# Domain authority and DR: what moves them

What Ahrefs DR and Moz DA really are, why Google doesn’t use them, what moves them, and why relevance wins. Measured on page one. We automate it.

Canonical: https://ignura.com/domain-authority
Last updated: 2026-10-27
Author: Ignura

## In short

- Ahrefs’ Domain Rating and Moz’s Domain Authority score a site’s links out of 100, each from its own link index. Moz itself says DA is not a Google ranking factor.
- Google says third-party “authority” scores don’t correspond to any of its own signals, though it does have some site-wide signals of its own.
- On page one the stronger domain often lost. In 47 of 120 pairs of first-page results we checked, the site with the lower domain rank sat higher.
- So we put relevance first and let the score follow. Start with a free Growth Check.

## What the scores are

Ahrefs calls Domain Rating a proprietary metric for the strength of a site’s backlink profile on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100. Moz calls Domain Authority a score from 1 to 100 that predicts how likely a site is to rank, built from its own link index.

Logarithmic means each step up is harder than the last. Each tool crawls the web on its own and weighs links its own way, which is why your DR and your DA never match.

## What Google says

In March 2024 Google wrote that third-party “reputation” or “authority” scores don’t correspond to any of Google’s own signals and don’t come from Google. In the same answer it said it does have some site-wide signals. So a high DR is a hint about what Google might see, not the thing itself.

## What wins when your score is low

For “best SOC 2 compliance software for a startup”, optro.ai, with a domain rank of 55, ranked first, above g2.com at 89. Its page title matched the question. Further down, ciphrix.com at 18 sat above two sites in the sixties.

A relevant page on a smaller site beats a vague page on a big one more often than the scores suggest. That’s where a young B2B site can win first.

**47 of 120** pairs of first-page results had the weaker domain ranked higher.

## What moves the score

Links from many separate sites that have links of their own. The score changes when the tool recrawls, and drops when links disappear. Buying links from “DR 70” sites to push the number is how people waste money: the tools count links Google ignores.

## Why authority compounds

Links you earn keep counting, and each good page on a subject makes the next one easier to rank, because you’re already a source on it. Month 2 starts higher than month 1, and the score follows when the tools recrawl.

## Mistakes we see

- **Treating DR as the goal.** Sign-ups pay you. A score doesn’t.
- **Buying links to raise it.** The tool may count them. Google says it neutralises them.
- **Comparing DR with DA.** Different indexes, different maths. Compare a score with itself over time.
- **Ignoring a small rival.** A low-score site that answers the question better will keep beating you.

## What our AI does

- Tracks your domain rank and that of everyone on page one for your questions, weekly.
- Shows where weaker sites outrank stronger ones and what their pages do differently.
- Finds subjects where your site already has pages to build on.
- Watches for links you lose.

## What we do

- Choose the terms you can win now and the ones to build towards.
- Earn the links, as on our backlinks page.
- Report rankings and sign-ups, with the score as context.
- Tell you when a term isn’t worth the fight.

## The first four weeks

1. We map page one for your terms with every site’s domain rank, and find where relevance beats size.
2. The pages that can win soonest get rewritten to answer their question first.
3. Link work starts on the subjects you’re building towards.
4. We report positions, sign-ups and the score, and set month 2’s terms.

## The deal

Named in 5 of your 20 buyer questions by week 4, or you don’t pay the second half. $8,000 for four weeks, half to start. Then $4,000 a month, with a month’s notice to stop.

## Questions

### What DR do we need to rank?

There’s no threshold. In our test a site with a domain rank of 18 sat above two in the sixties on page one.

### Is DR Google’s PageRank?

No. It’s Ahrefs’ model, built from Ahrefs’ own index. Google’s PageRank is internal, and Google says it has changed a lot since launch.

### Why do Ahrefs and Moz disagree?

Each crawls the web separately and weighs links its own way. Compare each score with itself over time, not with the other.

### Will you raise our DA?

If we earn good links it will rise as a side effect. We don’t sell the number.

## Sources

- Ignura: [Six SOC 2 buyer questions on ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Google, 27 Oct 2026 (the data)](https://ignura.com/data/search-2026-10-27.json)
- Ahrefs: [Domain Rating (DR)](https://ahrefs.com/seo/glossary/domain-rating)
- Moz: [Domain Authority](https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain-authority)
- Google Search Central: [March 2024 core update and new spam policies](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies)
- Google Search Central: [A guide to Google Search ranking systems](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ranking-systems-guide)
- Google Search Central: [December 2022 link spam update](https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/12/december-22-link-spam-update)

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