Domain Authority Checker

Check domain authority score, backlinks, and link profile for any website.

Backlink & Domain Rank Checker that tells you which number to trust

Paste a domain and we pull its referring domains, total backlinks, dofollow-versus-nofollow split, and a Domain Rank from 0 to 1000, built on DataForSEO's backlink index. We also do the thing most of these tools skip: tell you why that number won't match Moz's Domain Authority or Ahrefs' Domain Rating, because none of the three vendors are measuring the same thing, and none of them are measuring anything Google has confirmed it uses.

DataForSEO backlinks summaryReferring domains + dofollow splitDomain Rank, 0–1000 scaleFree, no signup

Built and reviewed by Sayed Hasan, founder of SEOs Hut · Updated 28 September 2026 · Free, no signup

What is a good Domain Authority score?

There's no universal good number, because DA is Moz's own machine-learning estimate of ranking potential, scored 1–100 — and Moz states outright that DA 'is not a direct ranking factor.' A newly registered site typically scores low; an established one with a real backlink profile scores higher. Compare your own score against direct competitors in the same niche, not against a chart. Google has never confirmed anything equivalent exists inside its own ranking systems.

Before you pay for that link: none of these numbers are Google's

Domain Authority, Domain Rating and this tool's Domain Rank are three separate vendors' private estimates of your backlink profile, built on three different models. Google's Gary Illyes was asked directly whether anything in ranking maps to 'domain authority' and said he didn't know of anything that would. None of the three scores can be raised by a Google update, because none of them come from Google. Read them as a rough compass for negotiating link deals, not as a scoreboard.

Three vendors, three models

DataForSEO Rank, Ahrefs DR and Moz DA are not the same measurement

Moz says your site is DA 34. Ahrefs says DR 21. This tool says Rank 280. None of the three is wrong — they're different algorithms scored on different scales, and there's no published formula to convert one into another.

Metric	Scale	How it's computed	What a high number usually implies	What it can never tell you
DataForSEO Rank (this tool)	0–1000	A PageRank-style score computed across the domain's own pages, then log-compressed	A large, well-linked footprint of pages — not just one strong page	Whether Google ranks the domain, or anything about content relevance
Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR)	0–100, logarithmic	Modelled from the strength and quantity of external backlinks pointing at the domain	The domain sits toward the top of Ahrefs' own link-graph distribution	The gap between DR 70 and 71 is far larger than between 20 and 21 — the top of the scale is compressed
Moz Domain Authority (DA)	1–100	A machine-learning model trained to predict ranking potential from many features	Moz's model expects the domain to compete better in search results	Moz's own documentation states DA 'is not a direct ranking factor'

Scroll the table sideways to see every column.

There's no published conversion between these three scales. A domain scoring 280 here, DR 21 on Ahrefs and DA 34 on Moz can all be describing the same site accurately — treat any chart online claiming an exact conversion with suspicion.

Asked directly, in 2016

Google's own answer to "what's my domain authority"

“I don't know of anything in ranking that would translate to 'domain authority', so can't answer.”
<b>Gary Illyes, Google, 2016</b> — Search Engine Journal

That hasn't been walked back since, and Google's current guidance on third-party SEO tools generalises it further: 'Third-party tools don't have access to our internal ranking data. They can't guarantee performance.' Every authority score you'll see quoted at you — including the one on this page — is an outside estimate of your link graph, not a readout of anything Google itself tracks.

The question that actually matters

400 referring domains at 90% nofollow, or 40 at 100% dofollow — which is better?

Neither, automatically. This is the comparison a raw authority number can't make for you.

Breadth and concentration answer different questions. Four hundred referring domains mean four hundred separate sites have independently decided you're worth mentioning — that's a trust signal search engines and AI answer engines both read, regardless of whether each individual link is followed. Forty all-dofollow domains concentrate more link equity per domain, which matters more if you're trying to move a specific page's rankings directly.

The nofollow share also isn't automatically a loss. Google introduced rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" alongside nofollow on 10 September 2019, specifically so sites could label paid links and user-generated links separately from an ordinary editorial nofollow. Google's current guidance says sponsored and UGC links 'will generally not be followed' for ranking purposes, but the target page can still be crawled through other links or your sitemap — so a nofollow link from a real, relevant site still puts you in front of readers and other AI systems, even if it passes no direct ranking credit.

One footnote worth knowing if you're the one adding outbound links: to stop Google fetching a link to a page on your own site, Google says to use a robots.txt disallow, not a nofollow attribute. Nofollow is a signal about crediting the link, not a way to block a crawl.

Why one link barely moves a high score

The log-scale arithmetic nobody shows you

1Domain Rating 20 → 21 needs a modest increase in link-equity — the low end of a logarithmic scale is compressed less

2Domain Rating 70 → 71 needs vastly more link-equity for the same single point — the top of the scale is heavily compressed

3One guest post, on a site with a real profile of its own, can move a DR 20 site more than it moves a DR 70 site — even though the link itself is identical

1Ahrefs confirms the scale is logarithmic by design, which is exactly why early-stage link building shows visible movement and later-stage link building barely registers.

2This is the mechanic vendors selling 'guaranteed DR increase' packages rarely explain — the same product performs completely differently depending on where your score already sits.

3If a vendor quotes one flat DR gain for every client regardless of starting score, that's the tell that the number is marketing, not modelling.

Plain English

The five words this topic keeps confusing

Referring domain: A distinct website linking to yours, counted once regardless of how many individual links it contains. The figure that matters more than raw backlink count for most purposes.

Backlink: One individual link from another page to yours. A single referring domain can account for dozens of backlinks if it links to you repeatedly.

Dofollow: The default state of a link — no rel attribute telling a search engine to discount it. Passes ranking signal in the ordinary case.

Sponsored: The rel value Google introduced on 10 September 2019 for paid or advertising links. Google now says this is preferred over nofollow for that purpose, and such links 'will generally not be followed.'

UGC: The rel value for user-generated content — blog comments, forum posts — introduced the same day as sponsored. Same treatment: generally not followed, but the target can still be crawled another way.

Same field names this tool returns

A bigger number is not automatically a healthier profile

Bought, not built

Referring domains: 812 · Total backlinks: 14,200 · Dofollow: 96% · Domain Rank: 340

Why: A near-total dofollow ratio across thousands of links from a modest number of referring domains is the classic footprint of a paid link network. Real, organically earned profiles accumulate a mix of dofollow, nofollow, sponsored and UGC links, because real websites link for different reasons — not solely to pass authority.

Built over time

Referring domains: 96 · Total backlinks: 340 · Dofollow: 61% · Domain Rank: 210

Why: Fewer referring domains, a lower headline number, and a natural mix of link types. This is a smaller but healthier profile than the one above — the entire point of this page is that the bigger number is not automatically the better one.

Before you spend money on the next link

Check what it's actually worth first: is the linking domain established, or a recently registered network. If you're vetting your own dead weight, find backlinks already pointing at your own dead pages — reclaiming those is the fastest link win available, and it costs nothing. For a local business, a directory citation and a link are often the same outreach done twice. And however the number moves, connect it to what it's actually earning in positions rather than watching the score alone.

Questions

Backlink & Domain Rank Checker FAQ

How can I check Domain Authority?

Through Moz's own tools, which is the only source for an authentic DA number since it's Moz's proprietary model. Third-party checkers, including this one, report a different metric — DataForSEO's Rank — which measures something related but not identical, on a different scale, with no official conversion between the two.

Is 20 Domain Authority good?

It depends entirely on your competitors, not a fixed bar. DA is Moz's model of ranking potential, not a ranking Google produces, so 'good' means 'higher than the sites you're actually trying to outrank' — check direct competitors' scores on the same platform rather than judging 20 in isolation.

why is my domain authority dropping

Usually because competitors' profiles grew faster than yours, or because Moz recalculated its model — DA is a relative, recomputed estimate, not a running total you accumulate. Losing referring domains (expired links, removed guest posts) also lowers it. It is not a penalty signal from Google, since Google has no confirmed equivalent metric.

how to increase domain authority quickly

There's no fast, safe route, and 'quickly' is usually the tell for a manipulated profile — see the before/after comparison above. Earning links from genuinely relevant, real sites raises any of these three scores over time. A sudden spike in high-dofollow links from unrelated domains is the pattern of a bought profile, not a quick legitimate win.

What is a Domain Authority?

A 1–100 score Moz produces with a machine-learning model, estimating how well a domain is likely to rank based on its backlink profile and other signals. Moz's own documentation states it directly: DA 'is not a direct ranking factor' inside Google's actual systems.

Does buying backlinks move my Domain Rating?

It can move the number, but the arithmetic works against you at scale: because DR is logarithmic, the same purchased link moves a low-DR site's score more than a high-DR one, so a package promising a flat gain for every client is a sign the number is being sold, not modelled honestly.

Primary sources used on this page

Moz: Domain Authority defined, and explicitly not a direct ranking factor — moz.com
Ahrefs: Domain Rating is 0–100 and logarithmic — ahrefs.com
DataForSEO: how Rank is computed for the Backlinks API — dataforseo.com
Search Engine Journal: Gary Illyes on domain authority and ranking — www.searchenginejournal.com
Google Search Central: third-party tools have no access to internal ranking data — developers.google.com
Google: evolving nofollow — sponsored and UGC introduced 10 September 2019 — developers.google.com
Google: qualifying outbound links, and using robots.txt (not nofollow) to block a crawl — developers.google.com

Keep going

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An authority number tells you almost nothing about whether a specific link is worth buying. These check the parts that actually decide that.

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