Ahrefs DR4: what changes on December 1 and how to check your new DR

Ahrefs replaces today's Domain Rating with a new model, DR4, on December 1, 2026. DR4 rates subdomains on their own and counts links from a pool of about 132 million domains, about half the size of before. In the preview, sites whose links come mostly from small or new sites drop the most. On our list of 137 product directories, the median Domain Rating falls from 66 today to 42 in Ahrefs' DR4 preview.

#At a glance

• What it is: Ahrefs' new model for Domain Rating, its score from 0 to 100 for how strong a site's backlinks are.
• When: it replaces today's model on December 1, 2026. Until then, every DR4 number is Ahrefs' preview and can still change.
• What changes: subdomains get their own rating, and the pool of domains whose links count shrinks to about 132 million.
• Why: Ahrefs says DR4 tracks Google rankings more than 2.5 times better than the current model.
• Who drops most: from what we see in the preview, sites whose links come mostly from small or new sites.
• Real moves: in our November 7 check, PeerPush went from 79 to 60 and Fazier from 85 to 69, while SourceForge went from 93 to 92 and Product Hunt stayed at 91.
• Directories: 57 of the 137 on our list are DR 70 or more today. In the DR4 preview, 26 are.
• What to do this week: check your domain, your subdomains and the sites you plan to list on with our free DR4 checker, then spend your link time on dofollow links from established sites.

#What Domain Rating is

Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' score from 0 to 100 for how strong a site's backlinks are. A link from a high-DR site counts for more, especially when it's dofollow.

A dofollow link passes ranking value to your site. A nofollow link still brings visitors, but search engines don't count it toward your rankings. Both are worth having.

DR is Ahrefs' number, not Google's. Founders still use it to track their links, and directory lists, ours included, sort by it. So when Ahrefs changes how it's counted, a lot of numbers people quote change with it. In this post we call the current model DR3, to tell the two apart.

#What DR4 changes

Ahrefs announced DR4 in November 2026 and names two main changes.

#Subdomains get their own rating

Under DR4, a subdomain such as app.example.com is rated on its own, separately from example.com. A subdomain's rating is usually lower than its main domain's.

Hacker News shows how this works. Show HN lives on news.ycombinator.com, which is 91 today and 91 in the DR4 preview. The main domain, ycombinator.com, is 91 today and 89 in the preview. Same company, two ratings, and here the subdomain is the higher one.

If your app, docs, blog or changelog lives on a subdomain, it now has a rating of its own.

#A smaller pool of domains that count

DR4 counts links from a pool of about 132 million domains, about half the size of before. Links from sites outside that pool count for less, or for nothing.

What we see in the preview: sites whose links come mostly from small or new sites drop the most. Links from groups of small sites that mostly link to each other count for little.

#Ahrefs says it tracks Google better

Ahrefs says DR4 tracks Google rankings more than 2.5 times better than the current model. We can't test that claim ourselves. If it holds, DR4 is a better guide than DR3 to which links help a site rank, which is what founders want DR to tell them.

#The date

DR4 replaces today's model on December 1, 2026. Until then, every DR4 number you see, ours included, is Ahrefs' preview and can still change.

#Real numbers: 22 launch sites from DR3 to DR4

We read the Domain Rating of 22 well-known launch platforms and product directories from Ahrefs on November 7, 2026, under today's model and the DR4 preview. Here they are, highest DR4 first.

Domain Rating by Ahrefs. DR4 is the preview, read on November 7, 2026.

#The biggest drops

• PeerPush: 79 to 60, down 19
• Fazier: 85 to 69, down 16
• Uneed: 77 to 62, down 15
• Startup Fame: 85 to 73, down 12
• ToolPilot: 79 to 71, down 8
• BetaList: 77 to 70, down 7

#The gains

• AI With Me: 58 to 70, up 12
• Micro SaaS Examples: 49 to 60, up 11
• DevHunt: 70 to 71, up 1

#The ones that barely moved

SourceForge, Product Hunt, Hacker News, Indie Hackers and AlternativeTo moved by one point or not at all. They're among the best-known places founders list a product.

#What the table doesn't say

A drop is about how Ahrefs now scores a site's own backlinks. It isn't a verdict on the site, its community or the launch you'd get there. Fazier at 69 and Uneed at 62 are still well above the median of our whole directory list under DR4, which is 42.

A high DR also doesn't mean the link helps you. Product Hunt and Micro SaaS Examples give nofollow links, so they bring visitors and a page about your product, but no ranking value. BetaList, There's An AI For That, AI With Me and Micro SaaS Examples have no free way to list.

#Why did my DR drop?

If your number is lower in the DR4 preview, it's usually one of these four things.

1. The model changed, not your links. DR4 scores the same backlinks a new way. A lower number on December 1 doesn't, by itself, mean anyone removed a link to you.
2. Your links come from small or new sites. DR4 counts links from a smaller set of sites, so links from sites outside that set count for less or nothing. If much of your DR came from small sites that mostly link to each other, expect the biggest drop.
3. You're looking at a subdomain. A subdomain now has its own rating, usually lower than its main domain's.
4. Your site is new. New sites can show 0 in the preview, likely because the preview data predates their links.

That last one includes us. productsfarm.com is DR 28 today and 0 in the DR4 preview. We'll look again after December 1 before reading anything into it, and we'd suggest the same if your new site shows 0.

#What DR4 means for founders

• Compare like with like. A DR3 number and a DR4 number aren't on the same scale. When a directory, a link seller or a report quotes a DR, ask which model it means, and only compare your own numbers within one model.
• "DR 70+" now means fewer sites. 57 of the 137 directories on our list are DR 70 or more today. In the DR4 preview, 26 are.
• Links from established sites carry more of the weight. Think well-known directories, launch platforms, publications, podcasts and partners: sites with real readers.
• Dofollow still decides whether a link counts. A nofollow link from a DR 91 site is still a page about you and a source of visitors, but it passes no ranking value.
• A 0 on a new site is a reason to wait, not to panic. Check it again once DR4 is live.

#How directories fit in under DR4

Our list of 137 product directories is now sorted by DR4, with today's DR beside it. Most of them drop: 117 are lower in the preview, 14 are higher and 6 are unchanged.

Launch platforms drop the most, and AI directories hold up best. That includes us: ProductsFarm is a launch platform too.

This doesn't make directories pointless. A listing on an established directory is still a page about your product that search engines and AI assistants can find, plus a few early visitors. What changes is which directories carry the link value. Under DR4, picking them matters more than counting them.

If you want the links that still count most, start with the free directories that give every listing a dofollow link and keep a DR4 of 70 or more. Of the 44 free, dofollow directories on our list, 8 do:

• SourceForge: DR4 92, SaaS directory
• StackShare: DR4 81, SaaS directory
• Twelve Tools: DR4 76, launch platform
• SaaSHub: DR4 76, SaaS directory
• Startup Fame: DR4 73, startup directory
• ToolPilot: DR4 71, AI directory
• DevHunt: DR4 71, launch platform for developer tools
• AI Tool Trek: DR4 71, AI directory

At about 30 minutes a directory, those 8 take an afternoon. After them, work through the rest of the dofollow directories, then the high-DR nofollow ones that bring visitors, such as G2, Capterra and Crunchbase, then the ones made for your kind of product. Our directory submission guide covers what to prepare and how to keep track, and our directory study breaks the list down by price and link type.

If you'd rather not spend the evenings on forms, our done-for-you directory submission does them by hand, highest Domain Rating first. We can't promise a DR number under either model: each directory decides whether to list you and whether its link is dofollow.

#What to do before December 1

1. Check your own domain. Put it into our free DR4 checker and note both numbers. It takes up to 50 domains at once and needs no sign-up.
2. Check your subdomains on their own. If your app, docs or blog lives on one, it gets its own DR4.
3. Check the sites you plan to list on or pay for. Paste in their domains. With several, the biggest drops come first, and you can copy the results as CSV. If a paid listing was sold to you on a DR3 number, see its DR4 before you pay.
4. Write down your baseline. Save today's DR and the DR4 preview with the date, so a drop on December 1 surprises nobody on your team.
5. Spend this month's link time on established sites. Well-known directories and launch platforms with dofollow links come first, then publications, podcasts and partners. Skip link swaps between small sites.
6. Check the links you already have. Our dofollow checker shows whether a page's link to you is dofollow.

#What to do after December 1

1. Check again. The preview can change before launch, so the number from December 1 onward is the one to keep.
2. Compare DR4 to DR4 from then on. Don't put a November DR3 number next to a December DR4 number in a report or a pitch.
3. Read a drop for what it is. If it matches what the preview showed, it's the new model, not lost links.
4. Keep adding links from established sites. Under DR4, a few strong dofollow links do more than many from small sites.
5. Recheck the directories you use. Our DR 70+ list was picked by DR3, so check the DR4 column beside each one before you choose.

#How we put this together

• The 22 sites in the examples: Domain Rating read from Ahrefs' API on November 7, 2026, under today's model and the DR4 preview.
• The directory numbers: the 137 product directories and launch sites on our public directory list. Today's DR was checked on October 30, 2026, and the DR4 preview is as the list showed it on November 7, 2026. The examples were read a week after the list's DR3, so a few DR3 numbers differ by a point or two, such as Fazier at 85 here and 84 on the list.
• Link types and prices: from our own submissions. "Not confirmed" means we haven't seen a live listing of ours there yet, so we don't state a link type.
• Medians: the middle value, rounded to a whole number.
• The preview: DR4 numbers are Ahrefs' preview until December 1, 2026, and can still change.

#The short version

• DR4 replaces Ahrefs' Domain Rating on December 1, 2026. It rates subdomains on their own and counts links from about 132 million domains.
• Most sites whose links come from small or new sites drop. That's the model, not lost links.
• This week: check your domain, your subdomains and the sites you plan to list on, write the numbers down, and put your link time into established sites with dofollow links.

If you'd rather hand the directory part to us, that's what our directory submission service is for. We submit your product by hand to directories that are free to list on, highest Domain Rating first: 30 for $49, 60 for $99, 100 for $199 or 350+ for $500, each a one-time payment, with no launch on ProductsFarm needed. Every listing's status and link shows in your dashboard, and we read your Domain Rating when we start and when we finish. We submit within 3 to 7 days (7 to 10 for 350+), listings go live on each directory's own schedule, and we can't promise a DR number.