A Domain Rating is easy to inflate and hard to read from a listing. Every domain here shows its Ahrefs DR next to the referring domains that produce it, the year of first registration and the asking price, so you can see whether the score is carried by real sites before you pay anything.
Membership $24.50/mo billed yearly, or $49/mo. One listing unlocked free when you open an account. The domain itself is paid separately at the price shown.
| Domain | DR | Backlinks | Ref. domains | Age | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
cus*****nce.io
Technology
|
51 | 214 | 164 | 12 years | $1,800 |
|
por*****hub.io
Premium SEO domain
|
42 | 626 | 228 | 7 years | $2,400 |
Backlink totals and the rest of the figures for each name are on the full catalogue page.
The short answer
A high DR expired domain is a lapsed domain with an Ahrefs Domain Rating of roughly 30 or more, bought for the links it already has. The score is worth paying for only when enough real, on-topic sites stand behind it. Before buying, divide the referring domains by the DR and the price by the DR: a high score on very few referring domains is the most common sign of an inflated rating.
Right now the catalogue lists 2 domains at DR 42 to 51. Their asking prices work out at $35 to $57 per point of Domain Rating, and the table below shows the arithmetic for each one. Membership at $24.50 a month billed yearly reveals the names, the Ahrefs reports and a direct purchase link.
Two ratios tell you more than the DR itself. Referring domains per DR point shows how broad the score is: the thinner it is, the easier it was to manufacture. Price per DR point makes a listing here comparable with one anywhere else. Both are calculated from the live catalogue.
| Domain | Ahrefs DR | Referring domains | Ref. domains per DR point | Price | Price per DR point |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cus*****nce.io | 51 | 164 | 3.2 | $1,800 | $35 |
| por*****hub.io | 42 | 228 | 5.4 | $2,400 | $57 |
A DR 50 on fewer than 50 referring domains. Usually a handful of powerful links bought to lift the score. Walk away unless you can see every one of them is real.
Plausible for a site that earned a few strong mentions. Open the top twenty linking domains and check they are publishers with traffic of their own.
A broad profile that is hard to fake. The remaining questions are topic match and site history, not whether the score is real.
These bands are a rule of thumb from reading profiles, not an Ahrefs standard. For what a DR 30 domain sells for at each source, see what a DR 30 expired domain should cost.
Ahrefs builds Domain Rating from the sites that link to a domain. Its own documentation says a linking site splits its rating equally among every domain it links to, and that a DR 10 site linking to three domains can move a score more than a DR 80 site linking to a million. The final value is then scaled onto a 0 to 100 range, and each step gets harder the higher you go.
That design is sensible for measuring real sites and easy to exploit on expired ones. A seller who places a few links from strong sites that link out to very little can lift a DR by twenty points in weeks, list the domain, and let the buyer pay for a number that has almost nothing under it. The score survives the sale; the links often do not, because rented links get removed once the payment stops.
The second trap is age. A domain that had a DR 50 profile in 2019 can still show it after years of being parked, because the links remain in the index. If the domain has had no traffic for years, those links are likely to be ghost links that pass little. Check traffic history and the Wayback Machine alongside the score.
None of this means DR is useless. It is the fastest way to shortlist, and it is what every seller quotes, so it is the number that makes listings comparable. It just cannot be the reason you buy.
Sellers pick whichever score looks best on a given domain. Knowing what each one measures lets you ask for the other two.
| Score | Made by | What it measures | How sellers inflate it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain Rating (DR) | Ahrefs | Strength of the backlink profile, from linking sites and how many domains each one links to | A few links from strong sites with few outbound links |
| Domain Authority (DA) | Moz | Predicted ranking ability, from Moz's own link index | Link volume from sites Moz rates highly |
| Trust Flow (TF) | Majestic | How close the links sit to a hand-picked set of trusted seed sites | Harder to fake; a high DR with a very low TF is a warning sign |
| Referring domains | Any link index | How many separate sites link at all | Directory and comment spam, so read who they are, not only how many |
Google uses none of these scores. If you shop on Moz's number, the high DA domains for sale page covers it, and buyers who care most about the link list itself should start from expired domains with backlinks.
The same trade-off as with any expired domain: the cheaper the source, the more of the checking above is yours. Where another source is the better fit, the table says so.
| Source | Access cost | DR filter | Who checks the score | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEODomain | $24.50/mo billed yearly or $49/mo, one listing free | DR, referring domains and price public on every listing | We do, and hand over the Ahrefs report | One good domain, numbers visible first |
| DomCop | $816 to $1,416 a year, no trial | Ahrefs DR among 90+ metrics | You do | Agencies filtering at volume |
| SpamZilla | $37/mo | Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz data with a spam score | You do, with an automatic spam score | Regular buyers happy to bid |
| SEO.Domains | No fee, $30 to $60,000 per domain | DR, DA, TF and index status on the listing | You do; refund only for a Pure Spam penalty | Buyers who need a niche or country TLD |
| Registrar auctions | Small membership | None; you pull DR yourself | You do | Low budgets and experienced bidders |
Detailed write-ups: the SEO.Domains review, the DomCop review and the SpamZilla alternative page.
Names are masked, the numbers are not. Check referring domains per DR point and price per DR point before you look at anything else.
A new account reveals one listing free. Membership reveals every name with the Ahrefs report behind the score, so you can read the linking sites yourself.
Each listing carries a direct purchase link. You pay the asking price to whoever holds the name, separately from membership, and move it to your own registrar.
For an expired domain bought to build on, DR 30 and up is where the authority starts to matter, and DR 50 and up is rare and priced accordingly. The number alone does not make it good. A DR 35 domain with 150 referring domains from real sites is a better buy than a DR 55 domain whose score rests on a dozen links.
Yes, and it is common. Ahrefs splits a linking site's rating equally among the domains it links to, so a few links from high-DR sites that link out to very little can push a score up quickly. Sellers buy those links to inflate DR before listing. The tell is a high DR resting on very few referring domains, or on sites with no traffic of their own.
Use both and trust neither on its own. Ahrefs DR and Moz DA are third-party estimates built from each company's own link index; Google uses neither. DR is the one most expired domain buyers and sellers quote, so it is the easier one to compare across listings. Confirm either score by reading the actual referring domains before you pay.
At auction, anything from a closeout fee to thousands of dollars when several buyers want it. On curated marketplaces checked domains at DR 30 to 50 usually run from about $1,000 to $5,000. Dividing the asking price by the DR gives a price per point that makes listings from different sellers comparable at a glance.
It can, when the links behind the DR are real and on the same topic as your new site. Those links pass authority to the pages you publish, which shortens the time a new site spends outside the top results. If the DR comes from off-topic or bought links, it adds risk rather than speed, and Google may ignore the links entirely.
Enter the domain in the Ahrefs Site Explorer or its free website authority checker to see the current DR and referring domain count. Then open the referring domains report and read the top linking sites. On this marketplace the DR, referring domains and age are on every listing, and membership reveals the name with the Ahrefs report the numbers came from.
Not by itself. Google's spam policies target expired domain abuse: buying an old domain mainly to host low-value content that trades on its past reputation. Building a genuine site on a domain whose links match your topic is ordinary business. The risk comes from what you publish and from a link profile that was inflated before you bought it.
Every name shows its Domain Rating, referring domains, age and price before you pay anything. Open an account and one listing is revealed free.
Every way to buy an expired domain, what each costs, and the five checks that decide a purchase.
For buyers who shortlist on Moz Domain Authority rather than Ahrefs DR.
The catalogue ordered oldest first, for buyers who read registration history before anything else.