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What Is DR4? Ahrefs' New Domain Rating, Explained

DR4 is the fourth version of Ahrefs Domain Rating. See what changed from DR3, when it takes effect, how scores are moving and what to do if your DR4 is lower.

DR Checker TeamDR Checker Team

DR4 is the fourth version of Ahrefs' Domain Rating. Ahrefs announced it on November 5, 2026 and rolls it out in the standard Ahrefs interface on December 1, 2026. The model it replaces is now called DR3: the number most SEO tools have simply labelled "DR".

DR4 is still a 0–100, logarithmic, site-wide score built from backlinks. What changed is which links count and how much. For some websites the new number is almost the same; for others it is very different, especially subdomains, which no longer inherit their root domain's score.

DR Checker requests both versions for the websites it tracks. Enter a domain on the homepage to see DR3 and DR4 side by side when both are available, or open the DR4 vs DR3 leaderboard for the biggest gaps.

What changes in DR4

Ahrefs describes four changes:

  • Links from websites with search traffic count for more. DR4 is still calculated from links, but Ahrefs puts more weight on links from sites, and individual subdomains, that it estimates get organic search traffic.
  • A smaller pool of websites can move your score. Only a smaller, higher-quality set of domains can affect DR4. According to Ahrefs, about half as many websites have a DR4 score as have a DR3 score.
  • Subdomains are rated on their own. In DR3 a subdomain usually showed its root domain's DR. In DR4 each subdomain gets a rating from the links that point to it, so yourname.blogspot.com no longer borrows the strength of blogspot.com.
  • Spam-labelled domains score much lower. Ahrefs started labelling spam domains in 2025 and moved to a machine-learning model in January 2026. DR4 significantly reduces the scores of domains carrying that label.

What did not change: DR is still Ahrefs' own metric, not a Google score. It still ignores domain age and content quality, and the logarithmic scale still means that going from 84 to 85 is much harder than going from 54 to 55.

Timeline

  • November 5, 2026: Ahrefs announces DR4. It is available through the API with version=dr4.
  • December 1, 2026: DR4 rolls out in the standard Ahrefs interface.
  • Afterwards: Ahrefs keeps DR3 available in its API "for a short period" so you can compare. No end date has been published.

How scores are moving

Ahrefs looked at the top 1,000 websites by its organic traffic estimate: about 64% gained under DR4, 16% stayed the same and 20% dropped. Among those that dropped, the median fall was 4 points. The biggest loser in that group was github.io, down 32 points, while popular project subdomains such as facebook.github.io keep high scores of their own.

DR Checker's own data tells a different story, because it tracks a different kind of website: mostly indie products, AI tools, SaaS and link directories. Across 4,002 websites with both scores on November 8, 2026:

  • Root domains: DR4 was lower for 68% of them, the same for 10% and higher for 22%. The median change was −5 points.
  • Subdomains: 95% fell, with a median change of −28 points. Many sites on shared platforms (Blogspot, GitHub Pages, Vercel, Netlify) dropped from the 90s to 0.
  • Some well-known websites barely moved: YouTube stayed at 99, GitHub went from 97 to 96, Medium from 94 to 95 and Ahrefs from 91 to 92. Others did not: Blogspot itself fell from 95 to 83.

The full breakdown is in DR4 vs DR3: what changed.

My DR4 is lower. What should I do?

A lower DR4 is not a verdict on your content. In Ahrefs' words, it means they do not see enough links of the kind DR4 values. A practical sequence:

  1. Look at your referring domains. How many of them get organic search traffic? DR4 gives more weight to links from websites that do.
  2. Compare like with like. Check your closest competitors in DR4, not your DR4 against their DR3. If they dropped too, your relative position may not have changed.
  3. Earn links from sites people actually visit. Links from publications, communities and partners with real search traffic carry more weight in DR4.
  4. Report both numbers for a while. If DR is in a client or investor report, show DR3 and DR4 side by side during the switch and say which one you track from now on.

How to check DR4

Enter a domain on the DR Checker homepage. The domain page shows DR3 as the main number, DR4 next to it when Ahrefs has one, and a chart of recent history. Checking a website is free and needs no account.

To understand the model DR4 replaces, read What is DR3?.