Imagine: You just started your website and someone says, “What’s your DR and UR?” You freeze. Sound familiar? Not to worry — been there. When I began this digital journey I felt like I was talking in a foreign tongue.
Let me simplify it for you as much as I would if I were explaining to a friend over coffee.
What Are DR and UR Anyway?
Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR) These are metrics created by Ahrefs, one of the well known SEO tools out there. Consider them a report card for your site, which will help search engines determine if the webpages are relevant to what the user is searching for.
DR (Domain rating): Its the strength of backlinks of your entire website or all the pages of your main domain.
UR (URL Rating): Indicates the strength of the backlink profile of a particular page
Think of your website itself as a school. DR would be whole school reputation and UR would be individual classroom reputation within that school.
Understanding the Numbers: What’s Actually Good?
Now, ab sochiye— what constitutes a good score? And here’s the reality check most people won’t give you:
DR Benchmarks:
- 0-10: New sites (everyone begins here!)
- 10-20: Sites that have already grown somewhat in size and authority
- 20-40: Average websites with some authority established
- 40-60: Good sites with strong domain authority
- 60-80: Very authoritative websites
- 80-100: Industry titans (Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc etc)
UR Benchmarks:
- 0-10: New or very low authority pages.
- 10-30: General pages and some deep backlinks
- 30-50: Well-optimized pages and quality backlinks
- 50-70: High-authority pages
- 70-100: Outstanding, very authoritative pages
Everything on the fly But here’s the deal – you aapko lagta hoga you need sky-high numbers NOW. That’s not realistic or necessary.
What’s Actually “Good” for Your Website?
I’ll tell you a story that completely altered the way I look at that. I remember one time working with a nearby bakery that has a DR of 15. But they were ranking #1 for “best cupcakes in downtown” and bringing in more customers than their DR 35 competitor.
The lesson? Context is more important than the number
For New Websites (0-6 months):
- DR 5-15 is perfectly normal
- UR 10-25 for your top level pages is reasonable
- Start with quality content It is better to have good content than not to have content at all.
For Websites with Content (1-2 years):
- Dr 15-30 is developing well
- UR 20-40 for cornerstone indicates you’re on the right track for the key pages
- Start building strategic partnerships
For Old websites (2+ Months):
- DR 30+ makes you consistently in the hunt competitive
- UR 30-50+ (for money pages) is good
- Time to consider industry leadership
The Real Truth about “Good” DR & UR
But here’s something that most SEOs won’t tell you: Good is relative to your industry and competition.
A small restaurant with DR 20 might completely dominate its local market, and a tech-oriented e-commerce site may find itself being outclassed by a competitor of DR 40. It’s like comparing apples to oranges -they’re both fruits but different properties.
Industry-Specific Expectations:
- Local businesses: DR 10-25 does the trick most of the time
- Ecommerce sites: DR 20-40 and you can compete
- Content blogs: DR 25-50 opens things up
- SaaS companies: DR 30-60 is credible
How To Realistically Improve Your DR And UR
Maybe these make your work easier — here’s how things people really do get done:
For Improving DR:
- Create content you can earn links to (infographics, studies, tools).
- Guest posting to related, quality sites
- Networking with other website owners
- Fix your technical SEO (broken links can be damaging to your scores)
- Be patient – DR doesn’t grow fast but it keeps growing
For Improving UR:
Internal Linking from high-DR pages to target pages
Acquiring particular backlinks and pointing these at specific pages
Optimizing content for user engagement
Creating cluster content for your pillar pages
Common Mistakes to Avoid
I remember when I used to make these rookie mistakes. Learn from my experience:
Never blindly chase numbers – Relevance is the key.
Don’t purchase fake backlinks – it will hurt you in the long run
Don’t pay attention to your competition – learn from what is working for them
Don’t freak out about day-to-day changes — the change in most of the metrics is slow to update
NowTrack Tools to Monitor Your Progress
You try it now:
Ahrefs: by far the most accurate for DR/UR (paid)
SEMrush: Great option with Domain Authority Score
Moz: Relies on Domain Authority (DA) rather than DR
Free equivalents:Try Ahrefs’ free website authority checkerDofollow And Nofollow links \(can take sometime to appear\)What do the icons mean?
The bottom line: what should you actually shoot for?
Here’s my takeaway after working with hundreds of websites:Strive for steady, consistent growth instead of arbitrary numbers.
A website that starts at DR of 5 and grows to a DR of 20 in 12 months is far more valuable than one that stays at a DR of 35 for 36 months. It demonstrates momentum, good content, and decent SEO practices.
My Recommended Targets:
Month1-6: DR 5-10 (lay some groundwork)
6-12 months: DR 10-20 (steady growth)
Year 2: DR 20-30+ (building prominence)
Year 3+: DR 30+ (recognized in the industry)
The Action You Can Take Get vaccinated.
Please don’t just read — and forget — about this. Here’s what you need to knowhave done today:
- Get Your Current DR and UR by using Free Tools of Ahrefs
- Investigate the scores your top 5 competitors enjoy
- Set realistic 6-month improvement goals
- Focus on one piece of linkable content this month
- Begin to form REAL relationships in your industry
Good DR and UR scores are not “colors” to be achieved, but simply mile markers along the road of creating a trusted, authoritative website which genuinely supports your audience and business goals.
What’s your website’s current DR? More importantly, what’s your strategic plan to make it better? The numbers do matter, but the strategy behind the numbers matters even more.