Domain Authority (DA) & Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Rating (DR) and Domain Authority (DA) are proprietary metrics developed by different SEO companies to predict the potential ranking power of websites based on their backlink profiles. They are not used by search engines like Google for ranking, but they're used by SEO professionals as reference metrics to assess the strength of a site's backlink profile compared to others.

• Both metrics are relative measures. A high DR or DA doesn't guarantee high rankings, and vice versa. They are most useful when compared to the scores of other websites, especially competitors
• Google has stated that it does not use DA, DR, or any third-party metrics in its ranking algorithm. These are tools to help SEO professionals make informed decisions, but they don't directly influence search rankings
• The best approach is not to focus solely on increasing DA or DR but to prioritize building a natural and authoritative backlink profile, creating high-quality content, and ensuring an optimal user experience. Over time, as a site gains more quality backlinks, its DA and DR will likely increase as a byproduct of those efforts
• You can see the DA and DR score of other sites - See below.

Domain Rating (DR)

• Developer: Ahrefs, a popular SEO tool.
• Definition: DR reflects the strength of a website's backlink profile on a logarithmic scale of 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a stronger backlink profile.
• Calculation: It's based on the number and quality of domains linking to a website. Ahrefs considers both the DR and the number of unique domains a site has, among other factors. The scale is logarithmic, meaning that it's much harder to increase your DR from 70 to 80 than it is to increase from 20 to 30.

To measure your own DR, of that of another site, Use Ahrefs' Site Explorer. This tool from Ahrefs allows you to check various metrics related to a website, including its DR. Like Moz, Ahrefs allows some limited exploration for free, but full access requires a subscription to their service.

Domain Authority (DA)

• Developer: Moz, another well-regarded SEO software company.
• Definition: DA predicts a website's ability to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs) on a scale from 1 to 100. Like DR, a higher DA score is preferable, indicating a stronger likelihood to rank.
• Calculation: DA is calculated by evaluating linking root domains, the number of total links, the MozRank, MozTrust, and a handful of other factors. Moz then uses a machine learning model that takes into account known factors that influence SERP rankings to output the DA score. Like DR, the DA scale is also logarithmic.

To measure the DA of your site or another site, Use Moz's Link Explorer or MozBar (Moz's browser extension). Both of these tools by Moz allow you to check the DA of any website, including competitors. You can start with a limited number of free searches on Moz's Link Explorer, but for more extensive and regular usage, a Moz Pro subscription would be require