DA and DR are the two numbers clients paste into WhatsApp when they want to know if a site is “strong”. Domain Authority is Moz’s score. Domain Rating is Ahrefs’ score. Neither is a Google ranking factor. Both try to summarise your backlink profile as a number from 0 to 100.
You can still care about them. A higher DR often means more sites that Ahrefs trusts are linking to you, and that usually correlates with a site that is easier to rank. The mistake is chasing the number with links you would never show a customer. This is how we talk about raising DA and DR at ShubhKarma Tech.
What the scores are actually counting
Both scores look at the quantity and quality of links pointing at your domain, then compress that into one figure. They are relative. A DR of 20 is not “20% strong”. It is stronger than a DR of 10 and weaker than a DR of 40, on that tool’s graph, on the day you looked.
They update on the tool’s crawl, not on Google’s. A new editorial link can exist for weeks before DR moves. A dropped link can linger in the score. Treat a single screenshot as a weather report, not a contract.
DA and DR also disagree with each other. A site can look fine in one tool and ordinary in the other because the crawlers and the maths differ. Pick one tool, write the date next to the number, and compare your own site over time. Comparing your DR to a competitor’s DA is noise.
What actually moves them
Links from websites that themselves have links. A mention on a crawled, real publication moves the score more than fifty profiles on sites built to sell links.
Links that point at a page, not only at the homepage. A domain with one strong URL and a graveyard of thin posts still looks hollow. Authority spreads internally only if you link those strong URLs to the pages you want to rank.
A clean technical base, so the linked URL returns 200 and stays the canonical. Pointing a newspaper link at a URL that redirects twice wastes the mention.
Time. New domains start near the floor. There is no honest 30-day plan that takes a new studio site to DR 50. There is a 12-month plan that makes the score a side effect of work you needed anyway.
A practical plan that raises the score for the right reason
**1) Make one page worth citing.** A original breakdown, a local data note, a clear pricing guide, a case study with real constraints. “10 tips for success” is not a citation target. Our cost guide and the strong-versus-weak links piece are the kind of URL a founder can send to someone else.
**2) Fix indexation before you pitch the page.** Search Console should show the URL as indexed. The title should match the promise. If the page 404s or canonicals elsewhere, stop and fix that first.
**3) Earn links in places your buyers already read.** For a Dehradun business that means trade associations, chambers, university or event pages, suppliers, clients who will add a credit, and journalists covering Uttarakhand business or tourism. A client footer credit, like the ones on sites we have built, is a real mention. It is not a substitute for an editorial link, and it is also not spam.
**4) Reclaim unlinked mentions.** Search your brand name. When a page names ShubhKarma Tech, a hotel, or a product and does not link, ask for the link. This is the highest-conversion outreach we know, because they already wrote about you.
**5) Digital PR with a narrow story.** One useful asset pitched to twenty relevant people beats a blast to two thousand inboxes. The asset has to be specific: a process, a number you measured, a before-and-after of a real build.
**6) Point internal links at the pages that received the mention.** When a strong URL exists, your service pages should link to it and it should link back to the commercial page. Otherwise DR sits on a blog post nobody buys from.
What we will not do to inflate DA or DR
Buying a pack of “DA 50 backlinks”. Most of those domains are rented, stuffed, or unrelated. The score on the seller’s slide is often the homepage of a site that will not pass value to your URL.
Private blog networks, expired domains rebuilt overnight, and comment links with exact-match anchors. They can nudge a tool for a while. They also create a pattern that is obvious in Ahrefs and embarrassing in a sales call.
Sitewide footer links from unrelated sites. One contextual link on a relevant article is worth more than a footer on forty blogs nobody reads.
Changing the score by disavowing half the internet on day one. Disavow is for a mess you understand, not a ritual.
How to read a link before you celebrate
Open the linking page. Would a person land there from Google and stay? Is the link inside the article or in a footer block of eighty sites? Is the topic adjacent to yours? Does the page link out to everyone who paid this month?
If the answers are bad, the link might still show up in a tool. It should not be the foundation of the campaign. The companion article on a few strong backlinks versus many weak ones goes further on that test.
What to report to a founder
Report three things monthly, and mention DA or DR as a fourth line, not the headline.
New referring domains that you can open and explain.
Search Console impressions and clicks on the URLs you are trying to rank.
Leads from organic landing pages.
Then DA and DR, with the tool name and the date. If leads are flat and DR is up, you optimised the wrong score. If leads are up and DR is flat, the work is still working — the tool has not caught up.
A realistic pace
A new or thin domain can move a few points in a quarter if it earns a handful of real referring domains and publishes pages people share inside their industry. Larger jumps usually mean either a genuinely popular piece or a spike you should inspect for junk. We would rather explain a slow climb than a chart that falls apart after the next tool update.
Increase DA and DR by becoming a site other sites cite. The number follows. It does not lead.