How to Check a Competitor's Domain Authority (And What to Do With the Data)

Most SEO audits start with your own site. That's the wrong place to begin. Without a benchmark — a clear picture of where your closest competitors sit — your authority score is a number without context. Knowing your own domain rating tells you where you are; knowing theirs tells you what you actually need to do. The data becomes strategically useful the moment you put both figures side by side.

If you want to know how to check a competitor's domain authority, the process takes under five minutes with the right tool. What takes longer — and what most guides skip — is knowing how to interpret the gap and turn it into a prioritised link-building or content plan. That's what this article covers.

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What Domain Authority Actually Measures (And What It Doesn't)

"Domain authority" is an umbrella term, not a single standardised metric. Different tools calculate it differently, and conflating them leads to poor decisions.

The main metrics in use

• Domain Authority (DA) — Moz's proprietary 0–100 score, calculated primarily from the quantity and quality of inbound links.
• Domain Rating (DR) — Ahrefs' equivalent metric, also 0–100, weighted heavily by the number of unique referring domains and their own DR scores.
• Authority Score — Semrush's version, which incorporates organic traffic estimates alongside backlink data.

None of these metrics is used directly by Google. They are third-party proxies designed to approximate the likelihood that a domain will rank well. The value is comparative, not absolute. A DR of 45 means relatively little on its own; a DR of 45 against a competitor's DR of 32 tells you something concrete about your relative link equity advantage.

The logarithmic scale problem

All the major authority scores use a logarithmic scale. Moving from DR 20 to DR 30 requires far fewer links than moving from DR 60 to DR 70. This matters when you're assessing the gap between your site and a competitor's. A ten-point difference at the lower end of the scale is far more closeable than a ten-point difference at the top.

How to Check a Competitor's Domain Authority: Three Reliable Methods

There are several ways to pull competitor authority data. The method you choose depends on how many competitors you're assessing and how much context you need alongside the score.

Method 1: Ahrefs' free Website Authority Checker

Ahrefs offers a free Website Authority Checker that returns a domain's DR, the number of referring domains, and the number of dofollow backlinks without requiring a paid subscription. Enter a competitor's URL, and you'll have their DR within seconds. The free version allows you to check multiple domains in sequence, which makes it suitable for building a quick competitive benchmark across five to ten rivals.

Method 2: Moz Link Explorer

Moz's Link Explorer provides Domain Authority alongside page authority and spam score. Free accounts allow a limited number of queries per month. The advantage here is spam score visibility — a competitor with a high DA but a high spam score has built that authority in a way that may not be durable or worth emulating.

Method 3: Semrush's Domain Overview

Semrush's Authority Score sits inside its Domain Overview report, which also surfaces organic traffic estimates, top keywords, and backlink trends. If you're already using Semrush for keyword research, running a competitor's domain through this report gives you authority data alongside the traffic and ranking context that makes it meaningful.

What the Authority Gap Actually Tells You About Your SEO Position

Here's the section that generic guides skip: the raw score gap between your domain and a competitor's tells you three strategically distinct things, and each one implies a different response.

When you're significantly behind (10+ points on a logarithmic scale)

A large authority gap against a direct competitor usually indicates one of two things: they've been building links consistently for longer than you have, or they've secured a small number of very high-authority referring domains that you haven't. The right move is not to try to replicate their entire backlink profile — that's a years-long project. Instead, identify the five to ten highest-DR referring domains pointing to them that do not link to you. Those are your priority targets for outreach or digital PR.

When you're roughly level (within 5 points)

Parity in authority scores is where content quality and topical depth become the deciding factor. When Google cannot meaningfully differentiate two domains by link equity alone, it falls back on relevance signals. This is the scenario where investing in topical authority — systematic, deep content coverage of your niche — delivers the highest return.

When you're ahead

An authority lead over competitors is an asset with a shelf life. Competitors who are actively building links will close the gap. The appropriate response is not complacency but rather using your authority advantage to target higher-difficulty keywords before rivals can compete for them.

Why Referring Domain Count Matters More Than the Score Itself

Most practitioners fixate on the headline authority score. The more useful number — particularly for deciding where to invest in link building — is the referring domain count alongside the score.

Consider two competitors with identical DR scores. One has 800 referring domains; the other has 120. The first has broad link diversity across many different sources. The second has concentrated authority from a small number of very high-DR domains. These are fundamentally different link profiles, and they call for different competitive responses.

The competitor with 120 high-quality referring domains is often easier to understand and target. Their links likely come from identifiable sources — industry publications, partner directories, earned press coverage. The competitor with 800 varied referring domains may have built links through multiple channels over many years, which is harder to reverse-engineer quickly.

When you pull competitor data, always note:

• Total referring domains (not just total backlinks)
• The DR distribution of those referring domains
• The ratio of dofollow to nofollow links
• Whether referring domain growth is recent or historical

A competitor whose referring domain count has been flat for two years has a static profile. One whose count has grown steadily over the past six months is actively investing in link acquisition — and you should take note of what's earning them those links.

Turning Competitor Authority Data Into a Prioritised Action Plan

Pulling the data is the easy part. The question is what to do with it in the next thirty days. Here's a structured approach that avoids the trap of turning competitive analysis into an exercise in passive observation.

Step 1: Build a competitive authority matrix

List your five closest organic competitors — the sites that actually rank for the keywords you're targeting, not necessarily the biggest brands in your sector. Pull DR (or DA), referring domain count, and estimated organic traffic for each. Put your own domain alongside them. This matrix is your baseline. Any SEO investment decision you make from this point should reference it.

Step 2: Run a link gap analysis

Most tools — Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz among them — offer a link gap or link intersect feature that shows you which domains link to your competitors but not to you. Filter for referring domains with a DR above 50. These are your highest-priority outreach targets because they've already demonstrated willingness to link to sites in your space.

Step 3: Identify linkable asset opportunities

Look at which pages on a competitor's site are earning the most referring domains. In Ahrefs, this is the "Best by Links" report under Site Explorer. If a competitor's research report or tool page has attracted links from 40 different domains, that's a content format signal. Creating a better or more current version of that resource — with genuine additional value — is the most defensible link-building strategy available to most businesses. This approach is sometimes called the skyscraper method, and it works precisely because you're targeting proven linkable formats rather than guessing.

FAQ

Is domain authority the same across all SEO tools?

No. Moz's Domain Authority, Ahrefs' Domain Rating, and Semrush's Authority Score are all distinct metrics with different underlying calculations. They are broadly correlated but not interchangeable. When benchmarking competitors, always use the same tool for all domains in your comparison to ensure consistency.

How often should I check competitor domain authority?

A quarterly check is sufficient for most businesses. Link profiles change gradually, and checking too frequently creates noise rather than insight. The exception is if you're running an active link-building campaign — in that case, monthly monitoring lets you track whether your efforts are closing the gap.

Can a competitor have a high domain authority but still rank below me?

Yes, and this is common. Authority is a domain-level signal; rankings are page-level. A competitor with a higher domain authority may still rank below you on specific queries if your page is more relevant, better structured, or has stronger page-level link equity for that particular topic. Authority is one input into rankings, not the only one.

Should I worry if a competitor's domain authority is much higher than mine?

It depends on the keyword difficulty of the terms you're competing for. For high-competition head terms, a significant authority gap is a meaningful obstacle. For mid-tail and long-tail queries with lower competition, page-level relevance often outweighs the domain-level authority gap. Segment your keyword targets by difficulty and match your authority-building efforts accordingly.

Related Reading

• What Makes a High-Quality Backlink? (And What to Avoid)
• Paid vs Editorial Backlinks: What Builds Authority
• What Is Topical Authority and How Do You Build It?
• Why Does SEO Still Matter in 2026?
• Content SEO: How to Create Content That Ranks, Converts and Gets Cited by AI