How to Increase Domain Rating of Your Website in Just 30 Days: A Guide for Startups and SMBs

Reviewed by Nikhil Choudhary, SEO Specialist, Content Whale

Here is how to increase DR, according to Ahrefs: get followed links from many domains; prefer the higher DR domains. According to Ahrefs, DR is “completely based on links” and “logarithmic,” which means it takes an increasingly larger effort to move from one value to another (Ahrefs). Our own DR went from 26 to 41 in 30 days.

DR is not a Google metric at all. Ahrefs says that Google ranks pages and not websites, and the relation between DR and search traffic is high enough to use DR as a measure of success in link building efforts.

This guide will explain what DR measures, the tactics that moved our number, and the risks to avoid.

Understanding the Basics of Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO builds links and mentions from other websites to your site. DR summarizes the link part of that work, and links are only one of many inputs to how Google ranks a page.

How to Increase Domain Rating in Ahrefs: What Counts

Increasing the domain rating Ahrefs displays comes down to five rules.

• Ahrefs is able to identify all domains that have even one link leading to your website.
• The DR juice that each linking domain passes on is nearly equal to its own DR divided by the number of domains it links to.
• Nofollow links do not increase DR.
• The second link from the same domain will contribute nothing to DR.
• DR does not exclude spammy links, so a high number of low-quality links could increase DR.

Since the juice splits across every domain a site links to, a link from a high-DR site that links out to thousands of domains passes less than that site’s DR suggests. Check how many sites a publisher links to before you chase its name.

How Featured.com Helped Us Increase DR of Our Website?

We began with the Featured free plan, which offers a maximum of three free answers per month, then switched to their premium plan.

Make sure to check out the latest price before subscribing.

The answering of questions by journalists got us linked to from publications, and links build up the Ahrefs DR score. The Ahrefs dashboard indicated a 15-point boost in DR, equating to a 58% increase over the same period.

Multiple strategies were run simultaneously. We can’t quantify the contribution of the Featured answers alone. Open each placement and read its link attribute, because a nofollow link will not raise DR.

How to Increase DR of a Website Using Press Releases and Media Outreach?

Media outreach involves pitching to editors of relevant publications in order to get a guest or sponsored article with a link. This is a tactic that works and is the most risky among all those discussed in this guide.

Google’s policies on spamming include purchasing or selling of links in order to increase rankings, advertorials where paid-for links provide ranking benefit, and links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, and press releases published elsewhere. It indicates that links tagged rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” are not considered link spam.(Google spam policies)

Label every paid placement with rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”, and expect a nofollow label to add no DR, because Ahrefs excludes nofollow links from the count. Use press releases for real news, and keep the anchor text natural.

Do not pick outlets by DR alone. Check how many domains each one links to, since the juice splits across them.

The Power of Content Platforms: Medium and LinkedIn

We have been posting original and syndicated articles on Medium and LinkedIn, and have set the canonical URL to the original page on the Medium copies so that the original page remains the canonical one, which allows the search engine to know which article is the canonical one. None of the sources we have seen indicate a DR increase because of these articles. Treat them as outreach channels.

LinkedIn articles do not let you set a canonical tag, as RightBlogger explains, so on LinkedIn post a short summary with a link to the original instead of the full article.

Measuring Success: From DR 26 to 41

Our Ahrefs dashboard showed DR rising from 26 to 41 in about 30 days. Treat that figure as company-reported. The table compares the tactics by what Ahrefs counts and what Google says about the risk.

DR can move much further on a longer plan. On our DianaHR case study, we published 160 posts in under six months, and the site earned about 1,500 backlinks from 345 referring domains while DR rose from 19 to 38.

Track website DR monthly, track referring domains, and track organic clicks in Search Console, because DR alone does not show whether the links bring visitors. Pair link building with the on-page work in our best SEO practices for 2026 guide.

Links also matter for AI search, because AI Overviews mostly cite pages that already rank. Ahrefs found that 38% of AI Overview citations come from the top 10 results, and in our October 2026 review of 44 pages cited in AI Overviews for 12 B2B buyer searches, 73% ranked in the top 10.

Key Takeaways for CEOs and Marketing Managers

• Off-page SEO increases website DR.
• Raise Ahrefs DR using links from various websites, and examine each link’s attribute before counting.
• Add rel nofollow or rel sponsored attribute to paid links, and do not expect any increase in DR from nofollow links, as the score is based on followed links from unique domains.
• Monitor DR, referring domains, and organic clicks.

AI’s Role in the Increased DR of Our Website

We used AI for research, outlines, and first drafts of expert answers, and an editor reviewed every answer before it went to a journalist. 

Google warns that generative AI outputs may contain inaccuracies, so check each fact against a primary source before you send an answer, because a published error damages your standing with the journalist. Log each placement in a sheet.

Conclusion

DR rises when many distinct, trusted websites give your site followed links, because Ahrefs counts only the first link from each domain and weighs it by that domain’s own DR and outgoing links. Earn those links with expert answers, real news, and useful content, and expect a DR increase only from followed ones. Label every paid link.

Connect with Content Whale to build a link plan that targets followed links from relevant sites.

FAQs

How do I increase my domain rating?

To increase the DR that Ahrefs monitors, start by gaining backlinks from various different domains, and higher DR websites contribute more juice than lower DR, since each website distributes their juice among all domains which they link to. Ahrefs discourages trying to increase DR, saying one should aim for good backlinks.

How to increase Ahrefs domain rating?

To increase the domain rating Ahrefs measures, gain followed links from new referring domains, while links from domains you already have add nothing.

What affects domain rating?

The amount of referring domains with followed links, DR value of each and number of other domains they link to. As in every case with links, quality is crucial because each website distributes the juice over links.

What is a poor domain rating?

As in the case of website ranking or other SEO-related values, there’s no poor domain rating. The key thing is to compare your DR to your competitors’ DR to rank for similar queries.

What is the way to increase DR of website pages without paying for links?

Answer questions from journalists on a free plan, post original information which other websites will cite, and pitch news. They all help to get links without paying.

Does DR influence Google ranking?

Not directly. DR is a metric of Ahrefs, and Ahrefs says that Google ranks pages but not websites.

Does a higher DR help you appear in Google AI Overviews?

Not directly. Google says there are no special requirements for AI Overviews beyond being indexed and eligible for a snippet. DR is not a Google metric, but the links behind it help pages rank, and in our October 2026 review, 73% of pages cited in AI Overviews ranked in the top 10.