# Free Domain Rating Checker (DR4)

> Check any website's Ahrefs Domain Rating for free and compare DR4 and DR3 side by side. See what DR 20, 40, 60 and 80 mean, and use the free DR4 API.

Canonical: https://shipcircle.dev/tools/domain-rating

Free, no signup. Use it in the browser at [Domain Rating Checker](https://shipcircle.dev/tools/domain-rating).

## How the Domain Rating Checker works

1. Type a domain or paste any URL. We drop the protocol, path and www. A subdomain such as blog.example.com is rated on its own.
2. We ask Ahrefs for the domain's current Domain Rating under both the DR4 and DR3 models.
3. You get both scores side by side, with what they mean. Results are cached for 6 hours.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is a higher DR always better?

A higher DR means a stronger link profile, but it is not a Google ranking factor. Use it to compare sites and to judge the value of a link, not as a goal on its own.

### Why is my DR4 different from my DR3?

DR4 weights links from sites with estimated organic traffic more heavily and reduces the score of spam domains, so most sites move by a few points. A change reflects your backlink profile compared with other sites, not the quality of your content.

### Why does a subdomain have a different score from its root domain?

DR4 rates each subdomain on its own backlinks. DR3 gives subdomains the score of the root domain in most cases, so the two models can differ a lot for sites on platforms like blogspot or github.io.

### How often does Domain Rating change?

Ahrefs updates it continuously as it finds or loses links. This checker caches each result for 6 hours, so a repeat check within that window shows the same number.

### Does the checker cost anything?

No. It is free and needs no signup.

### Where does the data come from?

From the Ahrefs API. Domain Rating by Ahrefs.

## Related

- [On-Page SEO Checker](https://shipcircle.dev/tools/seo-checker)
- [GEO / AI Citation Checker](https://shipcircle.dev/tools/geo-checker)
- [All tools](https://shipcircle.dev/tools)