Ahrefs DR4: what changed and how to check your score

What is DR4?

Domain Rating scores the strength of a website’s link profile compared with the others in Ahrefs’ database. It is calculated from links only, so it ignores things like domain age and content quality.

DR4 is the fourth iteration of that model. Ahrefs announced a preview on 5 November 2026 and says it will reach the standard Ahrefs interface on 1 December.

What changed from DR3

Fewer sites have a score

DR4 puts more weight on links from sites and subdomains that Ahrefs estimates get organic search traffic. The number of sites with a DR4 score is around half the number with a DR3 score, so a smaller pool of domains can influence everyone else’s rating.

Subdomains are scored on their own

Under DR3, a weak site on a popular platform could borrow that platform’s rating. Under DR4, each subdomain is rated on the relative strength of the backlinks pointing to it. This matters if your product lives on a subdomain, or on a hosted address from a website builder.

Examples published by Ahrefs. It notes that its hosted site examples are not representative of all subdomains on those platforms. Domain Rating by Ahrefs.

Domains labelled as spam fall further

Ahrefs reports that domains it labels as spam with a DR3 score between 30 and 70 saw the largest drops, with a median of around 15 to 20 points. Other domains stayed relatively stable, with median changes close to zero across most DR3 ranges.

Is DR4 a better metric?

Ahrefs compared both models with the number of top 3 and top 10 Google ranking positions across 10 million hosts. Overall, DR4 correlates more than 2.5 times more strongly.

Correlation figures reported by Ahrefs. Domain Rating by Ahrefs.

The root domain row is worth a second look. On root domains alone, DR3 correlated more strongly than DR4 in this test, and Ahrefs points out that DR3 was built around them. So the headline gain comes from scoring every host separately. If you mostly compare root domains, DR4 is a different lens, and this test does not show it to be a sharper one.

These are also Ahrefs’ own tests, and a correlation does not show that a score causes rankings. Domain Rating is Ahrefs’ metric, so a new model changes the number you see without changing anything at Google.

Who goes up and who goes down

Among Ahrefs’ top 1,000 domains by estimated organic traffic, 64.3% gained, 15.8% stayed the same and 19.9% fell. The average fall was 7.3 points and the median was 4.

One of the largest falls in that group was github.io, down 32 points. Its subdomains can still score well: Ahrefs lists facebook.github.io at DR 86.

Domain Rating by Ahrefs.

Treat those numbers with care if you run a smaller site, since the most visited domains on the web are not typical. If many of your links come from sites with little search traffic, it is reasonable to expect those links to count for less. Your own comparison will tell you more than any average.

What to do if your score drops

Ahrefs is clear that a lower score says nothing about your content or your impact. It reflects your backlink profile only. Before you change anything:

1. Compare both scores for your exact domain, and for any subdomain you care about, since the two are now rated separately.
2. Check your closest competitors. If they moved the same way, your relative position has not changed much. The DR4 leaderboard shows other sites that have been checked.
3. Review your backlinks in Ahrefs and look at which linking sites get real search traffic. Those are the links DR4 now favours.
4. Label any number you share. If DR appears in a media kit, pitch or client report, say which version it is and when you checked it.

Avoid buying links to win back a number. Domain Rating is relative and logarithmic, so each point gets harder to earn as you climb: moving from 84 to 85 takes more than moving from 54 to 55.

How to compare DR3 and DR4 for your site

Our free DR4 checker needs no sign-in. Enter a domain or subdomain and it asks Ahrefs for both scores, shows the difference in points and where the site ranks among those checked here, and gives you a dated result to share. Every stored check appears on the public leaderboard, so keep that in mind before you check a private project.

You can also go straight to the source. Ahrefs’ free Domain Rating API returns DR4 when you add version=dr4 to a request, and Ahrefs’ Glen Allsopp set up a demo page for searching a single site.

Do it soon. Ahrefs says DR3 stays available through its API for a short period after 1 December and has not given an end date. Once DR3 is gone, new side by side comparisons will no longer be possible, though results you already saved keep their original date.

Common questions