the DA metric from Moz, the DR metric from Ahrefs is less complicated. However, the working of Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR) metric is pretty much similar to Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) metric.

Unlike the DA score, the Domain Rating doesn’t take many factors to calculate a website’s Domain Rating (DR). Instead, it focuses on the following:

• The number of do-follow links pointing to the main website.
• Domain Rating (DR) of all the websites that link to the main website.
• The number of other websites linking to the main website.
• The number of pages from a domain point to the main website.

Ahrefs measures a website’s Domain Rating (DR) on a scale of 1-100, with one being the worst and 100 being the best. A website with 100 DR is (just) a theoretical perspective because even top websites do not have a 100 Domain Rating (DR) score.

2.  How to increase the DR score of a website?

Keeping the above-discussed points in mind, an SEO expert should focus on the following things to increase the DR score of his website or blog.

• Try to increase the number of do-follow links pointing to the main website.
• Try to use the links of websites with a higher Domain Rating (DR).
• Try to increase the number of other websites linking to the main website.
• Try to increase the number of web pages from a domain pointing to the main website.

3.  How to calculate the Domain Rating of a website?

Like Moz, Ahrefs also uses its built-in capabilities to calculate a website’s Domain Rating (DR). To be more precise, Ahrefs first considers the aforementioned points. Then, it applies some mathematics and coding algorithms to calculate the raw Domain Ratings.

However, like the Moz DA Checker, it cannot check the Domain Rating of multiple websites simultaneously. So, bloggers, SEO experts and web admins can use third-party tools to check numerous websites’ Domain Rating (DR).

Confusions Regarding These Third-Party Metrics

Besides the Domain Rating vs Domain Authority guide, people still get confused about these third-party metrics. So, let’s clear the most common confusion regarding these third-party metrics.

• Google doesn’t rank the web pages of a website according to their Domain Authority and Domain Ratings. So, a web admin, blogger, or SEO expert should not entirely focus on increasing the Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) of his website or blog.
• Most digital marketers think that a website’s Domain Rating (DR) is linked to its number of keywords. But this information is not true because there is no link between the number of keywords and a website’s Domain Rating (DR).
• No-follow links do not increase a website’s Domain Rating (DR).
• Multiple links from the same domain will not increase a website’s Domain Rating (DR).

Some Downsides of These Third-Party Metrics

Being third-party metrics, Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) have some downsides. So, let’s discuss those downsides.

• These metrics do not provide a complete picture.
• Domain Authority (DA) is not an accurate metric for measuring the ranking power of a blog or website.

DA Vs DR: Final Thoughts

So this brings us to the end of this comprehensive DA vs DR comparison. Now the only question remains: which one should you focus on?

We know Moz is the oldest tool that brought search engine rating statistics (DA) into existence. Previously SEO experts considered DA over DR. Because it was designed to show how efficient a site is at achieving high ranks in search engines.

However, as per the current marketing trends, practitioners rely on the DR for their SEO decisions. It is because Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR) metric is pretty easy to use and provides accurate and result-driven data. Moreover, while crawling your website, AhrefsBot makes notes of outbound links and securely adds them to the database. This is done while weighing the backlink quantity and quality.

On the flip side, DA can be easily manipulated, and people do use Black Hat SEO strategies to alter DA metrics that Google doesn’t like and penalize the site if found.

On the other end of the spectrum, DR is a strong factor that is hard to exploit. And DR goes quite well with Google rankings. That’s the reason why SEO experts at Outreach Monks suggest considering DR over DA.

More Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is a good score on the DA?

SEO experts rank the Domain Authority (DA) scores between 40 to 50 as average and 50 to 60 as good. But as mentioned earlier, Domain Authority (DA) is measured on a logarithmic scale. So, increasing the Domain Authority (DA) score from 20 to 30 will be much easier than boosting DA from 70 to 80.

2. How to increase a website’s Domain Authority (DA)?

Several factors play a role in increasing a website’s Domain Authority (DA). But some most important factors are:

• Domain age of the website.
• The mobile-friendly perspective of the website.
• Quality of unique backlinks.
• Quality and quantity of content.
• The number of social share signals.
• Off-page, on-page, and technical SEO.

For more details, check the above discussion.

3. Is DA the same as DR?

No. In SEO, DA stands for Domain Authority, whereas DR stands for Domain Ranking. Domain Authority is a Moz metric that predicts a website’s performance on search engines. On the other hand, the term Domain Ranking is an Ahrefs metric, which indicates the strength of a website’s backlink profile. For more details, check the above-discussed comparison.

4. What is Domain Rating (DR)?

DR domains mean the Domain Rating of a website’s domain. This metric refers to the strength of a website’s backlink profile. For more details, check the above-discussed comparison.

5. What is a good Domain Rating (DR)?

Domain Rating is a comparative tool measured on a scale of 1-100, with one being the worst and 100 being the best. But 100 being the best doesn’t mean that top websites’ Domain Rating (DR) score is 100. That is why it is impossible to mention a good number for Domain Rating (DR) without context.

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