My own site sits at DR 2, so when Ahrefs announced a new version of Domain Rating, I did the one thing I could do that most commentators can’t: I re-scored ten domains from my own link-building work and watched which ones moved. This is that, not a feature summary.
Ahrefs DR4 is the new version of Domain Rating, Ahrefs’ 0–100 score for the strength of a site’s backlink profile. Ahrefs says it gives more weight to links from sites that have organic traffic, and gives subdomains their own score. Ahrefs’ own announcement and the Detailed write-up cover the mechanics; I won’t repeat them.
The honest scoreboard: under the DR4 preview, four of my five link prospects still clear my DR 40 bar and one does not. My own site went up slightly, and one site I co-founded went down by a lot, for a reason I can’t explain yet. None of this changes how Google ranks anything.
One disclosure: I co-founded Visibility.so, which is one of the domains in the table below. I have no inside view of how Ahrefs calculates its scores, so I treat that site like any other.
What Ahrefs DR4 Changes, in Three Sentences
Links from sites with real organic traffic count for more. Subdomains are scored on their own, so free-hosting subdomains such as notion.site and hostingersite.com stop borrowing the parent domain’s score and fall to roughly 0–2. Ahrefs also says rated sites roughly halve on average, and that the rollout comes “in the next few weeks”, so it may not be live when you read this.
Our Ten Domains Under DR3 and the DR4 Preview
I read the DR3 values from a fresh Ahrefs lookup on 6 November 2026. The DR4 values are from the preview on Ahrefs’ linked demo page, so treat them as a preview, not final scores. The lookup tool rounds sanjayshankar.me to 2; the demo page showed 1.6 for DR3. I added acowebs.com, acodez.in and wpclerks.com, three more sites from my own circle, after the first seven; the demo page shows whole numbers for them.
| Domain | DR3 (lookup) | DR4 (preview) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| sanjayshankar.me | 2 (1.6 on demo page) | 3.5 | Up about 1.9 |
| visibility.so | 21 | 4.9 | Down 16 |
| coolify.io | 76 | 67 | Down 9 |
| paperclip.ing | 71 | 45 | Down 26 |
| openaiagent.io | 48 | 55 | Up 7 |
| sideprojectors.com | 72 | 69 | Down 3 |
| trylaunch.ai (root domain) | 56 | 23 | Down 33 |
| acowebs.com | 74 | 77 | Up 3 |
| acodez.in | 73 | 78 | Up 5 |
| wpclerks.com | 40 | 62 | Up 22 |
Two things stand out. The big, established prospects mostly fell, while sanjayshankar.me and the three added sites all went up, wpclerks.com by 22. I can’t prove why, and I won’t guess at Ahrefs’ formula. The visibility.so drop from 21 to 4.9 is the one I can’t explain: I haven’t checked which of its referring domains lost weight.
How My DR 40+ Prospect Rule Holds Up Under Ahrefs DR4
My outreach rule is simple: only pursue a site rated DR 40 or higher. Under DR3, all five prospects passed. Under the DR4 preview, coolify.io (67), paperclip.ing (45), openaiagent.io (55) and sideprojectors.com (69) still pass. trylaunch.ai drops to 23 and fails.
The trylaunch.ai reason is a guess: it may be that much of its authority came from links that carry little traffic. I’m flagging that as my guess, not a finding. Note too that I scored the root domain, not the forum section I actually wanted a link from.
The bigger lesson is about thresholds. A fixed cut-off is fragile when the scale itself shifts. If Ahrefs is right that rated sites roughly halve, a DR 40 bar under DR4 is a much stricter filter than DR 40 was under DR3. I’d rather keep the number and add a second test: does the site get organic traffic at all?
What to Do When a Client’s DR Drops
First, don’t panic. DR is Ahrefs’ own measure of a link profile; it is not a Google ranking factor, and a drop in it says nothing by itself about your rankings. If a client’s DR falls after the rollout, I’d work through this in order:
- Check whether every competitor fell too. A site-wide rescale is not a loss.
- Compare Search Console clicks and impressions before and after. Rankings are what matter.
- List the referring domains that carry real organic traffic. Those links are the ones DR4 says it values.
- Check relevance: is the linking page about the same topic as yours?
- Only then ask whether a lost or gained link explains the change.
What I Check Instead of a Single Score
I look at three things beside DR: how many referring domains a prospect has that get traffic, whether the page that would link to me is topically close, and whether the link is likely to stay. A DR number is a shortcut; those three are the actual decision. The same habit applies when a GEO score moves, which I wrote about in GEO visibility score drops.
Quick question: should I change my link-building targets because of DR4? Not yet. Wait for the live scores, then re-run the list once and see who moves across your threshold.
Quick question: is a free subdomain link now worthless? Ahrefs says those subdomains fall to roughly 0–2 under DR4. Worthless for Ahrefs’ score, yes. Whether Google treats them differently is a separate question that nobody here has tested.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Ahrefs DR4?
DR4 is the new version of Ahrefs’ Domain Rating. Ahrefs says it weights links from sites with organic traffic more heavily and scores subdomains separately.
Is DR4 live yet?
When I checked on 6 November 2026, Ahrefs had said the rollout would come in the next few weeks. The figures in this post are from a preview, so check Ahrefs for the current status.
Will my DR drop under DR4?
Ahrefs says rated sites roughly halve on average. In my ten-domain sample, five went down and five went up, and the sample is too small to predict yours.
Is Domain Rating a Google ranking factor?
No. Domain Rating is Ahrefs’ own metric for a backlink profile. Google does not use it, so a DR change alone does not move your rankings.
What DR should a link prospect have?
My rule has been DR 40 or higher. Under the DR4 preview, one of five prospects fell below that line. I now also check whether the site gets organic traffic.
What should I check instead of DR?
Check referring domains that have organic traffic, how closely the linking page matches your topic, and whether the link is likely to last.
What This Data Cannot Tell You
Ten domains is a small sample. The DR4 figures are from Ahrefs’ preview and may change before rollout. I did not read the correlation tables in Ahrefs’ announcement, so I make no claim about how DR4 relates to traffic. I can’t explain the visibility.so drop or the trylaunch.ai drop, and I haven’t tested whether DR4 predicts anything Google does. I’ll add final DR4 values once they are live.
If you want the bigger picture of how I think about visibility beyond a single score, start with what agentic SEO is, then read how to get cited by ChatGPT and how GEO works. More about me is on the about page.
