The various Ahrefs metrics are a topic that beginners in particular have problems with. However, terms such as domain rating, referring domains and traffic are not as complicated as they may seem at first glance.
Domain Rating (DR for short)
The Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of the backlink profile on a scale from 0 to 100. The purpose of this is that the relative link popularity can be evaluated, but this is only an internal metric. This hardly plays a role for Google, so there have already been statements in which domain-wide link metrics have been disputed. However, DR is a useful metric for anyone in search engine optimization to assess the potential or strength of a website. This could then be used to determine the potential resulting traffic. In fact, studies by Ahrefs found a correlation in relation to this – websites with a DR of over 90 had the highest rankings.
Referring Domains
Referring domains are “referring domains” – i.e. the number of websites that link to your own website. The value can be determined in the Ahrefs Site Explorer. Ahrefs also displays historical data, as well as theanchor text, context and the possible influence of the link, including the link attribute. This data is included in the domain rating, whereby only “DoFollow” links are taken into account. Links with attributes such as sponsored, nofollow and UGC are not included.
Traffic
Traffic is determined by Ahrefs on the basis of rankings and their search volume, although in reality there may well be deviations. However, traffic is still a metric that is taken into account in link building, as a page with a lot of traffic makes much more sense here. At Ahrefs, this is declared as “organic traffic”. This means that it is exclusively traffic from the search engine. Traffic from social media or direct traffic is not taken into account.
