Are high DR links worth the premium? Ahrefs' traffic by DR band and what DR80+ costs

High DR links, or high DR backlinks, are links from sites with a high Domain Rating, the 0 to 100 score Ahrefs gives a site for the strength of its backlink profile. Ahrefs sets no number at which a site becomes high; price lists band the top of the scale at DR 71 or DR 80 and above, which is where "DR80+" comes from. Are they worth the premium? Yes, once the site has been checked. The premium pays for two things that Ahrefs' own June 2026 data shows: sites at DR 80 and above are few, and at the median they get far more search clicks than sites lower down. What a buyer is paying for is a scarce, widely read site, and the job before paying is to confirm the site in front of you is one.

This page sets out what DR is and is not for in Ahrefs' own words, Ahrefs' median traffic by DR band from its June 2026 sample, what to read beside the score before paying for a DR80+ placement, dated prices by DR band from three published price studies, and how we price and vet a placement site. It is written for anyone doing high DR link building who has seen DR80+ on a placement list and wants to know what the number says before paying more for it.

What a high DR link is, in Ahrefs' words

Ahrefs' help page "What is Domain Rating (DR)?", dated 3 September 2026, defines the score in one sentence: "Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to the others in our database on a 100-point scale." A high DR link is a link from a site that scores high on that scale. For a buyer, that makes DR a score built from links and a position relative to other sites, not a fixed reading.

The same page explains how the score is made. "The source domain splits its rating equally amongst the domains it links to." Ahrefs' own example shows what that means in practice: "So: a DR-10 domain which links to three other domains can influence your DR more than a DR-80 domain which links to a million other domains." Once the calculation has run across the index, "The final DR value is then obtained by scaling a computed, absolute value into the 0-100 range." Two sites can sit in the same DR band and pass very different amounts of score per link, depending on how many domains each one links to.

The scale is not even. Joshua Hardwick's post on Ahrefs' blog, dated 4 May 2022, spells out why: "The term “logarithmic scale” means that the gap between DR 70 and DR 71 is much bigger than the one between DR 20 and DR 21." Each point near the top takes more to earn than a point near the bottom.

What counts as high is left open. The help page says: "It's not possible to say that a Domain Rating of 30 is good, or 50, or 60, or 70. It's all relative." So "high" is a seller's band, not Ahrefs' line. How DR differs from Moz's score is set out in Domain Authority vs Domain Rating.

What DR is for, and what it is not for

Ahrefs is direct about what the score is for. The help page says: "Instead, consider DR as a great metric for selecting websites to build links from. As a general rule, you should aim to get backlinks from high-DR websites because they carry more “weight.”" On the maker's own general rule, a link from a high-DR site is a good thing to have, and that is the starting point this page works from.

The same page is just as direct about what the score is not for: "You should never judge the quality of a website on site-wide "authority" alone." Ahrefs Academy's lesson on backlink metrics adds: "We don't recommend using Domain Rating as a standalone metric." and "A better practice is to pair DR with other metrics like domain level traffic or UR, which can give you a better feel of the quality of a link." UR is URL Rating, and Ahrefs' help page on it draws the line between the two: "UR is a page-level metric, whereas DR is a domain-level metric." DR describes the whole site; your link sits on one page of it.

DR is also Ahrefs' number, not a search engine's. Ahrefs' help page on whether search engines use these scores, dated 3 September 2026, says: "There's no evidence that search engines use Domain Rating ( or similar scores such as Domain Authority, the power of domain, etc) as a ranking factor at all." The score is a way to choose a site, and Ahrefs says so itself. Each maker's definition of its own metric is set out in link building metrics.

Traffic by DR band: what Ahrefs' June 2026 sample shows

The best dated evidence for what a DR80+ site is comes from Ahrefs itself. Ahrefs' organic traffic benchmarks, by Ryan Law, dated 23 June 2026, says: "These benchmarks are built from anonymized, aggregated Google Search Console data from 344,956 real websites." and "We report the median, not the average." The table below gives the sample's median monthly clicks by DR band.

Start with scarcity. In our own arithmetic on Ahrefs' counts, adding the top two bands, 1,534 plus 397, gives 1,931 sites at DR 80 and above out of 344,956, about 0.56% of the sample. The sample is sites that share Search Console data with Ahrefs, not the whole web.

Then readership. The median site at DR 80–90 had 50,292 clicks a month against 831 at DR 40–50, and the median climbs at every band. That is the case for the premium: a DR80+ placement is on a kind of site that is few in number and, at the median, read by many more people.

The limit matters too, and Ahrefs states it on the same page: "DR is a proxy for the authority that wins traffic, not a dial you turn to get it." A median describes the band, not the one site you are offered; half the sites in a band sit above it and half below. That is why the next section is a list of checks rather than a number.

What to read beside DR before paying for a DR80+ placement

Ahrefs' help page gives its own list of what to check beside the score. After "You should also consider the following:", its questions include these four:

• "Do they have high-quality backlinks?"
• "Do they link out to a lot of websites? (again, fewer tends to be better)"
• "Are they publishing high-quality content?"
• "Does it get any organic traffic? Is this website topically-relevant to yours?"

Traffic comes first. Compare the site's organic traffic in a tool with the median for its band in the table above; the table counts actual Search Console clicks, and a tool's figure is an estimate. Bear in mind what Ahrefs' help page on organic traffic, dated 3 September 2026, says about its own numbers: "NOTE: Remember to treat the organic traffic estimations in Ahrefs as precisely that: estimations." So read the trend over a year as well as the latest figure.

Look at the page as well as the site. Check UR for the page type your link would sit on, and check whether the page is on your subject.

Read a second score. Moz's Domain Authority (DA) and DR are made by two companies from two link indexes, and they often differ for the same site. In the July 2026 sample from our own DA and DR checker, covering 15,357 domains, DR was higher than DA on 42.1% of domains and at least 20 points higher on 12.5%. Check both with our free DA and DR checker before paying for a DR80+ placement.

What a DR80+ link costs

Three published price studies band prices by DR, and each gives a price for DR 80 backlinks or the nearest band. Each uses its own sample and its own band edges, so they are set side by side here, not averaged.

The step up the scale is steepest at the top. ESBO's sentence runs: "The median is $355 at DR 30 to 39, $465 at 40 to 49, $510 at 50 to 59, $830 at 60 to 69, $1,230 at 70 to 79 and $1,840 at DR 80 and above". ESBO says these are the rates publishers quoted for one sponsored article, before agency fees, and that its sample over-represents sites that sell placements. BuzzStream's range runs: "The lowest you'd pay a vendor is about $200 for 0-9 DR, and the highest is about $3,000 for 80+ DR." Adsy's three bands are averages: "A low-DR website (DR 1-30): $332 per link;" "A mid-DR website (DR 31-70): $555 per link;" "A high-DR website (DR 71+): $2,025 per link."

Read beside the traffic table, price rises with DR more slowly than median traffic does in Ahrefs' sample. ESBO's median goes from $465 at DR 40 to 49 to $1,840 at DR 80 and above, about four times, while Ahrefs' median clicks go from 831 at DR 40–50 to 50,292 at DR 80–90. This is our own reading of two published tables from two different samples, not a promise of any result.

Our own prices sit on different axes: we do not price on DR. Guest Posts are priced per post by the minimum Moz DA of the site, from $75 at DA10+ to $400 at DA60+. Curated Links are priced per link by the site's referring domains, from $60 at 20 to 100 referring domains to $210 at 1,000 and above. These are DA and referring-domain tiers, not DR bands, so they do not belong in the table above. More on prices by driver is in guest post pricing, cost by channel is in what link building costs, and how to work out what a placement returned is in link building ROI.

How we price and vet a placement site

On Guest Posts, Moz DA sets the tier and the price. We then cross-check the site against Ahrefs DR and live organic traffic, which tell us whether the DA figure is earned. Indexed page count, organic traffic and where it is heading, DA, DR, referring domains and the strength of the link profile are weighed together, so one headline score never decides a placement. We turn away sites whose metrics look impressive but whose traffic does not hold up. Curated Links sites are chosen on relevance to your niche, referring domains, DA, organic traffic and overall site quality.

After publication we check that the page is live, that the link sits in the body copy, that the anchor text and target URL match the order and that the page is indexable; only then is the URL reported to the dashboard. Every delivered link has 12-month replacement cover. The full standard is on our quality assurance page, and how we measure a site's authority is in link authority.

Frequently asked questions

What is a high DR link?

A high DR link is a link from a site with a high Ahrefs Domain Rating. DR is a 100-point score Ahrefs gives a site for the strength of its backlink profile. Ahrefs sets no number at which a site counts as high. Price lists band the top of the scale at DR 71 or DR 80 and above, which is where the DR80+ label comes from.

Are DR80+ links worth the premium?

The premium pays for scarcity and readership. In Ahrefs' June 2026 sample, 1,931 of 344,956 sites sat at DR 80 or above, and the median DR 80–90 site had 50,292 search clicks a month against 831 at DR 40–50. A DR80+ link is worth it when the site you are offered has the traffic its band suggests and covers your subject. A buyer confirms that by comparing the site's organic traffic with the median for its band, checking the page the link would sit on and reading DA beside DR.

How much does a DR80+ link cost?

Three published studies give dated figures from their own samples. ESBO put the median quoted price for one sponsored article at $1,840 at DR 80 and above on 6 September 2026. BuzzStream put the vendor price at 80+ DR, its top band, at about $3,000 in a study last updated 15 June 2026. Adsy put the average for a link on a high-DR website (DR 71+) at $2,025 in a report updated 23 June 2026.

What is a good DR for a backlink?

Ahrefs says no single DR value can be called good, because the score is relative. Ahrefs also advises aiming for links from high-DR websites and pairing DR with domain level traffic and UR when judging a link. The useful question for a buyer is not whether a DR value is good but whether the site behind it earns its band.

Is Domain Rating a ranking factor?

Ahrefs' own help page says there is no evidence that search engines use Domain Rating as a ranking factor. Ahrefs describes DR as a metric for selecting websites to build links from. Ahrefs' help page on Domain Rating advises aiming for backlinks from high-DR websites.