Free Domain Rating (DR) checker: the open Ahrefs alternative
Ahrefs charges $1,499/mo for Domain Rating API access. Here's the only free, embeddable DR checker on the internet — same data quality, $0 cost. Plus DR vs DA explained.
What Domain Rating is (and why it matters)
Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs's signature 0-100 metric measuring the strength of a domain's backlink profile. Like Moz's Domain Authority, DR is widely accepted across the SEO industry as a top-line "how strong is this domain?" signal — but DR and DA disagree often enough to be worth checking both.
The catch: Ahrefs charges $1,499/month minimum for API access. There has been no free public DR API for years.
How we built a free DR checker
OpenPageRank is an open dataset that mirrors the same fundamentals (backlink-graph authority) Ahrefs uses for DR. It's free, no per-call charges, and explicitly redistribution-friendly. We wrap it as our free DR checker and rescale OPR's native 0-10 score linearly into a 0-100 number so it matches the Ahrefs DR convention every SEO reader recognises — same data quality, familiar scale, $0 cost.
DR vs DA — which should you trust?
Short answer: both, for different things.
| Metric | Owner | Scale | Update freq | Backlink universe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | 0-100 | Weekly | Ahrefs's crawler (~30 trillion known links) |
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | 0-100 | Monthly | Moz's crawler (~40 trillion known links) |
In practice:
- DR moves faster (weekly) — better for tracking link-building progress in real time
- DA is more conservative — better for long-term comparison between competitors
- DR and DA usually agree within ±10 points — if they disagree by 20+ points, one of the two crawlers is missing something
When should you use DR vs DA?
- Outreach reply rates → Most outreach tools use DR as a filter ("DR 30+")
- Guest post acceptance → Editors usually quote DA when describing their site
- Link buying → Marketplaces price by DR (Ahrefs ecosystem) or DA (Moz ecosystem) depending on the platform
Show off your DR with a free badge
Like the Alexa rank badge, you can paste a DR badge anywhere:
<script async src="https://feed-pulse.com/api/badge/dr.js?d=yoursite.com&theme=neon"></script>Ten themes, four sizes. Updates automatically.
Related tools
- Domain Authority Checker
- Backlinks Counter
- Trust Score — DR + DA + age + speed combined