Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR: A Comparison

For years, SEOs and marketers have been locked in a debate that seems to have no end in sight: Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR.

You see these scores everywhere—in competitor reports, link building outreach, and client dashboards. They’ve become the unofficial currency of website authority, the metrics we all love to track and obsess over.

But what do they really mean? And more importantly, which one should you be using to guide your search engine optimization strategy? If you’ve ever felt a bit lost in this alphabet soup of SEO metrics, you’re in the right place.

We’re going to break down the fundamental differences in the Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR comparison, explore how each is calculated, and reveal what the data says about their actual ability to predict search engine rankings. By the end, you’ll know how to leverage them to make smarter decisions for your link building, competitor analysis, and overall SEO efforts.

Highlights

• Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) is a holistic metric that tries to predict overall ranking potential using over 40 factors, while Ahrefs’s Domain Rating (DR) is a more focused metric that purely measures the strength of a website’s backlink profile
• Despite their widespread use, some studies show that both metrics are surprisingly poor predictors of actual Google rankings, explaining only a small fraction of ranking variance
• Industry research reveals that both DA and DR can be artificially inflated for as little as $15, raising serious questions about their reliability as standalone metrics
• Many technical SEO professionals prefer Ahrefs DR due to its transparent, backlink-focused methodology and much more frequent data updates
• Emerging AI-powered search engines show a significantly stronger preference for high-authority domains than traditional search

What is Moz’s domain authority (DA)?

Let’s start with the original player in the game: Moz’s Domain Authority, or DA. Moz developed this score to predict how likely it is for a website to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s a predictive metric designed to forecast performance, not measure it in real-time.

Think of it as a holistic health score for your website’s ranking potential.

The score runs on a 100-point logarithmic scale. This logarithmic nature is key—it means it’s exponentially harder to grow your score from a DA 70 to a DA 71 than it is to go from a DA 20 to a DA 21.

(Image source)

Only a handful of sites like Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia ever approach the high 90s.

How Moz’s domain authority is calculated: A look at linking root domains and content quality

So, what’s under the hood?

Moz’s DA 2.0 isn’t just about backlinks. It employs a sophisticated neural network architecture—a machine learning model—that weighs over 40 different ranking signals to come up with its final score.

While the number of linking root domains and the total quantity of backlinks are major components, the algorithm also considers:

• Complex link distribution patterns
• Content quality indicators
• Social signals
• Spam scores

What is Ahrefs’s domain rating (DR)?

Now, let’s turn to Ahrefs’s Domain Rating, or DR. Where Moz Domain Authority tries to be a jack-of-all-trades, Ahrefs DR is a master of one. DR’s sole purpose is to measure the strength and popularity of a website’s backlink profile.

(Image source)

It doesn’t concern itself with on-page SEO, content quality, or website age. It’s a pure, unadulterated measure of your site’s link equity. Like DA, it also uses a 0 to 100 logarithmic scale, so every point you gain at the higher levels represents a large leap in profile strength.

This focused approach is why many in the technical SEO field gravitate toward DR over DA.

The mechanics of Ahrefs DR calculation: the importance of referring domains

Ahrefs takes a fundamentally different, and arguably more transparent, approach to its calculation. The entire system is based on a domain-level PageRank calculation, focusing exclusively on the “link graph” of the web.

Here’s a simplified breakdown of the process:

1. Ahrefs identifies all domains that have at least one “followed” link pointing to any website
2. Calculates the DR of each of those linking domains
3. And then passes “DR juice” from one site to another

A key rule is link dilution: the more unique domains a website links out to, the less authority each of those links passes.

Essentially, DR is determined by the number and quality of referring domains linking to you. Crucially, multiple links from the same domain won’t increase your DR, and any links marked as “nofollow” contribute zero value to your score.

Moz domain authority vs Ahrefs domain rating: Key differences

This is where the real Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR debate gets interesting. The two popular link-building metrics may look similar on the surface—both on a 100-point scale—but they are built on competing philosophies and have profound practical differences.

Here is a summary of the key differences:

Let’s go deeper into each difference.

Core philosophy: Holistic ranking prediction vs. pure backlink analysis

The most significant difference lies in their purpose.

• Moz DA is trying to be a predictor of overall ranking potential. It’s a complex, multi-factor score that looks beyond just links to include signals like content quality and spam detection.
• Ahrefs Domain Rating, on the other hand, makes no attempt to predict rankings. It has one job: to quantify the strength of a website’s backlink profile. It’s a pure measurement of link equity, making it a more direct but narrower metric.

Update frequency and data freshness

In today’s fast-paced SEO environment, data freshness matters. Ahrefs has a clear advantage here. Ahrefs DR scores are updated every 12 hours, giving you a near real-time view of your backlink profile.

Moz DA, by contrast, is updated on a monthly basis. This means your DA score could be weeks out of date, failing to reflect recent link-building wins or losses. For agencies and SEOs who need to react quickly to changes in a competitive landscape, Domain Rating’s frequency is a major selling point.

Spam handling and manipulation: Proactive detection vs. market vulnerability

Here, Moz takes the lead. It explicitly trains its machine learning model to identify spam and link manipulation by analyzing both good and bad examples. Ahrefs doesn’t.

However, neither metric is foolproof.

A 2023–2024 study by Xamsor found that both Domain Authority and Domain Rating can be artificially inflated for as little as $15–$100 in just a few months.

(Image source)

If that sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. These shortcuts use unsustainable black-hat SEO tactics that are almost sure to get your entire site penalized for link spam policy violations (unnatural links). While they may lead to a momentary boost in organic traffic, Google is sure to catch on quickly.

This is why you should only put your faith in advanced SEO services for legit white-hat SEO that will stand the test of time.

Score distribution and logarithmic difficulty: What it truly takes to climb

Both scales are logarithmic, but the distribution of scores reveals just how hard it is to reach the top. The difficulty curve is steep and gets steeper as you climb.

The gap between DA 70 and 71 requires exponentially more authority signals than the gap between DA 20 and 21. According to Moz, only three websites have a DA of 100, and only 80 have a DA of 95 or more. And the distribution of the number of websites per DA score decays almost perfectly exponentially, as this graph shows.

(Image provided by author)

Ahrefs DR shows a similar power-law distribution. This isn’t particularly surprising, considering that a joint study between the Universitat Pompeu Fabra of Spain and the Universidad de Chile showed that not just DA and DR, but also Semrush’s Authority Score (AS) are strongly correlated with each other.

This data provides a stark, concrete illustration of the immense effort required for even marginal gains at the higher end of the scale, whichever that scale might be (DA, DR, or AS).

Predictive power: Effectiveness as a proxy for SERP ranking potential

This is the elephant in the room. For all our obsession with these scores, how well do they actually predict rankings? The answer, according to multiple studies, is not very well.

A comprehensive 2022 research study by Onely found that both metrics have a surprisingly weak correlation with Google rankings. The study found a correlation coefficient of just:

• 0.16 for DA
• 0.14 for DR

Both are considered statistically weak. It goes to show that the much higher complexity of DA calculation only barely manages to improve correlation compared to DR.

However, that’s not the final word on the matter.

A recent analysis from Backlinko examined first-page rankings for almost 12 million Google searches and looked at the distribution of DR values and backlinks of the top 10 results. They found a clear correlation between DR and higher first-page rankings.

(Image source)

The data shows that domain-level authority correlates more strongly than page-level metrics(page authority). The study also confirmed that the number of backlinks was an important contributing factor. According to the authors, “…the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10.“

The tools behind the metrics

Ahrefs excels in advanced backlink data with the industry’s most comprehensive database and active web crawler, catering to enterprise clients and SEO professionals. Moz, conversely, offers an accessible, education-focused platform with a user-friendly interface ideal for beginners and small businesses, supported by extensive educational resources.

For free access, Moz is more generous, providing 1,000 free DA checks monthly via the MozBar extension and 10 free queries with its Link Explorer. Ahrefs’s free tools are more restrictive, often requiring domain verification for meaningful analysis.

If they don’t predict rankings well, why should we even care about Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR?

This is a fair question, and I get it all the time.

If research shows these metrics are weak predictors of ranking, why do we, as an industry, obsess over them? Why do so many link-building campaigns use a “DR 50+” filter?

There are more than a couple of strong reasons why.

• DA/DR are the best proxies for real authority: They estimate Google’s hidden PageRank, acting as a standardized “FICO score of the web” for link-based authority and ranking ability.
• Bedrock of link-building economics: These metrics quantify a link’s quality, aiding in valuing link investments and ensuring a high probability of significant value transfer.
• Measure of potential, not guaranteed performance: A high DR indicates a powerful backlink profile and immense ranking potential, representing accumulated trust.
• Standardized “common currency” for comparison: DA and DR provide a simple way to gauge competitive landscapes and the authority gap between sites.

The impact of AI search engines on the importance of domain authority

Just as we were starting to question the relevance of these metrics, the rise of AI-powered search (e.g., answer engines, generative engines, and large language models) is making them more important than ever. 

Recent research reveals that AI search platforms like Google’s AI Overviews and Perplexity demonstrate a significantly stronger preference for established, authoritative domains than traditional search engines do.

A 2025 Ahrefs study found that the top 3 domains cited in AI Overviews account for a large portion of all citations.

(Image source)

Wikipedia, a titan of authority, absolutely dominates, representing 16.3% of ChatGPT citations and 12.5% of Perplexity citations. Q&A forums like Reddit and Quora are also prominent.

As AI continues to reshape the SERPs, a strong foundation of domain authority may become a critical factor for visibility.

Bonus Reading: Check out our blog to learn more about Answer Engine Optimization AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and Large Language Model Optimization (LLMO).

The final verdict: Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR—which should you choose?

After breaking it all down, where do we land in the Moz DA vs Ahrefs DR showdown?

The truth is, there’s no single winner. The “better” metric depends entirely on your specific goals and context.

Why technical SEO professionals prefer Ahrefs DR

There’s a clear and growing preference for Domain Rating among experienced, technical SEOs. Why?

• Its transparent methodology is focused purely on high-quality backlinks
• Its frequent updates provide fresher, more actionable data

 For professionals who live and breathe backlink analysis, DR offers a clearer, more direct signal.

When Moz’s domain authority is the better choice

So, is DA obsolete? Not at all.

Domain Authority still holds a valuable place in the SEO toolkit. Its holistic, all-in-one score is often much easier for non-technical stakeholders and clients to understand, making it an excellent metric for reporting.

Coupled with Moz’s user-friendly platform and more affordable price point, DA is a fantastic starting point for those new to SEO or for teams that need a high-level, easy-to-digest measure of website authority.

Beyond the metrics

The key insight in the great DA vs. DR debate is this: neither metric should drive your SEO strategy, but both can—and should—inform it.

They’re best used not as optimization targets in themselves, but as powerful comparative tools for benchmarking, competitor analysis, and strategic planning.

The future of search, whether driven by traditional algorithms or AI, belongs to strategies that build genuine topical authority through exceptional content and authentic relationships. That’s a kind of authority that no logarithmic scale can ever fully capture.

Ready to build real authority that goes beyond the metrics?

At uSERP, we specialize in high-authority link building and digital PR that earns you the kind of backlinks that not only boost your scores but drive meaningful results.Check out our case studies to see how we’ve helped SaaS leaders dominate the SERPs, or book a call now to get started.