Ahrefs DR4 Score

Your Ahrefs DR is about to change. Don't panic. And don't tell your client that it's a penalty.

Ahrefs has published a preview of Domain Rating 4 (DR4). It will be available in the standard Ahrefs UI in December.

There are two big changes:

1. A smaller, higher-quality pool of domains.
2. DR is still calculated from links.

However, links from sites with estimated organic traffic now carry more weight.

As a result, only about half as many sites will receive a DR4 score as received a DR3 score.

Subdomains now have their own score and no longer inherit the root domain’s DR.

Ahrefs will roll out DR4 in December 2026. This change reflects how it scores backlink profiles. Subdomains will have their own ratings, and a smaller pool of domains will be used in the calculation.

This means that your score may change even if your backlink profile remains the same.

Ahrefs reports a correlation that is more than 2.5 times stronger with Google ranking positions across all hosts in its testing.

However, this finding comes with context: the correlation for root domains alone was lower under the new model.

You can now check your DR4 score here at https://detailed.com/dr-v4/

Example: New domain rating for Best AISO website:

bestaiso.com DR 16 → 0 (as of 9th Nov 2026)

Why is Domain Rating (DR) being updated?

This isn't the first time that Domain Rating scores have been overhauled. Ahrefs always want DR to accurately reflect the quality of a site's link profile. They felt that there were some opportunities to improve the current system.

What's the biggest change?

By popular request, subdomains now have their own rating and no longer inherit the overall domain's rating.

For instance, Microsoft.com has a DR of 94, while Blogs.microsoft.com has a DR of 87.

Learn more at https://ahrefs.com/blog/domain-rating-dr4/

Read more relevant posts at Best AISO:

• https://bestaiso.com/ahrefs-backlink-checker-review
• https://bestaiso.com/free-dr-checker-tools
• https://bestaiso.com/profile-creation-websites