Linkheft: bulk domain authority checker & website rank API (open data, no API key)

Check the authority of any list of domains in seconds. For each domain, Linkheft returns a 0–100 authority score, its rank among 133 million domains in the Common Crawl web graph, a tier (top 100, top 1,000 … top 10 million), a 4-month rank trend (rising, falling, stable) and its referring subnets (backlink diversity from the Majestic Million). It works for link-building prospects, lead lists, SEO audits and AI agents that need to know whether a site is "big". It costs $0.002 per ranked domain ($2 per 1,000), and domains that aren't ranked are free.

Why Linkheft

• Open data, not scraped SEO tools. Most "domain authority" Actors log into or scrape Moz, Ahrefs or Semrush and charge ~$0.009–0.015 per domain, and they break when those sites change. Linkheft ranks domains with open, published data: the Common Crawl host-level web graph (harmonic centrality and PageRank over 133,241,980 domains, release cc-main-2026-jul-aug-sep) and the Majestic Million (CC BY 3.0). The whole method is described below.
• Fast and cheap enough for big lists. Each lookup streams only the ~800 KB shards of a pre-built index that it needs. In real Apify runs, 12 domains took 1.3 s and 3,000 domains took 11 s. That's 5–7× cheaper than the scraper Actors, and domains that aren't ranked cost nothing.
• Trend, not just a number. Every ranked domain is compared with the web graph from ~4 months earlier (cc-main-2026-mar-apr-may), so you can see which sites are climbing and which are fading.
• Agent-ready records. They're flat and stable, and you can pass in URLs, emails or subdomains (https://www.stripe.com/pricing, jane@acme.co.uk, blog.hubspot.com).

Real example (live run, 2026-09-23):

Domain	Authority	Tier	Trend (4 mo)	Referring subnets
wordpress.org	84	top 100	stable (−19%)	198,879
stripe.com	78	top 100	stable (−1.6%)	51,463
openai.com	76	top 100	stable (+14.3%)	53,508
hubspot.com	70	top 1,000	stable (−19.5%)	41,084
anthropic.com	66	top 1,000	stable (−16.1%)	24,118
notion.so	64	top 1,000	stable (+4.6%)	18,243
acme.co.uk	15	top 10,000,000	stable (+0.4%)	—

What you get (one record per unique domain)

Field	Meaning
domain	The domain that was ranked (subdomains fall back to their main domain unless ranked on their own)
status	ok (ranked, charged), unranked (not in the top 10M or the Majestic Million, free) or invalid (free)
authorityScore	0–100, log scale of the web-graph rank: rank 1 = 100, the last of 133M domains = 0. Top 100 ≈ 75+, top 10,000 ≈ 50, top 1M ≈ 26
tier	top 100, top 1,000, top 10,000, top 100,000, top 1,000,000, top 10,000,000
webGraphRank / topPercent	Harmonic-centrality rank in the Common Crawl web graph, and that rank as a % of all domains
trend / rankChangePct	rising / falling when the rank moved 20%+ (change = (old − new) / max(old, new), so −100…+100%), else stable; new-in-top-10m if it wasn't in the top 10M ~4 months earlier
referringSubnets	Distinct IP subnets linking to the domain (Majestic), for top-1M domains
commonCrawl	harmonicRank, pageRankRank, hosts (subdomains seen), prevHarmonicRank, release names, total domains
majestic	globalRank, refSubnets, refIps, list date

A SUMMARY record in the run's key-value store has counts and a top-25 leaderboard.

Input

{ "domains": ["stripe.com", "https://www.notion.so/product", "jane@acme.co.uk"], "sortBy": "score", "minAuthorityScore": 30 }

• domains: up to 100,000 domains, URLs or email addresses; duplicates are merged and charged once.
• sortBy: input (default) or score (highest first).
• minAuthorityScore: drop ranked domains below this score. Dropped domains aren't charged.
• monitor / monitorKey: only return what changed since the last run (see below).

First try: the prefilled input (stripe.com, notion.so, hubspot.com, anthropic.com) runs in about 10 s including start-up and costs about $0.008.

Ready-made inputs (first try in one click)

No account yet? See real results first on the free demo page: a free checker page plus 117 SaaS/AI sites ranked.

Paste one into the JSON tab of the input form (or send it to the API) and press Start. Each is sized so the first run is quick and cheap; you pay only for results (Apify's compute is included in the price).

Preset	What you get	Cost
Authority of 4 sites	0–100 score, global rank, tier, 4-month trend, referring subnets	$0.008
Rank competitors (sorted)	the same, strongest first	$0.008
Mixed input: emails, URLs, domains	each cleaned to its domain and ranked	$0.006

Authority of 4 sites

{"domains": ["stripe.com", "notion.so", "hubspot.com", "anthropic.com"]}

Rank competitors (sorted)

{"domains": ["asana.com", "trello.com", "monday.com", "clickup.com"], "sortBy": "score"}

Mixed input: emails, URLs, domains

{"domains": ["jane@shopify.com", "https://www.wikipedia.org/", "github.com"]}

Same thing from a script (returns the results directly):

curl -s -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/cybermax~domain-authority/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"domains": ["stripe.com", "notion.so", "hubspot.com", "anthropic.com"]}'

Output (real record)

{
  "input": "stripe.com", "domain": "stripe.com", "status": "ok",
  "authorityScore": 78, "scoreBasis": "common-crawl-harmonic-rank", "tier": "top 100",
  "webGraphRank": 64, "topPercent": 0.000048, "trend": "stable", "rankChangePct": -1.6,
  "commonCrawl": { "harmonicRank": 64, "pageRankRank": 66, "hosts": 95, "prevHarmonicRank": 63,
    "release": "cc-main-2026-jul-aug-sep", "prevRelease": "cc-main-2026-mar-apr-may", "totalDomains": 133241980 },
  "majestic": { "globalRank": 140, "refSubnets": 51463, "refIps": 137486, "date": "2026-09-23" },
  "referringSubnets": 51463
}

Monitor mode: only what changed

Set "monitor": true to watch a list (your backlink prospects, competitors, customer domains). Each run compares every domain with the previous run of the same watchlist and returns only domains that are new or changed: a different authorityScore, tier, webGraphRank, Majestic rank, or status (e.g. a small site entering the ranked list). Unchanged domains are skipped and not charged. Check time, notes and release names are ignored. Use monitorKey to keep several watchlists apart; state is kept in your account's named key-value store domain-authority-monitor. The first run returns everything as new; counts are in the SUMMARY record under monitor.

{ "domains": ["stripe.com", "notion.so", "hubspot.com"], "monitor": true, "monitorKey": "competitors" }

A changed row is the normal record plus (shape only; values illustrative):

{ "domain": "notion.so", "change": "changed", "changedFields": ["authorityScore", "webGraphRank"],
  "changes": { "authorityScore": { "from": 64, "to": 65 }, "webGraphRank": { "from": 1500, "to": 1400 } } }

Pricing

• $0.002 per ranked domain (event domain-ranked), i.e. $2 per 1,000.
• Unranked, invalid and duplicate inputs are free. Set a maximum charge per run in Apify, and Linkheft stops cleanly when it's reached.

FAQ

Is this Moz Domain Authority? No. Moz DA, Ahrefs DR and Semrush AS are proprietary. Linkheft is an open 0–100 score from the Common Crawl web graph and the Majestic Million, with the method published below, so you can explain every number. It answers the same question: how big and well linked is this site?

How many domains can I check at once? Up to 100,000 per run. A real run of 3,000 domains took 11 seconds.

What does it cost compared with Moz/Ahrefs/Semrush scrapers? $0.002 per ranked domain. The most-used scraper Actors for those tools charge $0.009–$0.015 per result (Apify Store, 24 Sep 2026), and unranked domains are free here.

Do I need a Moz, Ahrefs or Semrush account or API key? No. Everything comes from open data.

Can I filter a prospect list by authority? Yes: minAuthorityScore drops domains below a score, and dropped domains are not charged.

Can an AI agent use it? Yes, through Apify's MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=cybermax/domain-authority), and it's in the official MCP Registry. Records are flat and stable.

Run it on a schedule

The underlying open data changes about monthly (Majestic Million) and quarterly (a new Common Crawl web graph), so a weekly or monthly schedule is enough; daily runs would mostly return nothing. Console → Schedules → Create new → cron 0 8 * * 1 (Mondays 8:00) or 0 8 1 * * (1st of the month) → Add Actor → pick Linkheft (or a saved task) with your list and "monitor": true. Or via the API:

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/schedules?token=YOUR_TOKEN
{"name":"linkheft-weekly","cronExpression":"0 8 * * 1","timezone":"America/New_York","isEnabled":true,
 "actions":[{"type":"RUN_ACTOR","actorId":"cybermax/domain-authority",
   "runInput":{"body":"{\"domains\":[\"stripe.com\",\"notion.so\"],\"monitor\":true,\"monitorKey\":\"weekly\"}","contentType":"application/json"}}]}

With monitor mode scheduled runs are cheap: you only pay for domains whose score or rank moved. To get alerted, open the Actor's Integrations tab and add an email, Slack or webhook notification on "Run succeeded".

Integrations

Make: Apify app → "Run an Actor" (Actor cybermax/domain-authority, input {"domains":["stripe.com","notion.so"]}, run synchronously) → "Get dataset items".

Zapier: Apify app → "Run Actor" action with the input JSON, or the "Finished Actor Run" trigger to push scores into a sheet or CRM.

n8n: Apify node ("Run Actor and get dataset"), or an HTTP Request node:

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/cybermax~domain-authority/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN
{"domains": ["stripe.com", "notion.so"], "sortBy": "score"}

Google Sheets: Apify's Google Sheets integration, or pull the latest run into a cell:

=IMPORTDATA("https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/cybermax~domain-authority/runs/last/dataset/items?format=csv&token=YOUR_TOKEN")

Python:

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("cybermax/domain-authority").call(run_input={"domains": ["stripe.com", "notion.so"], "sortBy": "score"})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item["domain"], item.get("authorityScore"), item.get("tier"))

JavaScript:

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('cybermax/domain-authority').call({ domains: ['stripe.com', 'notion.so'], sortBy: 'score' });
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

AI agents (MCP): Linkheft is a tool on Apify's hosted MCP server, https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=cybermax/domain-authority (header Authorization: Bearer <your Apify token>). Claude Desktop / Cursor config:

{ "mcpServers": { "linkheft": { "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=cybermax/domain-authority",
  "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" } } } }

Example prompts: "Which of these 200 link prospects are in the top 100,000 sites?", "Is acme-widgets.com an established site or a tiny one?", "Rank these competitors by authority."

How the score works

1. The Common Crawl web graph ranks every domain it crawled by harmonic centrality: how close a domain is, in links, to all others. Big, well-linked sites rank near 1.
2. authorityScore = round(100 × (1 − log10(rank) / log10(totalDomains))). That's all there is to it, so you can recompute it.
3. Domains that are in the Majestic Million but outside the web graph's top 10M get a score for rank 10,000,001 (an upper bound) and scoreBasis: "majestic-only …".

When NOT to use Linkheft

• You need Moz DA, Ahrefs DR or Semrush AS specifically. These are proprietary metrics; Linkheft's score correlates with "how big and well-linked is this site", but it's a different, open number.
• You need individual backlinks or anchor texts. Linkheft ranks domains; it doesn't list links.
• Tiny or brand-new sites. Domains outside the top 10 million of the web graph and the Majestic Million come back unranked (free). That's an answer in itself (the site is very small), but not a score.
• Page-level authority. Scores are per domain, not per URL.

Also from CyberMax

• DomainDNA — tech stack, email security & domain age: what each domain runs on and how old it is.
• Hollerdex — website emails, phones & socials: contacts for the domains worth reaching out to.
• Keyfern — keyword ideas from 5 autocomplete engines: what their audience searches for.
• Swellmeter — Google Trends verdicts: whether those topics are rising.
• SnapScout — website screenshot + page text: see each prospect's homepage.

All tools: Boardroom Buys · HireHeat · Gripeline · HireHeat Jobs · Printwren · Logolark

Data, license and attribution

• Common Crawl Web Graph, domain-level ranks (commoncrawl.org), used under the Common Crawl Terms of Use.
• Majestic Million by Majestic-12 Ltd, licensed CC BY 3.0.
• The pre-built index is also published free as a Hugging Face dataset: Linkheft Open Domain Ranks. It's refreshed when Common Crawl publishes a new web graph.

Not affiliated with Common Crawl, Majestic, Moz, Ahrefs or Semrush. No personal data is collected.

Changelog

• 2026-09-23: Monitor mode (monitor, monitorKey: only domains whose score, rank, tier or status changed are returned and charged), schedule & integration recipes.

© 2026 CyberMax. All rights reserved.