DA / Domain Rating
In one line
DA (Moz) and DR (Ahrefs) are third-party scores from 0 to 100 that estimate a domain's backlink authority — they are tool metrics, not Google scores.
Going deeper
Domain Authority (Moz) and Domain Rating (Ahrefs) are proprietary scores published by SEO tools. Critically, they are not Google scores — Google does not publish a public domain authority metric.
They are still useful in practice because they make competitive comparison fast. You can quickly see where your domain sits versus rivals in the same category.
The common trap is treating DA/DR as the optimisation target itself. Treat them as outcome metrics: when content quality and backlink profile improve, the number tends to follow.
Related terms
Backlink
A backlink is an inbound link from another site to yours — one of the strongest signals search engines use to gauge a domain's authority and trustworthiness.
SEOLink Building
Link building is the deliberate marketing, content and outreach work that earns inbound backlinks from other sites to yours.
SEOLink Equity
Link equity (often called 'link juice') is the authority and ranking signal a page passes to another page through a link.
SEOE-E-A-T
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is Google's four-axis lens for content quality — and the same kinds of signals matter when LLMs decide whom to cite.
SEOYMYL
YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) refers to topics — health, finance, safety, legal — where bad information can cause real-world harm, prompting Google to apply a higher trust bar.
How does your brand show up in AI answers?
Villion measures how your brand appears across ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews, then automates the work that lifts citation rate and share of voice.
Get a free audit