Ahrefs DR4: What Changed From DR3 and How to Check Your Score

On 1 December 2026, the Domain Rating you see in Ahrefs will change, and for a lot of sites it will change overnight. Ahrefs is replacing the model behind the number, called DR3, with a new one called DR4. Some sites will go up. Plenty will drop by 20 or 30 points without losing a single backlink. If a client, a link seller or your own dashboard shows a very different number next month, this is why.

One thing to clear up first, because the name trips people up: DR4 is the fourth version of the formula, not a score of 4. Domain Rating still runs from 0 to 100.

Below: what changed, who gains and who loses, how to check your DR4 score today, and what to do about it. We run a software directory, one of the groups hit hardest, so we have been reading the data closely.

The short version

• Ahrefs announced DR4 on 5 November 2026 as a preview. It becomes the default in the Ahrefs interface on 1 December 2026.
• Subdomains now get their own score instead of borrowing the root domain's.
• About half as many sites have a DR under DR4, so fewer sites can pass DR to you.
• Links from sites that get organic search traffic count for more. Links from sites nobody finds through search count for much less.
• Sites Ahrefs labels as spam dropped the most, typically by 15 to 20 points.
• Most large, well-linked sites barely moved, and many went up.

What is Ahrefs DR4?

Domain Rating is Ahrefs' score for the strength of a site's backlink profile, on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100. It is relative: your score depends on how your links compare with every other site in Ahrefs' index, which is also why going from 84 to 85 is much harder than going from 54 to 55. DR3 is the version most of us have used for years. DR4 is the rebuilt model, described by Glen Allsopp, Ahrefs' Head of Marketing Strategy and Research, in the announcement post on 5 November 2026.

Some things have not changed. DR is still calculated only from links. It does not look at domain age, content quality or your own traffic. And it is still not a Google metric. Google does not use Domain Rating, or any third-party authority score, to rank pages. DR is a way to compare link profiles, and this update makes that comparison much stricter about which links count.

What changed from DR3 to DR4?

There are four changes, and they work together.

Subdomains now get their own Domain Rating

Under DR3, almost every subdomain inherited the score of its root domain. A page on someone's free notion.site or github.io subdomain showed DR 92 or higher, borrowed entirely from Notion or GitHub. That made DR easy to misread and easy to game: a "DR 90 directory" could be a free page-builder subdomain with no links of its own.

DR4 rates each subdomain on the links pointing at it. Ahrefs published these examples:

The last two rows are the real story: site-builder subdomains went from top-tier scores to almost nothing. If your blog, docs or help centre lives on a subdomain, expect its number to split from your main domain's.

Only about half as many sites now have a DR

Ahrefs says the number of sites with a DR4 score is around half the number with a DR3 score. SaaSCity's write-up of the change puts the totals at roughly 287 million sites rated under DR3 and 132 million under DR4.

Only sites inside the rated pool can influence another site's DR. Cut the pool in half and many links that used to add a little to your score now add nothing, even though Google can still see them.

Links from sites with search traffic count for more

The most important line in the announcement is that DR4 puts more weight on links from sites, and individual subdomains, that Ahrefs estimates get organic search traffic. A link from a site people actually find through Google now counts for more than a link from a site nobody visits.

That change explains most of the big drops. Link networks, abandoned blogs and badge-swap pages link to each other heavily and get little search traffic. Under DR3 they propped each other up. Under DR4 they mostly cancel out.

Spam-labelled sites dropped the most

Ahrefs started labelling spam domains in 2025 from a hand-checked list, and in January 2026 it switched to a machine learning model that flags them automatically. DR4 leans on those labels. According to Ahrefs, spam domains that had a DR3 between 30 and 70 dropped by a median of around 15 to 20 points, while non-spam domains stayed close to where they were across most ranges.

Does DR4 match Google rankings better than DR3?

Ahrefs tested both versions against Google ranking positions across 10 million domains and subdomains. The headline claim is that DR4 correlates more than 2.5 times better with rankings. The detail underneath is more interesting:

Look at the middle row. For root domains on their own, DR3 lined up with rankings better than DR4 does. The improvement comes almost entirely from subdomains getting honest scores. So "DR4 predicts rankings better" is true across the whole web, less so when comparing two ordinary .com sites. And a correlation of 0.3 to 0.4 is a loose relationship, not a forecast.

Who gains and who loses under DR4?

For the biggest sites, not much changes. Of the 1,000 domains with the most organic traffic, Ahrefs found that 64.3% gained DR, 15.8% stayed the same and 19.9% dropped, with a median drop of 4 points. Monday.com went from 91 to 90, Zoho slipped one point to 91, Teamwork.com stayed at 82 and Airtable edged up to 92. The biggest loser in that group was github.io, down 32 points, because its score no longer includes the strength of millions of user subdomains. Strong subdomains keep strong scores of their own: facebook.github.io still has DR 86.

Further down the web, the picture is very different. SaaSCity, itself a software directory, pulled DR3 and DR4 for 2,405 directories through the free API on 5 November and published the results. It is not a random sample, and the authors have a stake in the topic, but the pattern is hard to miss:

The big names held: G2, Product Hunt, Capterra and Hacker News all stayed at 91 or 92. Among directories that sat between DR 50 and 79, the ones that swapped badges for links fell a median of 33.5 points, against 2 points for the rest. Directories built on free subdomains from Notion, Softr or Gumroad went from scores in the 60s to 90s down to almost nothing.

The rule of thumb: if your links come from sites that real people find through search, you are probably fine. If a large share come from sites that mostly link to each other, expect a drop.

How to check your DR4 score right now

You do not have to wait for 1 December. There are three ways to see your new number today.

1. The DR4 preview checker, no account needed. Ahrefs pointed people to a demo page at detailed.com/dr-v4. Type in a domain or subdomain and it shows the old and new scores. Check your root domain and every subdomain you care about separately, since they no longer share a score.

2. The free Ahrefs Domain Rating API. Ahrefs runs a free endpoint that returns DR for any domain. By default it still returns DR3. Add version=dr4 to the request and it returns DR4 instead. At the time of writing it asks for a free API key, which you can create from a free Ahrefs account in the account settings. Ahrefs' API documentation has the exact request format. This is the quickest route if you want to check a whole list of sites, such as every directory you plan to submit to.

3. Ahrefs itself, from 1 December. On 1 December the standard Ahrefs interface switches to DR4. Ahrefs says DR3 will stay available through the API for a short time afterwards so you can compare, but it has not said for how long. If you report DR to clients or investors, save your DR3 numbers before the switch.

Note the old and new scores for your root domain, each subdomain you use and your two or three closest competitors. The gap between you and them matters more than your own number.

Why did my DR drop under DR4?

If your number fell, it is usually one of these:

• Your site lives on a subdomain. It now stands on its own links, and there are often not many.
• Your links come from sites with no search traffic. Directories nobody visits, badge exchanges and link-network blogs pass far less than they did.
• The sites linking to you lost their own DR. DR flows from site to site, so when they drop, you drop with them.
• Some of your links come from spam-labelled domains. Those count for very little now.
• The old model flattered you. The uncomfortable one. DR3 may have been counting links Google was ignoring anyway.

As Ahrefs puts it, a lower DR4 is not a verdict on your content. It only means Ahrefs sees fewer links it considers strong.

What to do if your Domain Rating dropped

Start by checking your traffic and rankings, not your DR. If Google Search Console shows the same clicks and positions as last month, nothing real has happened. DR is Ahrefs' estimate, not something Google reads.

If you want the number back up, do the things DR4 rewards. They happen to be the things that help in Google as well.

• Look at who already links to you. In Ahrefs' backlink report, sort referring domains by traffic. Those with real traffic are the links that count now, so go after more of the same kind.
• Earn links from sites people visit. Original data, useful free tools, guest posts on sites with real readers, and directories that rank in Google for your category. One link from a site with 50,000 monthly search visitors now beats a dozen from sites with none.
• Move important content off third-party subdomains. A blog on a builder's free subdomain builds someone else's score, not yours.
• Stop paying for links from dead sites. Badge swaps and cheap "DR 70" packages were already weak. Under DR4 they barely register.
• Compare against competitors, not your old number. Everyone moved on the same day. If you are still ahead of your competitors, nothing has changed.

What DR4 means if you buy links or choose directories

If you have ever paid for a link because the site showed "DR 70", check its DR4 before you pay again. Sites that sold links on their DR were exactly the ones this update hit.

The same goes for directories. Our guide to where to submit your SaaS argues that organic traffic matters more than DR, and DR4 more or less writes that advice into Ahrefs' own formula. Before you submit anywhere or pay for a listing, check three things: the directory's own organic traffic, whether its listing pages are indexed in Google, and whether its score held under DR4. A directory that fell 40 points overnight was probably not sending anyone much traffic in the first place.

Frequently asked questions about Ahrefs DR4

What is Ahrefs DR4? DR4 is the fourth version of Ahrefs' Domain Rating model, announced on 5 November 2026. It gives subdomains their own scores, counts links from sites with organic search traffic more heavily, and rates about half as many sites as DR3 did. The scale is still 0 to 100.

When does DR4 replace DR3? DR4 becomes the default in the standard Ahrefs interface on 1 December 2026. Ahrefs says DR3 will stay available through its API for a short period after that, without giving an end date.

How can I check my DR4 score for free? Use the preview checker at detailed.com/dr-v4, which needs no account, or call Ahrefs' free Domain Rating API with version=dr4 added to the request. From 1 December, Ahrefs shows DR4 by default.

Why did my Domain Rating drop with DR4? Most drops come from links on sites with little or no search traffic, links from spam-labelled domains, or a site on a subdomain that used to borrow its root domain's score. A drop does not mean Google sees your site any differently.

Does a lower DR4 hurt my Google rankings? No. Google does not use Ahrefs' Domain Rating. Your rankings depend on Google's own view of your links and content, which DR4 does not change. Check Search Console for real changes.

Is DR4 more accurate than DR3? Across all domains and subdomains, DR4 correlates more than 2.5 times better with Google rankings, according to Ahrefs. For root domains alone, DR3 correlated slightly better.

Where to go next

DR4 rewards links from places people actually visit. If you are planning submissions, start with where to submit your SaaS in 2026 and run each directory through the ninety-second test before you spend time on it. Our list of Product Hunt alternatives pairs each platform's rating with its organic traffic, which is the number that matters most now.

And if you have built something worth listing, you can submit it to StackLedge. A person reviews every listing before it goes live.