Ahrefs DR4: We Checked 2,405 Directories. Who Held, Who Fell

Ahrefs let everyone see its new Domain Rating model on November 5, 2026. The same day I ran every directory we track through it.

Quick answer: Ahrefs DR4 is the fourth version of Domain Rating. It gives more weight to links from sites with organic search traffic, cuts the pool of rated sites from about 287 million to about 132 million, and scores subdomains on their own. It reaches the Ahrefs interface on December 1, 2026. You can check your score now at detailed.com/dr-v4 or with version=dr4 on the free API. Across the 2,405 directories we checked, review sites and communities held, while launch directories and badge-exchange sites lost around 30 points.

SaaSCity is a directory, so read this with that in mind. We sell paid listings and a directory submission service, which gives us every reason to want directories to look valuable. This post names a lot of sites that fell, and one number can't tell you why any of them fell. Everything below comes from Ahrefs or from our own calls to its free API on November 5, 2026, and every score in this post is Domain Rating by Ahrefs.

What is Ahrefs DR4?

DR4 is the fourth version of Domain Rating, Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score for the strength of a site's backlink profile compared with every other site in its database. Glen Allsopp, who runs marketing strategy and research at Ahrefs, announced the preview on November 5, 2026. The score still comes from links alone, and two things changed.

First, DR4 gives more weight to links from sites and subdomains that Ahrefs estimates get organic search traffic. That cut the number of sites with a rating from 286.98 million to 131.98 million. Allsopp wrote on X that the pool of domains able to affect DR has essentially halved, to about 132 million.

Second, subdomains now get their own score and stop inheriting the root domain's. That one was a popular request, and it matters a lot for directories built on someone else's platform.

What changed	DR3	DR4
Sites with a rating	286.98 million	131.98 million
Subdomains	Mostly inherit the root domain's score	Each host scored on its own links
Links from sites with estimated organic traffic	Less weight	More weight
Correlation with top 10 Google positions, all hosts	0.140	0.359
Correlation with top 10 Google positions, root domains	0.407	0.304
Where you see it today	Ahrefs interface, API default	version=dr4 on the API, detailed.com/dr-v4

Spam gets its own line in the announcement. Ahrefs says domains labeled as spam with a DR3 between 30 and 70 saw the largest drops, a median of around 15 to 20 points, while non-spam domains stayed close to zero at the median across most DR3 ranges. The directory numbers further down look nothing like that.

Ahrefs also checked its top 1,000 domains by estimated organic traffic: 64.3% gained DR, 15.8% stayed level and 19.9% fell, by a median of 4 points. The biggest loser it names is github.io, down 32 points, while facebook.github.io keeps a DR of 86 on its own links. Sites with real search demand mostly came out ahead, which tells you who this model was built to reward.

When does DR4 go live, and how do you check your score?

DR4 reaches the standard Ahrefs interface on December 1, 2026, and DR3 stays available through the API for a short period after that. Until then you can see DR4 on a free comparison page or through the free Domain Rating API. I'd do it in this order.

1. Look up one domain on the comparison page. Open detailed.com/dr-v4, type a domain or subdomain and press Check. You get DR3 and DR4 side by side, and you don't need an account.
2. Get a free API key for bulk checks. Create a free Ahrefs account and generate a key under Account settings, API keys. Ahrefs has required a key since August 10, 2026, but requests stay free and use no API units.
3. Call the API with version=dr4. Add version=dr4 to a request to /v3/public/domain-rating-free. Leave the parameter out, or send version=dr3, to get the old score.
4. Run your closest competitors. Ahrefs recommends comparing with close competitors, because they may have moved the same way. A 10-point drop means something different if your whole category fell 10 points.
5. Check every directory you pay for or plan to. Use the exact host you get the link from, because subdomains now have their own scores.
6. Save the numbers with today's date. Ahrefs keeps DR3 in the API for only a short period after December 1, so keep your own record of both scores.

The API call is one line. Swap in your own key:

curl -s "https://api.ahrefs.com/v3/public/domain-rating-free?target=ahrefs.com&version=dr4&output=json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

This is what came back for ahrefs.com on November 5:

{
  "domain_rating": {
    "domain_rating": 92.0,
    "license": "http://ahrefs.com/legal/domain-rating-license"
  }
}

The version parameter isn't new this week. Ahrefs' API changelog shows it landed on October 6, 2026, a month before the announcement, on both the GET and POST endpoints.

If you publish these numbers, Ahrefs' license asks for a visible "Domain Rating by Ahrefs" credit linked to ahrefs.com next to them, which is why that line sits under our tables.

What happened when we checked 2,405 directories with DR4?

Most of them barely moved. The median change across all 2,405 was 2 points down. The damage sits in one part of the market, and it's the part founders use first: launch directories, software discovery sites and anything built on a badge exchange.

I called the free API twice for each entry in our directory list on November 5, 2026, once with version=dr3 and once with version=dr4. All 2,405 entries answered both times. It isn't a random sample of the web. The list holds Capterra and Reddit next to old link directories, so think of it as the market a founder gets pitched.

DR3 band	Sites	Median DR3	Median DR4	Median change
90 to 100	78	92	92	0
80 to 89	89	83	85	+1
70 to 79	193	74	73	-2
50 to 69	325	58	53	-5
30 to 49	570	37	29	-8
1 to 29	935	13	7	-2.6
Under 1	215	0.1	0.2	+0.1

Data: Domain Rating by Ahrefs, free API, DR3 and DR4 preview, November 5, 2026. Median change is worked out per site, so it won't always equal the gap between the two medians.

Counted another way, sites at DR 70 or higher went from 360 to 312, sites at DR 50 or higher from 685 to 540, and sites at DR 30 or higher from 1,255 to 950. Sites rated exactly 0 went from 76 to 290. In total 403 sites lost 20 points or more, and 100 of them lost 40 or more.

Those medians hide the part that hurts, so I ran the shorter list too. We keep 123 curated launch directories, the sites we track most closely. Their median went from 61 to 32, a median change of 21.5 points down. Of the 123, 65 lost at least 20 points and 15 lost at least 40, while only 18 held or gained. Forty-six of them were at DR 70 or higher under DR3. Under DR4 that number is 22. It's a massacre in one neighborhood and a quiet day everywhere else in town.

Remember Ahrefs' spam figure. The 70 curated directories with a DR3 between 30 and 70 lost a median of 29.5 points, and Ahrefs' number for spam-labeled domains in the same range is 15 to 20. That doesn't mean Ahrefs labels them spam, and the free API doesn't show the label. It does mean this group fell further than the group Ahrefs calls out for falling.

For contrast, I ran 30 SaaS products picked by hand, from Tally and Zapier to Linear and Cal.com. Their median change was 1 point down. Three lost 10 points or more: Resend and Lemon Squeezy both went from 91 to 77, and Loops went from 76 to 59.

DR3 vs DR4 for 34 directories founders know

The big platforms didn't move, and the list gets rough once you pass the mid 70s. Sorted by DR4:

Directory	DR3	DR4	Change
G2	91	92	+1
Product Hunt	91	91	0
Capterra	91	91	0
Hacker News	91	91	0
Indie Hackers	82	81	-1
AlternativeTo	82	81	-1
SaaSHub	81	76	-5
Twelve Tools	84	76	-8
Tiny Startups	71	74	+3
Dang AI	83	74	-9
There's An AI For That	77	73	-4
Futurepedia	73	73	0
StartupFa.me	84	73	-11
Peerlist	78	72	-6
DevHunt	70	71	+1
Toolpilot	79	71	-8
BetaList	77	70	-7
Fazier	84	69	-15
Toolify	73	67	-6
Uneed	76	62	-14
findly.tools	82	56	-26
Turbo0	81	53	-28
TinyLaunch	74	52	-22
Microlaunch	64	49	-15
StartupBase	75	46	-29
NickLaunches	77	43	-34
Launching Next	56	40	-16
PeerPush	72	36	-36
Open Launch	71	29	-42
Huzzler	70	29	-41
Smol Launch	77	28	-49
BetterLaunch	69	24	-45
NextGen Tools	70	18	-52
Versily	68	0.6	-67.4

Data: Domain Rating by Ahrefs, free API, DR3 and DR4 preview, November 5, 2026. Preview scores can move before the December 1 rollout.

Please don't read this table as a list of who cheated. A 40-point fall tells you DR4 counts few of a site's links, and it says nothing about how those links got there. It's also no verdict on whether a directory sends founders anything. Plenty of the sites near the bottom are small and run by real people.

Why did launch directories fall so hard?

My read is that it comes down to where their links come from. DR4 favors links from sites with search traffic, and launch directories get a lot of theirs from other directories and from badges on young startups. Ahrefs hasn't said anything about directories, and the free API returns a score with no link profile, so treat this as inference from the numbers below.

Category in our list	Sites	Median DR3	Median DR4	Median change
Software discovery	73	51	16	-34.6
Launchpads	21	55	30	-30
Directories, unsorted	100	52.5	26	-27
AI tools	63	54	38	-12
SaaS tools	13	70	45	-11
General directories	183	53	45	-1
Tech and startup media	102	74	66	-0.5
Communities	47	75	73	0
Design tools	36	59.5	62.5	0
Software review sites	18	83	86	+1.5

Data: Domain Rating by Ahrefs, free API, November 5, 2026. Sites with a DR3 of 30 or more, categories with at least 13 sites. Median change is worked out per site.

Review sites and communities have what DR4 rewards. People search for "best CRM" and land on them, and sites with traffic link to them. A launch directory mostly has the opposite shape: its pages rarely rank, and its inbound links come from sites in the same position.

The clearest split in the whole dataset is the badge exchange. Our list flags directories that ask you to put their badge on your site in return for a listing or a dofollow link. Among sites with a DR3 of 30 or more, the 85 flagged directories lost a median of 31 points, from 61 to 31, and the other 1,170 lost 3, from 51 to 44. Size doesn't explain it. Between DR3 50 and 79 alone, 56 badge directories lost a median of 33.5 points and 462 others lost 2.

A badge is a link from a founder's site back to the directory. Under DR3 that link counted whether or not the site behind it had any search traffic. A lot of those sites launched last month and get no search traffic yet, and every directory in the loop collects the same links from the same sites. DR4 appears to count them for much less.

The badge alone doesn't decide it. Twelve Tools went from 84 to 76, Dang AI from 83 to 74 and Toolpilot from 79 to 71, and all three are flagged. Those are the ones to study, because they kept most of their score under the same model. Dofollow directories also fell further than nofollow ones, a median of 9 points against 3 in the same DR3 50 to 79 band, probably because nofollow directories tend to be bigger platforms.

Bought links will explain some of these falls. Gigs and PBNs that sell a DR number are real, and that kind of link is what a traffic-weighted model was going to catch. I can't tell you who bought what, and neither can anyone working from this endpoint. I can tell you that Fiverr's own DR went up a point, from 91 to 92, which I enjoyed more than I should have.

What happens to directories hosted on a subdomain?

They lose the score they were borrowing. Under DR3, a page on gumroad.com or notion.site mostly showed the host's DR. Under DR4 it shows its own, which for most of these pages is close to nothing.

All nine platform-hosted directories we found in our list fell:

Directory host	DR3	DR4
aitoolhouse.gumroad.com	92	1.7
aiinfinity-meetpatel.notion.site	92	2.3
witchat.github.io	94	22
helpdia.softr.app	79	0
productivitytools.softr.app	79	0
writerresources.softr.app	79	0
vcbackedtools.softr.app	79	5
saaswarrior.brick.do	63	0
founlist.pory.app	56	2.8

Data: Domain Rating by Ahrefs, free API, November 5, 2026.

Our list showed AI Toolhouse at DR 92 because that's what the API returned, and it was never a DR 92 directory. It was a Gumroad page. Its owner did nothing wrong, and neither did the others in that table: DR3 handed them their host's number, and anyone sorting a list by DR took it at face value.

It works the same way on subdomains you own. Ahrefs' help center went from 91 to 75 while ahrefs.com scores 92, and Launch Llama's directory at tools.launchllama.co went from 74 to 30. If your docs, blog or directory listing sits on a subdomain, check that exact host.

What does DR4 mean for directories?

It ends DR as the easy sales pitch for small directories. "DR 70+ dofollow" was the whole offer for a lot of sites, and on December 1, 21 of the 36 curated directories that could say it no longer can. Every list, pitch deck and pricing page quoting a DR figure goes out of date that day.

Paid links get repriced by the market, whether directory owners like it or not. A dofollow link from a directory at DR4 30 is a link from a DR 30 site. A founder who paid for a DR 70 link in October now holds a much weaker one, and nothing about the listing changed. Directories selling on DR will need something else to sell: an audience, a real launch day, or a page that ranks.

The badge exchange loses most of its value as a DR tactic for the directory. It still does the job for the founder, who gets a dofollow link, though that link now comes from a lower-rated site.

Search traffic is the entry ticket now. The directories that held are the ones people search for. If you run a directory, the work that moves DR4 is pages people look for, and links from sites that have an audience of their own.

Is DR4 more accurate than DR3?

Across all hosts, yes. For root domains, no. Ahrefs tested 10 million domains and hosts, and DR4's correlation with top 10 Google positions came out at 0.359 against 0.140 for DR3. For top 3 positions it was 0.332 against 0.128. That's the "more than 2.5x stronger" line in the announcement.

The same table has a row most summaries skip. Across 5,231,436 root domains, DR3 correlates better than DR4: 0.407 against 0.304 for top 10 positions, and 0.382 against 0.295 for top 3. Ahrefs says so plainly and notes that DR3 was built around root domains. DR4's gain comes from scoring every host on its own.

If you run a startup on a root domain, the headline gain isn't about your site. A drop still matters, because root domains in DR4 correlate at around 0.3, and that's a real signal from a model built to look at every host.

A lower DR won't hurt your Google rankings by itself. DR is an Ahrefs metric and Google doesn't use it. The preview removed no links and changed nothing in Google. Ahrefs also says a lower score is no judgment on your content or website, only a reading of your backlink profile.

What should founders do before December 1?

Save your numbers, re-score your directory list and stop buying on the old DR. In practice that's a short list of jobs.

• Record DR3 and DR4 today for your domain and your three closest competitors. If your score moves on December 1, you'll know how much of it was the model.
• Re-sort your directory list by DR4, on the exact host, and drop anything on Notion, Gumroad or Softr that you picked for its DR.
• Before paying for a listing, check the DR4 and whether the directory ranks for anything people search.
• Prefer links from sites with an audience. Ahrefs says the model favors them, and they tend to be the links that send people anyway.
• If you report DR to clients or a board, tell them about December 1 now.

That last one matters more than it sounds. Flavio Amiel put it well on X: "Be honest or be caught." He was writing about anyone telling clients they earned a rise that only comes from the model. His own site went from 12 to 26 in the screenshot he posted, so small sites can gain too. In our curated list 12 of the 123 gained, led by Best of Web from 33 to 48, aiwith.me from 58 to 70 and Micro SaaS Examples from 49 to 60.

If you want somewhere to start, 23 directories on our curated list were dofollow at our last check and still sit at DR4 60 or higher: SourceForge, G2, Capterra, Indie Hackers, Twelve Tools, SaaSHub, SoftwareWorld, Dang AI, Alternative.me, Tiny Startups, StartupFa.me, There's An AI For That, Toolpilot, DevHunt, BetaList, aiwith.me, Fazier, SideProjectors, Indie Deals, toolsfine, Future Tools, Uneed and magicbox.tools. Scores come from Domain Rating by Ahrefs. Check each site's link terms yourself before you submit, since those change. For review platforms, our software review sites page goes through them one by one.

FAQ

What is Ahrefs DR4?

DR4 is the fourth version of Ahrefs' Domain Rating, the 0 to 100 score for the strength of a site's backlink profile. Ahrefs previewed it on November 5, 2026. It still uses links only, but it gives more weight to links from sites with estimated organic traffic, scores subdomains separately and cuts the pool of rated sites from about 287 million to about 132 million.

When does DR4 go live?

December 1, 2026 in the standard Ahrefs interface, according to Ahrefs' announcement of November 5. Until then you can see it through the free Domain Rating API with version=dr4 or on the comparison page at detailed.com/dr-v4. Ahrefs says DR3 stays available through the API for a short period after the rollout, so save any before-and-after numbers you want to keep.

How do I check my DR4 score?

The quick way is detailed.com/dr-v4: type a domain or subdomain, press Check and you get DR3 and DR4 side by side without an account. For bulk checks, create a free Ahrefs API key and call /v3/public/domain-rating-free with version=dr4. The API default is still dr3. Requests are free and don't use API units, but a key has been required since August 10, 2026.

Why did my Domain Rating drop under DR4?

Usually because Ahrefs sees few links from sites with organic search traffic, or because your site is a subdomain that was inheriting a root domain's score. A drop doesn't mean you lost links. Ahrefs says it isn't a judgment on your content or website, and it recommends checking your backlinks and comparing with close competitors, who may have moved the same way.

Will a lower DR hurt my Google rankings?

No. Domain Rating is an Ahrefs metric and Google doesn't use it, so the December 1 rollout changes nothing in Google by itself, and it doesn't remove any of your links. The indirect effects are real, though. Link builders, editors, partners and buyers who filter by DR will see the new number, and some of them will stop replying.

Is DR4 better than DR3?

Across all hosts, yes. Ahrefs' test of 10 million domains and hosts shows a much stronger correlation with top 10 Google positions: 0.359 for DR4 against 0.140 for DR3. For root domains alone, DR3 still correlates better, 0.407 against 0.304. A startup on a root domain shouldn't read the 2.5x headline as a better ranking predictor for its own site.

Do subdomains still inherit the root domain's DR?

No. Under DR4 each subdomain gets its own score from the links pointing at it. help.ahrefs.com went from 91 to 75 while ahrefs.com scores 92. Hosted pages fall furthest: in our list, aitoolhouse.gumroad.com went from 92 to 1.7 and aiinfinity-meetpatel.notion.site from 92 to 2.3. All nine platform-hosted directories we found in our list fell.

How did directories do under DR4?

It depends on the type. Across 2,405 directories checked on November 5, 2026, the median change was 2 points down. Among sites with a DR3 of 30 or more, software review sites gained a median 1.5 and communities held. Software discovery sites lost a median 34.6 points and launchpads 30. Directories that ask for a badge in exchange lost a median 31, against 3 for the rest.

Which directories kept their DR under DR4?

The large platforms held: Product Hunt, Capterra and Hacker News stayed at 91, G2 rose to 92, and Indie Hackers and AlternativeTo lost one point to reach 81. Among smaller directories, Tiny Startups rose to 74 and DevHunt to 71, There's An AI For That went from 77 to 73, Futurepedia stayed at 73 and BetaList fell from 77 to 70. These are preview scores from November 5, 2026.

Are directory backlinks still worth it after DR4?

A listing is worth it when the directory has an audience or ranks in search, and DR4 tracks that more closely than DR3 did. A dofollow link from a directory at DR4 30 is a link from a DR 30 site, whatever it scored before. Check the DR4 and the search traffic before you pay, and treat any old DR figure as out of date.

Can Domain Rating go up under DR4?

Yes. Ahrefs says 64.3% of the top 1,000 domains by estimated organic traffic gained DR and 15.8% stayed level. Smaller sites can rise too: in our curated list of 123 directories, 12 gained, led by Best of Web from 33 to 48. Compare with your competitors before you read anything into a rise, because it may come from the model alone.

Does DR4 punish spam sites?

Yes. Ahrefs says domains labeled as spam with a DR3 between 30 and 70 saw the largest drops, a median of around 15 to 20 points, while non-spam domains stayed close to zero at the median across most DR3 ranges. Ahrefs added the label in 2025 and moved to a machine learning model in January 2026. The free API doesn't show whether a site carries the label.

What does a DR4 score tell you?

It tells you how Ahrefs scores a site's backlinks on the day you check, and nothing else. A directory has the same listings and the same audience on December 1 as it had on November 30. If its number falls 40 points in a day, the way of counting changed, so read the score next to what it doesn't measure: whether the directory ranks, whether people visit it and whether it sends you anyone.