Sort link prospects
Paste the sites you could pitch and start with the strongest. A link from a site that already rates higher than yours usually carries more weight.
See the Domain Rating of any website, from 0 to 100, for up to 10 domains at once. Free, no signup, no daily limit.
01What it does
The Domain Rating checker shows how strong a website's backlink profile is, as one number from 0 to 100. Type up to 10 domains and you get a rating for each, sorted from the strongest to the weakest, with a short label and a bar so the gap between sites is easy to see.
The number is Domain Rating by Ahrefs, the measure many SEOs already use in reports and outreach lists. It compares a site's links with the links of every other site in a very large backlink index. A high rating means many strong, different websites link to it; a low rating means few links, or links from weak sites.
Use it to size up a competitor, to decide which sites are worth asking for a link, or to check whether your own work on links is paying off. It is free, there is no signup, and you can compare your site and your competitors side by side in one check.
Paste a list of competitors, link prospects or your own sites and compare them in one view.
Results are sorted by rating, so the most authoritative site sits at the top of the list.
Each rating gets a plain band: very strong, strong, medium, weak or very weak.
If no rating comes back for a domain, the tool says so in words instead of showing a misleading 0.
No account and no daily cap for normal use; only a short pause if you check very many domains very quickly.
02How to use it
The tool takes only domain names. You do not need http, www or a page path, and you can mix formats; the tool cleans them up before the check.
Put one domain per line, or separate them with commas or spaces, for example northgate-plumbing.example and brightway.example. Duplicates are removed automatically, so a domain is never rated twice in the same check.
Each domain is rated on the 0–100 scale. Ratings that are already stored come back instantly; the rest are fetched in a few seconds.
The strongest domain is at the top. Each row shows the domain, its band, the rating as a number and a bar out of 100.
Under the result you get short next steps, such as which domain in your list has the strongest profile and why links from sites like it count the most.
03How it works
Stage 1
Up to 10 public domains, duplicates removed, invalid entries explained.
Stage 2
Ratings younger than 30 days come from storage straight away.
Stage 3
Missing domains are rated as Domain Rating by Ahrefs.
Stage 4
Each rating gets a strength band and the list is ordered strongest first.
First the tool checks your input. Each entry must be a public website domain: IP addresses, localhost, internal hostnames and reserved endings such as .local or .test are refused before anything is looked up. International domain names are converted to their standard form so they match the index.
Next it looks for a stored rating. Domain Rating changes over weeks and months, not hours, so a rating is kept for 30 days and reused. Only the domains without a fresh stored rating are requested, and they come back as Domain Rating by Ahrefs.
Finally each rating is placed in a band and the list is sorted from the highest rating to the lowest. Domains without a rating are listed last with a sentence that explains what happened. Nothing is ever filled in with an estimate or a zero.
04Reading the results
Every domain gets its own card. Here is what each part means and how to judge it.
DomainThe site that was rated, in the clean form the tool used. Subdomains are rated as typed.Rating (0–100)Domain Rating by Ahrefs. Higher means a stronger backlink profile compared with all other sites.Bar out of 100A visual of the same number, so you can see at a glance how far apart two sites are.Very strongA rating of 70 or more. Typically large, well-known sites with links from many strong domains.StrongA rating from 50 to 69. An established site with a solid link profile.MediumA rating from 30 to 49. Common for active businesses and blogs that have earned links over time.WeakA rating from 10 to 29. A modest link profile; most small local sites sit here.Very weakA rating under 10. Few links or links from weak sites; new domains usually start here.No rating returnedNo number came back for this domain. It is shown in words, not as 0, because a missing rating is not the same as a weak one.05Who it is for
Paste the sites you could pitch and start with the strongest. A link from a site that already rates higher than yours usually carries more weight.
Compare your domain with the sites that rank above you. A big gap in rating often explains why they win on competitive keywords.
Rate a prospect's site and its main competitors in one check before a sales call, and show where they stand.
Before you buy a domain, sponsor a site or agree a partnership, see how strong its link profile really is.
06Tips
A local plumber will never match a national newspaper. Compare your site with the sites you actually compete with in search.
Moving from 70 to 80 takes far more links than moving from 10 to 20, so small gains at the top are big achievements.
A link from a medium-rated site in your field is often worth more to you than one from a strong site about something unrelated.
If your site lives on www or a subdomain, rate the root domain and the subdomain you use and compare them.
Ratings move over weeks and months. Rechecking every day will not show change; checking monthly will.
Google does not use DR. Use it to compare and prioritise, then judge each site by its content and audience.
07Good to know
08Free and with an account
Free
Free · no card
Paid plans
Create a free account to see every backlink behind the rating and track your link profile over time.
09FAQ
A 0 to 100 score of how strong a website's backlink profile is compared with all other sites. The scale is logarithmic: going from 70 to 80 is much harder than from 10 to 20.
Domain Rating by Ahrefs.
Not by itself. Google does not use DR. It is a quick way to compare how authoritative sites are, for example when you choose where to earn links.
No. Check as many domains as you need, up to 10 at a time. If you send very many checks very quickly, the tool asks you to pause briefly.
Up to 10. Put one per line or separate them with commas or spaces; duplicates are removed.
Yes. The tool strips http, www and any path and rates the domain. IP addresses and internal hostnames are not accepted.
Sometimes no rating comes back for a domain, for example a very new or unusual one. The tool says so in words instead of showing 0.
A rating is kept for up to 30 days and reused, because Domain Rating moves over weeks and months rather than days.
It depends on your field. Compare your site with the sites that rank for your keywords; being close to them matters more than any absolute number.
Earn links from more different websites, especially sites that already rate higher than yours and are relevant to your field.
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