What is Domain Rating?
Domain Rating is a score from 0 to 100 that Ahrefs gives every website for the strength of its backlink profile: how many other sites link to it, and how strong those linking sites are themselves. Ahrefs compares each site with every other site in its database, so DR is relative, not absolute.
The scale is logarithmic. Going from DR 10 to 20 is far easier than going from 60 to 70, because each step needs many more strong links than the one before.
What is a good DR?
It depends on who you compete with. A local plumber with DR 25 can outrank national directories for searches in its own city, while a national news site needs a much higher score to compete. Check the sites that rank above you for the searches you care about, and compare yourself with them, not with an abstract target.
Is Domain Rating a Google ranking factor?
No. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' own measure; Google doesn't use it. It's useful because links are one of the things Google does look at, so DR is a quick way to compare backlink strength between sites.
Domain Rating vs. Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is a similar 1 to 100 score from Moz. The two companies crawl the web separately and calculate their scores differently, so the same site usually has different DR and DA numbers. Compare sites using one score or the other, never a mix.
How do you raise DR?
By earning links from sites that have strong links of their own: original research other sites cite, tools people use, and coverage in publications in your field. Buying links breaks Google's spam policies and can cost you rankings, whatever it does to a third-party score.