What this website authority checker shows
Enter your domain and up to 4 competitors. For each one the checker returns four things:
- The OpenPageRank score, from 0 to 10 with two decimals. OpenPageRank describes it as a score “built from Common Crawl’s open web graph”[1].
- The global rank, the domain’s position among all the domains OpenPageRank scores, where 1 is the highest[3], and the top-N bracket it falls in. OpenPageRank publishes its top 10 million domains[6], so the brackets run from the top 100 to the top 10 million.
- The comparison: who leads, your position in the set, and how many points separate you from each competitor.
- AI crawler access, read from each site’s robots.txt: whether OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, the crawlers behind ChatGPT search, Claude’s search and Perplexity, are allowed in, and the main training crawlers too.
A subdomain is scored as its registered domain: OpenPageRank collapses every host into its registered domain[2], so blog.example.com is scored as example.com, and the result says so.
What website authority scores are
“Website authority” and “domain authority” are not one measurement. Each SEO data company builds its own score from its own crawl of the web, on its own scale, and gives it its own name. The four you will meet most often:
| Score | Scale | Built from | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moz Domain Authority (DA) | 1 to 100 | A machine learning model over Moz's link index: linking root domains, link quality and other signals | As Moz's index and model change |
| Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) | 0 to 100, logarithmic | Followed links from unique domains, each passing a share of its own DR | Not stated |
| Semrush Authority Score (AS) | 1 to 100 | Eight weighted factors: link power, organic traffic and spam factors | Every two weeks |
| OpenPageRank | 0 to 10, logarithmic | PageRank over Common Crawl's web graph plus weighted referring domains | About monthly |
Sources: Moz[7]; Ahrefs[8][9]; Semrush[10]; OpenPageRank[2].
Moz Domain Authority
Moz says Domain Authority “predicts how likely a website is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) compared to competitors”, on a score from 1 to 100[7]. It is calculated with “a machine learning algorithm that evaluates multiple factors, primarily focusing on backlink data”, including the number of linking root domains and the quality of those links[7]. Because it is a model, scores move when Moz’s index or the model changes, as they did with Domain Authority 2.0 in 2019, not only when your links change[7].
Ahrefs Domain Rating
Ahrefs describes DR as a metric that “shows the relative strength of a website’s backlink profile”, measured on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100[8]. Its method is close to PageRank at the level of whole sites: Ahrefs finds every domain with at least one followed link to yours and passes each one’s DR to you, divided by the number of unique domains it links to[8]. Only the first link from a domain counts, nofollow links do not, and Ahrefs says DR is “purely link-based” and does not account for backlink spam[8].
Semrush Authority Score
Semrush calls Authority Score “our compound metric that grades the overall quality of a website or a webpage”, on a scale of 1 to 100[10]. Unlike DR it is not link-only: it combines link power, an estimate of organic traffic and spam factors that look for manipulation in the link profile, and Semrush recomputes it for all domains every two weeks[10].
OpenPageRank
OpenPageRank, now run by Keywords Everywhere, scores domains from Common Crawl’s public web graph. Its methodology page says it collapses every host into its registered domain using the Public Suffix List, solves PageRank “across the entire graph at once”, and adds a count of referring domains in which “only referring domains that carry real weight of their own are counted”[2]. The two are combined into one score shown to two decimals, on a scale that is “logarithmic, like the web itself”, recomputed each time Common Crawl publishes a new graph, about monthly[2]. Domains whose link profiles show “the tell-tale patterns of a link network are scored down toward zero”[2].
We use it for one practical reason and say so: its data is free. The free plan covers 30,000 domains a month at 60 requests a minute[4], which is enough to give this checker away. This page shows OpenPageRank only, under its own name, and does not dress it up as one of the others.
Where the idea comes from: PageRank
Every one of these scores descends from PageRank, the algorithm Sergey Brin and Larry Page described at Stanford in 1998. Their paper calls the web’s link graph “an important resource that has largely gone unused” and defines PageRank as “an objective measure of its citation importance that corresponds well with people’s subjective idea of importance”[11]. The formula counts links, but not equally: a link from a page with a high PageRank and few outgoing links passes more than a link from a page that links to everything.
PR(A) = (1 - d) + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + ... + PR(Tn)/C(Tn)) T1...Tn pages that link to page A C(T) the number of links going out of page T d damping factor, between 0 and 1, usually 0.85
The paper’s intuition is a “random surfer” who keeps clicking links and eventually gets bored and jumps to a random page; the probability that the surfer is on a page is its PageRank[11]. Third-party authority scores apply versions of that idea to whole domains, using their own crawls. Our explainer on what PageRank is works the formula through by hand on a four-page web.
None of them is a Google metric
This is the part most domain authority checkers leave out. Google has never used Moz DA, Ahrefs DR, Semrush AS or OpenPageRank. John Mueller of Google has said so for years: “Google doesn’t use ‘domain authority’” in 2016, “We don’t use domain authority at all in our algorithms” in 2020, and in 2022 that Google doesn’t use it at all, adding “I don’t think I’ve ever looked up the DA for a site in the 14 years I’ve been doing this”[15]. Moz agrees: “Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on the SERPs”[7]. Ahrefs makes a related point, that “Google ranks pages, not websites”[8].
Google does use links. In the same 2020 exchange Mueller said “we do use PageRank internally, among many, many other signals”, and that it is “not quite the same as the original paper”[14]. Google’s own ranking systems guide says PageRank was one of its core ranking systems at launch, that “how PageRank works has evolved a lot since then, and it continues to be part of our core ranking systems”[12]. And on how it judges quality, Google says “one of the factors used to determine quality is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content”[13].
What actually builds authority
Every score above rises for the same reason: more sites, and more trusted sites, link to yours. The work is earning those links, and Google is specific about what does not count as earning them. Its spam policies define link spam as “creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings”, and list, among others[16]:
- Buying or selling links for ranking purposes, including exchanging goods or services, or a free product, for a link.
- Excessive link exchanges (“link to me and I’ll link to you”).
- Using automated programs or services to create links to your site.
- Links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites.
- Low-quality directory or bookmark links, widely distributed footer and template links, and optimized forum signatures.
Paid links are allowed when they are labelled: Google says buying and selling links for advertising is normal, and not a violation as long as the links carry rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored"[16].
What earns links is less of a secret than it sounds: things other people want to point at. Original data that journalists and bloggers quote, free tools people share, clear explanations that become the reference for a topic, and a product that customers write about. Our post on brand mentions vs backlinks covers why being talked about matters even when nobody links, and the guide to how to increase domain authority checks each common tactic against Google’s policy, with real score histories.
Your own links matter too. Google can generally only crawl a link if it is an <a> element with an href, and asks for anchor text that is “descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant”[17]. Internal links built from buttons or script handlers pass nothing.
<!-- crawlable, descriptive anchor text -->
<a href="https://example.com/pricing-benchmarks">2026 SaaS pricing benchmarks</a>
<!-- not crawlable: no href -->
<span onclick="go('https://example.com/pricing-benchmarks')">Read more</span>Authority and AI answers: what is known
Start with what Google documents. Its generative AI guide says AI Overviews and AI Mode improve their answers “by relying on our core Search ranking systems to retrieve relevant, up-to-date web pages from our Search index”[19]. PageRank is part of those core systems[12]. And a page must be indexed and eligible to be shown with a snippet to appear as a supporting link, with “no additional technical requirements”[18]. So in Google’s AI features, links matter the way they matter in Search, no more and no less.
Outside Google there is correlation data, not documentation. Ahrefs studied 75,000 brands and found that Domain Rating correlated with how often AI Overviews mention a brand at 0.326, well behind branded web mentions at 0.664, and ahead of raw backlinks at 0.218[20]. A later Ahrefs study across ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews found ChatGPT “shows weaker correlations with classic authority metrics”, with DR at 0.266[21]. Ahrefs itself cautions that correlation is not causation[20].
| Branded web mentions | 0.664 |
|---|---|
| Branded anchors | 0.527 |
| Branded search volume | 0.392 |
| Domain Rating | 0.326 |
| Referring domains | 0.295 |
| Backlinks | 0.218 |
What is not known: OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity do not publish how, or whether, their assistants weigh a site’s link authority when choosing what to cite. Anyone who tells you a DR of 50 gets you into ChatGPT is guessing. Two things are within your control and do matter: whether the assistants’ crawlers are allowed to read your site, which this checker shows from robots.txt, and whether they actually mention you, which the AI visibility checker tests directly.
How to read your result
Compare, don’t grade. Moz says there is “no universally ‘good’ DA score since it’s a relative metric”, and that the best use is to compare yourself with competitors in your industry[7]. Semrush says the same of Authority Score[10]. A few points of OpenPageRank:
- Gaps grow at the top. On a logarithmic scale, moving from 7 to 8 takes far more links than moving from 2 to 3. Ahrefs makes the same point about DR[8].
- The rank is the finer measure. The score is rounded to two decimals; the rank is a position among every domain scored, so it separates domains the score shows as level.
- “Not found” is an answer. It means OpenPageRank has no measurable links to the domain in Common Crawl’s graph yet. Expect it for new sites.
- It moves monthly. Scores change when a new Common Crawl graph is processed[2], so checking every day shows the same number. Look again next month.
- It measures links only. OpenPageRank says it “measures link authority, not traffic, revenue, or content quality”[2].
Website authority checklist
Work through this once a quarter, and after any campaign meant to earn links. Your ticks are saved in this browser only.
Track authority against competitors
This page gives you one reading. In the app, authority tracking keeps the readings for your brand and up to 5 competitors on the Starter plan, so you can see whether authority is climbing or sliding, with referring domains from a full backlink index alongside. It sits next to competitor tracking, the measure that matters more for AI search: how often assistants mention you and the competitors you track.
The free account tracks 3 competitors with an email address and no card; authority tracking starts on Starter.
Questions people ask
What does this website authority checker measure?
It shows each domain's OpenPageRank score, from 0 to 10 with two decimals, and its global rank among all the domains OpenPageRank scores, for up to 5 domains side by side. OpenPageRank computes PageRank over Common Crawl's open web graph and combines it with a count of referring domains that carry weight of their own, on a logarithmic scale. It also reads each site's robots.txt to show which AI crawlers it lets in.
Is OpenPageRank the same as Moz Domain Authority or Ahrefs Domain Rating?
No. Moz Domain Authority runs from 1 to 100 and comes from a machine learning model over Moz's own link index. Ahrefs Domain Rating runs from 0 to 100 on a logarithmic scale and is purely link based. Semrush Authority Score runs from 1 to 100 and adds organic traffic and spam factors. OpenPageRank runs from 0 to 10 and is built from Common Crawl. The four use different data, so a score from one cannot be converted into another.
Does Google use domain authority?
No. Google's John Mueller has said so many times, including "We don't use domain authority at all in our algorithms" in 2020 and that Google doesn't use it at all in 2022. Moz itself says Domain Authority is not a Google ranking factor. Google does use links: its ranking systems guide says PageRank, how pages link to each other, is still part of its core ranking systems.
What is a good domain authority score?
There is no universal good score. Moz says Domain Authority is a relative metric best used to compare yourself with competitors, and Semrush says the same of Authority Score. Read OpenPageRank the same way: the gap between you and the sites you compete with matters more than the number on its own.
Why is my domain not found?
OpenPageRank only scores domains that appear in Common Crawl's web graph with links pointing at them. A new site, or one that few other sites link to yet, comes back as not found. It is a real answer, not an error: earn some links and it will appear after a later monthly update.
How do I increase my website authority?
Earn links from sites people already trust: original data, useful free tools, expert commentary and real customers talking about you. Make your own links crawlable, with descriptive anchor text. Avoid buying links that pass ranking credit, link exchanges and automated link building, which Google's spam policies list as link spam.
Does website authority affect AI answers?
Partly, and only what is documented. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode rely on its core Search ranking systems, which include PageRank, so links matter there as they do in Search. Ahrefs found Domain Rating correlated 0.326 with AI Overview brand mentions, against 0.664 for branded web mentions, and weaker still in ChatGPT. OpenAI and Perplexity do not document how they weigh authority.