What’s the Difference Between Domain Authority, Domain Rating, and Authority Score?
If you're exploring the Backlink Marketplace and come across terms like Domain Authority, Domain Rating, and Authority Score, it’s natural to wonder what they mean — and more importantly, how they differ.
These three SEO metrics help you assess the credibility and value of a website before securing a backlink. While they’re often used together, each one follows a different methodology and serves a slightly different purpose.
Let’s break it down in a way that makes it easier to decide which metric to rely on based on your SEO goals.
What it is
Domain Authority score you get from the Moz tool. It estimates how likely a domain is to rank on search engines. The score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating stronger potential visibility.
How it's calculated
The score is based on factors like:
Why it matters
A higher Domain Authority suggests a site has strong link equity and is more likely to pass SEO value to your content.
How to use it in the marketplace
Set a minimum DA filter (e.g., 40 or above) to find websites with strong reputations and a higher chance of boosting your rankings.
What it is
Domain Rating reflects the overall strength of a website’s backlink profile. In the Backlink Marketplace, this metric is used to give you insight into how authoritative a site is based on its external link profile — though it is not explicitly labeled as coming from Ahrefs.
How it's calculated
This score typically looks at:
Why it matters
A higher DR means the website is well-referenced by other domains, suggesting a strong, influential backlink profile.
How to use it in the marketplace
Filter for DR 50+ if you're focusing on getting backlinks from domains with strong link networks.
What it is
Authority Score is a metric derived from Semrush data. It evaluates a website’s overall trust, performance, and SEO health.
How it's calculated
Factors include:
Why it matters
This is a more holistic view of a domain’s value. It considers not just links, but also how the site performs and how reliable it is from a search engine’s perspective.
How to use it in the marketplace
Apply an Authority Score filter (e.g., 50+) if you want to prioritize sites that are both trusted and well-performing.
There’s no single “best” metric — each serves a different purpose. That’s why the Backlink Marketplace provides access to all three, allowing you to layer metrics for more strategic decisions.
Here’s how to make them work together:
Combining these metrics with other filters (like niche, traffic, spam score, or price) helps you find backlinks that match your goals — whether you’re focused on authority, relevance, or ROI.
Need links from high-authority sites in the tech niche with low spam scores and fast turnaround times? You can easily filter for that.
The better you understand these metrics, the more confident and effective your link-building strategy will be.
