Domain Rating vs Domain Authority: What Is The Difference?

Suppose you buy a domain name from, probably, the best domain hosting Australia for your newly built website. Once the domain goes live with content, you start tracking its performance and check how well your site is ranking on Google. If it is not ranking, you need to figure out what can be done to improve its rankings. 

This is the whole point of running a successful website. Right?

But how do you check this? The answer is — using metrics like Domain Rating and Domain Authority! 

Both are popular search engine ranking metrics used to determine the possibility of domain names ranking higher on Google or any other search engine. However, both have their differences, which we are going to discuss in this blog. 

What is Domain Rating?

Domain Rating is the brainchild of Ahrefs. It is a metric that is used to determine how strong is the backlink profile of a website. It is measured on a scale of 1-100, where 0 being the lowest and 100 being the highest. 

When you check domains against this metric, it is important to note that DR has no direct impact on the ranking of a web page on search engines. So, the websites with higher DR tend to have a higher rank only because of the strength of their backlinks. 

Also, DR is an excellent metric to determine the ability of a website to drive traffic from Google searches. 

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority is a metric introduced by Moz. It is used to predict the likelihood of a site ranking high on search engines. Further, it is calculated on a scale from 1-100, where higher scores represent better ability to rank. 

Domain Authority score is calculated by considering multiple factors like the number of incoming and outgoing links, root linking domains, domain age, and a few others. 

Domain Rating Vs Domain Authority: Which is Better?

Many people believe that Domain Rating is a more reliable metric than Domain Authority for practical reasons. 

Domain rating checks the chances of ranking a site purely based on its backlink strength. However, Domain Authority considers multiple other factors like root linking domains, spam score, website traffic, domain age (the period starting from the date you register domain to the present day), and so on. 

The catch is, factors affecting DA can easily be manipulated. For example: When searching domains for their DA, you may encounter an older site that is not even ranking on Google, with a higher DA score. Similarly, a website with higher paid traffic can also have a higher DA than one with pure organic traffic. 

In contrast, Domain Rating checks domain based only on its backlink profile, which can not be manipulated. Hence, it gives more authentic and clear predictions regarding the ranking probability of a website. 

In a Nutshell

Domain Authority and Domain Rating are two search engine ranking metrics developed by two reputed SEO companies — Moz and Ahrefs. 

Domain Authority (DA) lets you know which website will rank on the top of SERPs, while Domain Rating (DR) tells you how strong the backlink profile of a website is. 

Moreover, the calculation of DR is solely based on the backlinks. On the other hand, the calculation of DA is based on multiple factors, like linking the root domain, the quality and quantity of inbound and outbound links, the age of the domain, and so on.