DR4 Checker: Compare Ahrefs DR4 and DR3

It shows a domain's or subdomain's DR4, Ahrefs' new Domain Rating model, next to its DR3 and when each was fetched, plus the difference between the two when they were fetched within two hours of each other. Each result links to the domain's page with its daily DR history.

DR4 is the new version of Ahrefs' Domain Rating, announced on November 5, 2026. Like DR3 it rates the strength of a website's backlinks on a logarithmic scale, but it gives more weight to links from websites with organic search traffic, counts links from a smaller pool of websites, rates subdomains on their own links and scores domains Ahrefs labels as spam much lower.

On December 1, 2026, DR4 becomes the Domain Rating shown in Ahrefs' standard interface. DR3 stays available through the Ahrefs API for a short period after that; Ahrefs has not given an end date.

Usually because fewer of your links count under the new model. DR4 is worked out from a smaller pool of websites (Ahrefs says about half as many have a DR4 score as a DR3 score) and gives more weight to links from websites with search traffic. Subdomains that relied on their root domain's DR and domains labeled as spam can drop a lot. Ahrefs stresses that a lower score is not a judgment on your content.

Under DR3 a subdomain often showed the DR of its root domain, so a blog on a big platform could carry the platform's score. DR4 rates each subdomain on the backlinks that point to it, so its score now depends on its own links.

It depends on the websites you look at. In Ahrefs' test against Google rankings, DR4 correlated more strongly than DR3 across all domains and subdomains together and for subdomains, but for root domains alone DR3 correlated more strongly. Neither score is a Google metric.

Comparing one domain's two values shows how differently the new model rates it, which is what this page does. Don't treat the gap as growth or a loss over time, and don't rank one website's DR3 against another website's DR4: Ahrefs has published no way to convert between them.

Yes, within the daily allowance: 3 checks a day without an account and 10 with a free account. Each lookup counts as one DR check, the same as on the homepage; paid plans include more.

From the Ahrefs API, which DR Checker asks for DR3 and DR4 separately. If a domain was fetched in the last 24 hours, you see the stored values and when each was fetched; otherwise DR Checker asks Ahrefs again. Websites DR Checker tracks are also refreshed every day.