Domain Authority (DA) is a score from Moz and Domain Rating (DR) is a score from Ahrefs. Both grade a website's backlink profile on a scale that tops out at 100, both are logarithmic, and neither is used by Google to rank anything. When you buy press, use them to shortlist publications and sanity check a price, then decide on the things they do not measure: label status, indexing, link type, and whether AI answer engines read the title.
What is Domain Authority?
Moz defines Domain Authority as a score that predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine results pages compared with competitors, on a scale from 1 to 100. New websites start at 1 and rise as they earn links. The score is calculated by a machine learning model that draws on Moz's Link Explorer index, with the number of linking root domains and the quality of those links as the main inputs.
Moz is explicit about what the number is not. It states that Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on search results, and that it should be read as a comparative metric rather than an absolute one. Moz also explains why the scale is logarithmic: the largest sites occupy the high slots, so it is easier to grow a score from 20 to 30 than from 70 to 80.
What is Domain Rating?
Ahrefs defines Domain Rating as the strength of a website's backlink profile on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100. Three things feed it: how many domains link to the site, the DR of those referring domains, and how many other sites each referring domain links out to, since a domain that links to thousands of sites passes less to each. Ahrefs also notes that nofollow links do not pass DR.
Ahrefs' help center adds two useful points. DR is calculated at the domain level, while its URL Rating does the same job for a single page, and Ahrefs says DR correlates with Google rankings but less well than URL Rating does. In plain terms, DR describes the whole site's links, not the strength of the page your article will live on.
How do DA and DR compare?
| Domain Authority (DA) | Domain Rating (DR) | |
|---|---|---|
| Published by | Moz | Ahrefs |
| Scale | 1 to 100, logarithmic | 0 to 100, logarithmic |
| Built from | Moz Link Explorer index, machine learning, linking root domains and link quality | Referring domains, their DR, and how many sites they link out to |
| Nofollow links | Not stated by Moz | Do not pass DR |
| What it claims to predict | Likelihood of ranking compared with competitors | Strength of the backlink profile |
| Used by Google | No, per Moz | Proprietary Ahrefs metric |
The columns differ because the companies differ. Each runs its own crawler, keeps its own link index, and applies its own formula. A link that Ahrefs has found and Moz has not, or a nofollow link Moz counts and Ahrefs discards, moves one score and not the other.
Why do DA and DR disagree for the same publication?
Because they are measuring different indexes with different rules, and because both are relative to everything else in the index on that day. In Qubba's catalog of 1,679 publications, the median gap between a title's DA and DR is 5 points, which is the normal case. But 198 titles differ by 20 points or more, and 60 differ by 30 or more. One regional weekly lists DA 64 and DR 6; another site lists DA 5 and DR 66. The direction is not systematic: DA is the higher figure on 825 titles and DR on 761.
A large gap is information. When one tool sees a strong link profile and the other sees almost nothing, the site usually has links concentrated in a single network or a large share of nofollow links, which Ahrefs does not count toward DR. That is a reason to look at the publication itself before buying, not a reason to pick whichever score flatters the price.
Does Google use DA or DR?
No. Moz says directly that Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on the SERPs. Ahrefs presents DR as a proprietary SEO metric by Ahrefs. Google's own guidance on helpful content describes what its systems reward in terms of experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust, original reporting, and clear bylines, and never mentions a third-party score.
The same holds for AI features. Google's AI features documentation says a page needs to be indexed and eligible for a snippet to be cited in AI Overviews or AI Mode, with no special markup. Nothing in that requirement reads a DA or DR column.
How should you use DA and DR when buying a placement?
Use them as a filter. Set a floor that matches the goal, shortlist everything above it, then decide on the columns the scores do not cover. Because both scales are logarithmic, a title at DA 90 is not "10% better" than one at DA 80; the catalog has 267 titles at DA 80 or above and only 113 at DA 90 or above, and price rises steeply across that line.
Use them to check a price. Across the catalog the median price per placement by DA band runs from $620 at DA 29 or below, through $1,050 at DA 30 to 49, $1,150 at DA 50 to 69 and $1,350 at DA 70 to 79, to $2,400 at DA 80 to 89 and $4,150 at DA 90 and above. A title priced far outside its band should have a reason, such as a marquee name or a visible sponsored tag, and the catalog shows both.
Prefer agreement. When DA and DR sit within a few points of each other, two independent indexes are telling you the same thing. When they diverge by 20 or more, open the site and look at the section your article would run in.
What do DA and DR not tell you?
They do not tell you whether the article will be indexed, whether the link will be dofollow, how the piece will be labeled, or whether AI answer engines read the title. In the catalog, 1,603 of 1,679 titles are listed as indexed and 1,145 carry a dofollow link, and these are unverified supplier reports about publishers, not guarantees for a future article.
They also do not tell you about topical fit or the page the article lands on. DR describes the whole domain, and Ahrefs itself says its page-level metric correlates better with rankings. A high DR news site that buries sponsored features in an unlinked subfolder gives you far less than a mid DR trade title that runs your piece on its front page. Buy the page and the label, and let the scores narrow the list.
Frequently asked questions
Which is better for buying press, DA or DR?
Neither wins.
DA is Moz's estimate of ranking likelihood, DR is Ahrefs' measure of backlink strength, and each comes from a separate index.
Use both, prefer titles where they agree, and treat a large gap as a reason to inspect the site before buying.
Will a placement raise my own DA or DR?
Only if the link is one the tools count.
Ahrefs states that nofollow links do not pass DR, and Google asks publishers to mark paid placements rel="sponsored".
Buy placements for readers, indexing and AI citations, and treat any score movement as a bonus.
Why did a publication's DA change since I last checked?
Because the score is relative.
Moz explains that DA compares a site with every other site in its index and may fluctuate as the web changes, even when nothing has happened to the publication itself.
Catalog scores are refreshed periodically and should be read as a band, not a fixed number.
Is a DA 90 publication worth ten times a DA 60 one?
Rarely in citation terms.
The scales are logarithmic, so the gap is real, but Ahrefs found only 38% of AI Overview citations come from pages in Google's top 10, and citations spread across thousands of outlets.
Pay for the marquee when the logo matters; spread the budget when the citation does.