Bulk Domain Rating Checker: Ahrefs DR, Authority & Backlinks

Check the Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR), a domain authority score from 0 to 100, of up to 10,000 domains or URLs in one run, without an Ahrefs account. Each domain gets one row with its DR, its backlink count, its referring domains and the dofollow share of both. Export as CSV, Excel or JSON, or read it through the Apify API.

DR is the score of Ahrefs. It is not Moz Domain Authority (DA), and the two numbers differ.

Quick start

1. Paste your list in Domains or URLs, one per line: stripe.com, https://www.notion.so/product…
2. Click Start.
3. Open the Output tab: one row per domain.

Like any Apify Actor, it can be run through the Apify API, scheduled, and connected to webhooks, Make, Zapier, n8n or Apify's MCP server for AI agents.

What it is used for

• Link building and outreach: sort a list of prospect sites by DR and referring domains before writing to them.
• Guest posts and sponsorships: check that a site's DR is backed by real referring domains, not a handful of links.
• Expired and dropped domains: find the domains of a list that still have backlinks, and the ones with none.
• Lead and company lists: add an authority score to every company website in a CRM export.
• Backlink checks at scale: get the backlink count and the referring domains of a whole list in one export.
• Monitoring: schedule the same list every month and compare the domainRating of each resultId.

Input

{
  "domains": ["apify.com", "https://www.ahrefs.com/blog/", "WIKIPEDIA.ORG"]
}

• Domains or URLs (domains): bare domains or full links. https://, www., the path, the port and capitals are removed: https://www.Apify.com/store?x=1 is checked as apify.com. A subdomain other than www (blog.example.com) is checked as itself. International names are accepted (bücher.de). A text pasted with commas, bullets or several domains on one line is split, and a column copied from a spreadsheet keeps only the domain cells.
• Max results (maxItems): the run stops after this many charged rows.

The same domain written several ways is checked once and charged once; the run summary says how many duplicates it removed.

Output

One row per domain:

{
  "type": "result",
  "status": "ok",
  "input": "https://www.ahrefs.com/blog/",
  "domain": "ahrefs.com",
  "domainRating": 91,
  "backlinks": 25009502,
  "referringDomains": 117079,
  "dofollowBacklinksPercent": 57,
  "dofollowReferringDomainsPercent": 85,
  "previousDomainRating": null,
  "drChange": null,
  "previousReferringDomains": null,
  "referringDomainsChange": null,
  "previousCheckedAt": null,
  "note": null,
  "errorCode": null,
  "error": null,
  "retryable": null,
  "resultId": "312defb16a95933d20af",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-28T14:02:36Z"
}

Field	What it is
domain	The domain checked, cleaned (lower case, no www., no path).
input	What you gave, as you wrote it.
domainRating	Ahrefs Domain Rating, 0 to 100.
backlinks	Links pointing to the domain and its subdomains.
referringDomains	Distinct websites linking to it.
dofollowBacklinksPercent	Share of those links that are dofollow, in percent.
dofollowReferringDomainsPercent	Share of the referring domains with at least one dofollow link, in percent.
previousDomainRating, drChange	DR at your previous check of the domain, and the change since (see Follow DR changes).
note	Why a value is missing, when one is.
resultId	Same id for the same domain in every run, to join runs together.

Every row has the same columns, so a CSV export opens cleanly in a spreadsheet. The Overview table of the Output tab shows them in that order.

A domain Ahrefs knows no backlinks for (new, unused, expired or misspelled) gets a normal row with domainRating, backlinks and referringDomains at 0: Ahrefs answered with a rating, so it is charged like any other. A 0 is only delivered once Ahrefs has returned real figures for another site after it; if that does not happen before the run stops, or if Ahrefs gives 0 even for well-known sites, those rows are free errors you can retry, and the run says so.

Rows that are never charged

• No record: a name Ahrefs returns no record for at all gets "status": "error", "errorCode": "not_found".
• Not accepted: a name Ahrefs does not take as a website gets rejected_by_site.
• Not understood: an e-mail address, a numeric address (192.168.1.1), localhost or a line that is not a website gets invalid_input, with domain at null.
• Temporary failure: temporarily_unavailable with "retryable": true. Run those domains again later.

To keep only the charged rows, filter on "type": "result".

When a run stops early (Max results, Maximum cost per run, timeout), the domains it did not get to are named in the run summary and all listed in the OUTPUT record (notCheckedDomains). They are not charged: run them again.

What we measured

On 28 October 2026:

• apify.com: DR 83, 3,983,840 backlinks, 16,556 referring domains. ahrefs.com: DR 91, 25,009,502 backlinks, 117,079 referring domains.
• www.apify.com gives the same DR as apify.com, but the link counts of the www subdomain alone (about a fifth of them). That is why www. is removed: you get the counts of the whole site.
• No fake zeros: Ahrefs' free tools show google.com and facebook.com with a DR of 100 and 0 backlinks. For such domains the row gives the DR (charged) with the counts at null and a note, never 0.

Pricing

You pay per domain checked, one row with a Domain Rating.

Apify plan	Per domain	Per 1,000 domains
Free	$0.00045	$0.45
Starter (Bronze)	$0.0004	$0.40
Scale (Silver)	$0.00036	$0.36
Business (Gold) and above	$0.00034	$0.34

Plus $0.0005 per run start, per GB of memory (the Actor runs in 256 MB, so it is counted once). Check thousands of domains in one run rather than one domain per run.

Never charged: duplicates, names Ahrefs has no record for or does not accept, inputs not understood, temporary failures, domains not checked. Set Maximum cost per run in the run options and the run stops before going over it, with the rows delivered so far.

Run it in production

The Actor is built for lists and for jobs that run again and again. Put the whole list in one run: the run start is charged once, so one run of 500 domains costs less than 500 runs of one domain.

Schedule it. In Apify Console open Schedules, create a schedule with a cron time (0 6 * * 1 is every Monday at 06:00 UTC), and add this Actor with your list as input. A monthly list of prospects or clients, or a weekly list of domains you watch, is the usual setup. Keep the same list: every domain has the same resultId in each run, so the rows of two runs can be joined in a spreadsheet or a database.

What it costs per month (Free plan prices, every domain charged, run starts included; Gold prices in brackets):

Job	Domains per month	Cost per month
500 domains every week (4 runs)	2,000	$0.90 ($0.68)
100 domains every day (30 runs)	3,000	$1.37 ($1.04)
10,000 domains once a month	10,000	$4.50 ($3.40)

Domains that are not charged (duplicates, unknown names, inputs not understood, temporary failures) lower these figures. Set Maximum cost per run and the run stops before going over it.

Call it from code. Start a run and wait for the rows in one request (this call waits up to 300 seconds, so use it for short lists):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/quarra~bulk-domain-rating-checker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"domains": ["apify.com", "ahrefs.com", "wikipedia.org"]}'

For a long list, start the run, wait for it to end, then read its dataset:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("quarra/bulk-domain-rating-checker").call(run_input={"domains": ["apify.com", "ahrefs.com"]})
rows = [r for r in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items() if r["type"] == "result"]

Connect it. Add a webhook on the event ACTOR.RUN.SUCCEEDED (Console, Integrations tab) to be called when a run ends, then read the dataset of that run. Make, Zapier and n8n have Apify modules: run the Actor, then fetch the dataset items and write them to Google Sheets, Airtable or your CRM. AI agents can call it through Apify's MCP server.

Run the missing ones again. Put the dataset ID of the earlier run in Retry the failed rows of an earlier run (retryFrom), with or without new domains. Only the domains that run could not check are checked again (rows with "retryable": true and the domains in notCheckedDomains); a domain already delivered is not checked or charged again, even if a scheduled task keeps the same retryFrom.

{ "retryFrom": "<DATASET_ID_OF_THE_EARLIER_RUN>" }

Follow DR changes. With Compare with the previous check on (trackChanges, the default), each result also has previousDomainRating, drChange, previousReferringDomains, referringDomainsChange and previousCheckedAt, from the last run of your account that delivered that domain (null the first time). The history stays in a key-value store named domain-rating-history in your account. These fields are free.

Limits

• Up to 10,000 domains per run. Split a longer list into several runs.
• Not every domain is measured in every run. Ahrefs limits how many answers it gives in a short time. When it does, the domains it did not answer come back as free rows with temporarily_unavailable and "retryable": true, and the run summary says so. They are never charged and never filled with a made-up value. Measured on 29 October 2026 on the same list of 100 domains: 53 measured before an update of the access to Ahrefs, 100 after; a run of 1,000 domains then measured all 1,000 in 160 seconds. Plan for a second pass with retryFrom on long lists, and do not read a missing row as a DR of 0.
• A DR of 0 is only delivered when Ahrefs has answered for the domain and has returned real figures for another site in the same run.
• The run gives what Ahrefs' free tools publish: Domain Rating, backlinks, referring domains and the dofollow shares. It does not give Ahrefs Rank, organic traffic, URL Rating or the list of backlinks.
• Ahrefs updates its data on its own schedule; the same domain can show a slightly different DR or count from one day to the next.

FAQ

Do I need an Ahrefs account or API key? No.

Are duplicates charged? No. apify.com, https://www.apify.com/ and APIFY.COM in the same list are one domain, checked and charged once.

Why does a domain show DR 0? Ahrefs has no backlinks on record for it: new, unused, expired or misspelled. It is Ahrefs' answer for that domain, so the row is charged like any other.

Is anything different on Apify's free plan? No. Every feature works the same on every plan.

Does the Actor send anything to Quarra? Only when a run fails or runs out of time: the Actor name, its build, the type of error, the line of our code where it happened, and the memory and time the run was given. Never your input, your results or the run's data. A run that succeeds sends nothing.

Can I schedule it? Yes. See Run it in production above.

I got fewer rows with a DR than domains. Why? Some rows are free errors, not results. Check status: not_found (no record at Ahrefs), rejected_by_site, invalid_input (not a website), or temporarily_unavailable (Ahrefs limited the answers; run those again). Filter on "type": "result" for the charged rows. A run that stops early lists the domains it did not reach in notCheckedDomains.

Is this Moz Domain Authority? No. It is the Ahrefs Domain Rating, a different score on the same 0 to 100 scale.

Does it list the backlinks themselves? No, it gives the count of backlinks and of referring domains for each domain, not the list.

Related Actors

• Ahrefs Scraper: DR, backlinks, traffic, keywords and SERP data.
• Google Keyword Search Volume Checker: monthly search volume and CPC for lists of keywords.

Domain Rating by Ahrefs.

Questions or a domain that looks wrong: open an issue on the Actor's page with the domain and the run ID.