Why your site Domain Rating is low – and how to fix it
I get it—trying to rank for competitive keywords without a solid Domain Rating (DR) can feel like an uphill battle.
Your traffic stays low, and it feels like the competition just keeps pulling ahead.
But here’s the good news: boosting your Domain Rating doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems.
With the right moves, you can start climbing those search rankings and see more organic visitors.
So, what’s the deal with Domain Rating, and why should you care?
Domain Rating is your backlink quality
Domain Rating is a score that ranges from 0 to 100, showing how strong your website's backlinks are. Basically, the more high-quality sites that link to you, the higher your DR.
Why does it matter? A higher DR means search engines see your site as more trustworthy, which helps you rank better.
Want to check how your site stacks up? You can use the Ahrefs Domain Rating Checker to see your DR and backlinks.
So, what does Domain Rating actually impact?
A higher DR generally means better search engine rankings. Why? Because strong backlinks—those from trusted, authoritative websites—tell search engines that your site is legit and worth ranking.
The stronger your backlinks (higher DR), the more likely you are to rank for competitive keywords. This, in turn, boosts your organic traffic and helps you get ahead of the competition.
Fast and easy way to boost Domain Rating
If you want to increase your DR, you’ve got to get strong backlinks.
The traditional route to getting backlinks involves creating standout content, data, or articles. You then pitch this content to website owners or writers, hoping they’ll link back to you. But here's the catch—sometimes they decline, and some sites will even ask for payment, which can range from $200 to much higher depending on the niche.
This process can take weeks, cost a lot of money, and demand a ton of your time and energy to get just one backlink.
Domains with strong backlinks
But here’s a quicker, less painful option: buy dropped domains from related niches.
Here’s the trick: you purchase domains that already have strong backlinks and redirect them to your site. All those backlinks pointing to the dropped domain automatically redirect to your site, which helps boost your Domain Rating.
To find these domains, use drop platforms. I personally use GoneDomains—it has a filter for Domain Rating so you can quickly find domains with high DR in your niche.
Once you’ve found a good domain, you can check its backlinks using the Ahrefs Domain Rating Checker. After that, you can buy the domain from any registrar (I prefer NameCheap) and set up a 301 redirect to your main domain.
Tips for maximizing your DR boost
- Stick to domains from your niche (or at least a closely related one). Random backlinks from unrelated sites won’t do you any favors.
- If your site is about development, it’ll look weird (and maybe even suspicious) if you’re getting backlinks from cooking or pet websites. Keep it relevant—that’s how you boost DR without raising red flags.
- Check the domain's backlinks for any associations with scams, adult content, casinos, or illegal links before purchasing.
- Set up redirects not only to the main page but also to other internal pages. For example, if you have an article on your blog titled “The Best 10 Tools to Create a Website,” it would be great to find a dropped domain with backlinks related to web studios or web constructors and set up a redirect from it to that article. This way all domain backlinks are linking to the article page. It gives Google a signal that to your article linking a lot of pages. It also speeding up index of your site pages.
- Don’t buy a large number of domains with backlinks all at once. Take it slow. It should look like a natural growth, without a sharp spike.