Ahrefs DR4: What Changes on December 1

Ahrefs DR4 is the next Domain Rating model. Ahrefs published the preview on 5 November 2026 and will put the new scores in the main UI on 1 December 2026. Until then, Site Explorer still shows DR3. If you searched Ahrefs DR4, Ahrefs Domain Rating 4, or DR4 vs DR3, this page is the founder version of that announcement: what changed, how to check your score now, and what it means for dofollow backlinks and directory submissions.

Every number below comes from Ahrefs' DR4 post. We are not guessing a formula. We are translating it for people who actually buy, earn, and verify links.

TL;DR

• Ahrefs DR4 scores each host on its own merits. help.ahrefs.com is DR 75. ahrefs.com stays DR 92. Subdomains no longer inherit the root.
• The pool of domains that can move someone else's DR is about half the old pool - roughly 132 million hosts. Ahrefs now weights links from sites (and subdomains) it estimates have organic search traffic.
• Across 10 million hosts, DR4's correlation with top-3 and top-10 Google rankings is more than 2.5x stronger than DR3. Root-only correlation is a bit weaker. That is the point: DR3 was built around roots.
• Spam domains that sat at DR3 30-70 drop a median 15-20 points. Non-spam medians stay near zero.
• A lower DR4 is not a content grade. It is a relative, logarithmic backlink-profile score.
• Check DR3 vs DR4 on the Ahrefs DR checker before 1 December. Then re-check the exact host that will link to you, not the parent brand.

What is Ahrefs DR4?

Domain Rating is Ahrefs' 0-100 score for the strength of a backlink profile versus other sites in their database. It is link-based. It does not score content quality, domain age, or whether your product is good.

DR4 is the fourth model. Two design changes sit under the new number:

1. A smaller, higher-quality pool of domains is allowed to influence other sites' scores.
2. Subdomains get their own rating instead of borrowing the root domain's DR.

Ahrefs spent weeks on the data, asked a small group of SEOs, and opened a short feedback window with the preview. The official write-up is the source. This article is what to do with it if you launch products and care that links show up in Site Explorer.

DR is still relative and logarithmic. Moving 84 to 85 is harder than moving 54 to 55. A two-point drop on a strong site is not the same event as a 30-point drop on a free-hosting subdomain.

The two changes that actually matter

1. Subdomains get their own Domain Rating

If you have ever sorted an Ahrefs backlink report by Domain Rating, you have seen the mess: GitHub Pages sites, Blogspot blogs, and builder-hosted subdomains sitting near the top because they inherited a famous root.

DR4 stops that. The subdomain is scored from links that point at that host, not from the parent company's homepage.

Ahrefs' own examples:

A real help centre on a strong brand still has a real score. A random notion.site or hostingersite.com tenant does not get to wear DR 92 because the platform does.

There were a few exceptions that already had separate subdomain scores. DR4 rolls the rule out much further.

Founder translation: when you inspect a "DR 80 directory," open the listing URL. If the outbound href lives on blog.thedirectory.com or sites.thedirectory.com, that host now has its own DR. The root's number is the wrong input.

2. The pool of domains that can move DR is about half

Ahrefs has always said DR is a link metric. DR4 still uses links. The change is which links get to vote.

They now put more weight on links from sites and subdomains they estimate have organic search traffic. Result: the number of sites that receive a DR4 score is about half the DR3 set, and a smaller set can influence other sites. Ahrefs describes that pool as roughly 132 million domains.

That is why a lot of mid-tier spam and parked inventory will look weaker, and why a quiet-but-real site with traffic-bearing referrers can hold or gain.

Key point: DR4 is not "Google's new ranking factor." It is Ahrefs' cleaner estimate of backlink-profile strength. Google never used Ahrefs DR. Founders use DR to sort targets and to sanity-check whether a listing is worth an afternoon.

DR4 vs DR3: the ranking correlation

Ahrefs compared both models to Google ranking positions across 10 million domains and hosts.

Read it the way they wrote it:

• All hosts - DR4 is more than 2.5x stronger. That is the headline.
• Roots only - DR3 still correlates better. DR3 was built around roots.
• Subdomains - DR4 wins, because those hosts are no longer wearing a borrowed score.

If your job is "pick a referring host," DR4 is the better sort key. If your job was "sort by the company's homepage DR," DR3 flattered a lot of weak subdomains.

Spam domains drop

Ahrefs added a Spam label on backlink reports in 2025 from a manual list, then moved to a machine-learning detector in January 2026. Those domains are already excluded from "new link" emails and are easy to filter.

Under DR4, spam domains that sat at DR3 30-70 see the largest drops - median about 15-20 points. Non-spam domains stay relatively stable. Median DR4 change is close to zero across most DR3 bands.

That is good news if you have been ignoring DR 40 farms. It is bad news if your "link strategy" was a spreadsheet of those farms.

How to stay on the useful side of that cut: earn real hrefs on indexed pages. The checklist is dofollow backlinks Ahrefs can see. Blast SEO submission software is how you collect the links DR4 just discounted.

What happens to high-traffic domains

Using AhrefsTop (their organic-traffic ranking of sites), Ahrefs compared DR4 vs DR3 for the top 1,000:

• 64.3% saw DR grow
• 15.8% stayed the same
• 19.9% decreased

The decreases were small: average 7.3 points, median 4.

The loud exception is github.io - about a 32-point drop - because it is the free GitHub Pages host, not github.com. Individual project hosts can still be strong. Ahrefs' example: facebook.github.io stays around DR 86.

Their SaaS snapshot is the same story at a smaller scale: Monday.com 91 to 90, Zoho down one point to 91, Teamwork.com stays 82, Airtable ticks up to 92. If you report DR to a client or an investor, show your number next to two competitors. A one-point move in isolation is noise.

A lower DR4 is not a judgment

Ahrefs is explicit: a lower Domain Rating is not a verdict on your content, your impact, or whether you "did something wrong." It means their model does not see enough quality links (as DR4 defines quality) to keep you at the old height.

Do this instead of rewriting the homepage in a panic:

1. Open your backlink profile. Look at referring hosts, not a vibes dashboard.
2. Check the closest competitors. They may have moved the same way.
3. Remember the scale is logarithmic and relative to the whole database.
4. If the drop is a hosted subdomain (*.github.io, *.notion.site, *.hostingersite.com), the old number was the platform's score. You never owned it.

Then fix the boring things that decide whether new links can help: one canonical host, no accidental noindex, a sitemap Search Console can fetch. SEO It Is will flag the usual breakage. Robots tester and sitemap checker cover the two files people break the week they wanted backlinks.

How to check your Ahrefs DR4 score before December 1

The Ahrefs UI stays on DR3 until 1 December. After launch they will keep DR3 available on the API for a short window so you can compare.

You can preview now:

1. On ScrollLaunch - paste a host into the Ahrefs DR checker. It returns DR3 and DR4 side by side (Domain Rating by Ahrefs). Use it for your site and for any directory you are about to submit to.
2. Ahrefs' free Domain Rating API - same endpoint as today, add version=dr4. Default without the parameter is still DR3. Documented on the public Domain Rating API. The free API is the one that crossed 10 million daily requests; you need a free APIv3 key, not a paid Ahrefs seat.
3. Glen Allsopp's demo - detailed.com/dr-v4 lets you search a domain or subdomain and see sample changes.

Check more than the apex domain. If users hit docs.yoursite.com or you publish on blog.yoursite.com, those hosts now have their own scores.

# DR3 (current UI default)
GET /v3/public/domain-rating-free?target=example.com&output=json

# DR4 preview
GET /v3/public/domain-rating-free?target=example.com&output=json&version=dr4

After 1 December, treat DR4 as the number in the product. Do not mix a December DR4 with a November DR3 in the same spreadsheet and call it a trend.

What DR4 means if you earn dofollow backlinks

DR4 does not change HTML. A link still has to be:

1. Fetchable by a crawler (AhrefsBot included)
2. A real <a href>
3. Dofollow if you want equity
4. Aimed at the canonical host you watch in Site Explorer

That list is unchanged. See dofollow backlinks Ahrefs can see. What does change is how much the linking host is worth in the index you use to pick targets.

Practical effects:

• Root-domain listings stay the useful ones. A dofollow from directory.com/startup/you is still a link from directory.com. A dofollow from a user subdomain on a website builder is no longer dressed up as DR 90.
• Quality of the referrer matters more. DR4 weights hosts that look like they have organic traffic. Thin networks lose voting power. That is why we sort the directories archive by live Ahrefs DR and tell you to cap the first sitting at 10-15 Free + Dofollow rows - not 200 farms.
• Your own hosted site may "lose" DR you never earned. If the marketing site is yourapp.github.io or a Notion public site, DR4 is telling you the truth. Move to a host you control before you spend a month on listings. A weekend site on SuperFast is cheaper than explaining a 30-point "drop" that was never yours.

How we apply the same rule on ScrollLaunch:

• One canonical outbound dofollow per launch, on /products/[slug] (Premium always; free while a real badge or product-page link stays on your site). Pricing.
• Homepage cards and archive rows stay nofollow ugc so we do not split equity.
• AhrefsBot is allowed in robots.txt. If the bot that fills Site Explorer cannot see the link we promised, the listing is a screenshot, not a backlink.

DR4 makes that concentration more important, not less. A smaller voting pool means you want the one link we give you to come from this root, not from five nofollow feed cards.

What DR4 means for directory submissions

Use DR to rank the queue, not to worship a single number.

Re-run the DR leaderboard after 1 December. Some rows will move. Spam-adjacent "DR 45" targets are the ones most likely to fall into the teens. The best SaaS directories process stays the same: dofollow first, Free before paid, stop at 10-15 until they index.

If you are still at zero referring domains, start with how to get backlinks for a new website. DR4 does not create first links. It changes how the ones you already have are scored.

The hosted-subdomain trap

This is the row founders will misread.

github.io drops about 32 points as a platform. Your project on you.github.io is a different host. It might be high (if the world already links to that exact subdomain) or near zero (if the only "DR" you ever had was borrowed).

Same pattern for *.notion.site and *.hostingersite.com in Ahrefs' table: DR3 looked like 92 because the platform is strong. DR4 prints 0 or 1.9 for the example tenants.

Do not buy links to a host you plan to abandon. Put the canonical site on a real domain, 301 the preview, then submit directories. New-site process: backlinks for a new website.

What does not change on 1 December

• Google's ranking systems. DR is an Ahrefs metric.
• Whether a link is dofollow. That is still rel on a specific href.
• Whether Ahrefs can see the link. That is still crawl + index + real HTML.
• ScrollLaunch's outbound rules. Product page dofollow, other live surfaces nofollow, AhrefsBot allowed.
• The fact that DR is a sort key for directories, not a promise that one listing will move a keyword.

If you report these numbers, Ahrefs' advice is the right one: show a few sites, not one screenshot.

What to do before December 1

1. Score yourself. Check DR3 vs DR4 for the host in Site Explorer and for every subdomain that already has links.
2. Score your queue. Run the same check on the next 15 directories. Drop anything whose listing host collapses, or whose rel is nofollow.
3. Freeze the destination. One HTTPS host. Sitemap in GSC and Bing. No noindex on the marketing site.
4. Keep one canonical dofollow you control. Launch on ScrollLaunch if you do not already have /products/[slug]. Embed the badge on free so that link stays dofollow.
5. Do not "fix" a three-point drop with a PBN. DR4 just reduced the voting power of that neighbourhood.
6. If you report DR to anyone, add a footnote: "Ahrefs Domain Rating model changes 1 December 2026 (DR4). Compare competitors on the same date."

Ahrefs is collecting preview feedback while the UI is still on DR3. If you have a genuine data bug (not "I liked the old number"), use the form they linked from the DR4 announcement.

Key takeaways

• Ahrefs DR4 is a new Domain Rating model: subdomain-level scores and a smaller, traffic-weighted voting pool (~132M hosts).
• It goes live in the Ahrefs UI on 1 December 2026. Preview it now with version=dr4 or the DR checker.
• Correlation with Google rankings across all hosts is more than 2.5x stronger. Root-only series will look different. That is expected.
• Spam DR3 30-70 drops a median 15-20 points. Non-spam medians stay flat.
• A lower score is not a content verdict. Hosted subdomains that inherited a platform DR were never your authority.
• Pick backlink targets by the listing host, rel, and indexation - then verify in Site Explorer after 1-3 weeks.

Next: check DR3 vs DR4, then submit a launch or work Free + Dofollow.

Related guides

• Dofollow Backlinks Ahrefs Can See - href, indexation, and rel (unchanged by DR4)
• How to Get Backlinks for a New Website (2026) - first links when the profile is empty
• Best SaaS Directories to Submit (2026) - how to pick rows after you have a DR
• Free SEO Submission in 2026 - why blast tools will look worse under DR4
• How to Promote a SaaS (2026) - where links sit in the weekly loop
• Startup directories · DR leaderboard
• Ahrefs Domain Rating checker · Bulk DR checker
• Glossary: Domain Rating
• ScrollLaunch pricing - Free, Premium ($39)

FAQ

What is Ahrefs DR4?

Ahrefs DR4 is the fourth Domain Rating model. It scores the strength of a site's backlink profile on a 0-100 logarithmic scale, with two changes from DR3: subdomains get their own scores, and a smaller pool of hosts (those Ahrefs estimates have organic traffic) can influence other sites.

When does Ahrefs DR4 go live?

Ahrefs published the preview on 5 November 2026. The free Domain Rating API has accepted version=dr4 since 6 October 2026. The standard Ahrefs UI switches on 1 December 2026. After that, DR3 remains available on the API for a short period so you can compare.

How do I check my Ahrefs DR4 score now?

Use the Ahrefs DR checker (DR3 and DR4 together), add version=dr4 to Ahrefs' free Domain Rating API, or search detailed.com/dr-v4. Check subdomains separately.

Why did my Domain Rating drop in DR4?

Usually one of four things: the old score was inherited from a parent or platform host, some of your referring domains lost voting power, you had spam-neighbourhood links in the 30-70 band, or you are looking at a 1-4 point move that is normal on a logarithmic scale. Ahrefs says a lower DR4 is not a judgment on content quality.

Do subdomains have their own Domain Rating in DR4?

Yes. help.ahrefs.com is 75 while ahrefs.com is 92. GitHub Pages, Notion sites, and other builder subdomains no longer inherit the platform DR. Score the host that actually receives the links.

What is the difference between DR3 and DR4?

DR3 was built around root domains and let a much larger set of hosts influence scores. DR4 scores each host, shrinks the voting pool to about half (~132 million), and correlates more strongly with Google rankings across all hosts. On roots alone, DR3 still shows a higher correlation - that is the old design.

Will spam domains lose Domain Rating in DR4?

Yes, especially spam hosts that sat at DR3 30-70: median drop about 15-20 points. Non-spam domains are mostly stable. Ahrefs already labels many of these Spam in backlink reports.

Does a lower DR4 mean my site got worse?

No. Domain Rating is a relative backlink-profile score. It is not a grade for writing, product, or "authority" in the colloquial sense. Compare competitors on the same model and date.

How does Ahrefs DR4 affect directory backlinks?

The href still has to be dofollow and indexed. The change is the score of the linking host. Recheck listing hosts (not just the brand root) and prefer Free + Dofollow rows that still look strong under DR4. Farms in the old 30-70 spam band are the ones most likely to fall.

Will a ScrollLaunch backlink still show in Ahrefs after DR4?

The mechanics do not change. The product-page outbound link is a real dofollow href (Premium always; free while the badge or product-page link stays on your site), and AhrefsBot is allowed to crawl it. DR4 may change our Domain Rating and therefore how people sort us in a directory list. It does not flip rel or hide the URL.

Should I delay directory submissions until December 1?

No. Submit to hosts you have already view-sourced as dofollow and indexable. Re-sort the queue after 1 December. Waiting a month to "see the new DR" just delays the crawl that puts you in Site Explorer.

Is Domain Rating a Google ranking factor?

No. It is Ahrefs' metric. DR4's stronger correlation with rankings is why the sort key got better - not because Google started reading Ahrefs DR.