High DR Backlinks: What They Cost and Who Says Yes
A high DR backlink is a link from a site with a high Ahrefs Domain Rating. There is no fixed cut-off. You can pitch for one, earn one through press coverage, or pay for one.
Pitching: works, but high-DR sites say yes far less often than small ones.
Paying: a link that passes ranking credit breaks Google's spam policies unless it is marked sponsored or nofollow.
DR 70+ sites replied to MentionAgent's pitches slightly more often than DR 0 to 9 sites, but said yes about an eighth as often: 0.55% of domains against 4.3%.
Price: DR 70+ sites that quoted asked a median of $200, against $120 at DR 0 to 9. One DR 70+ quote in four was $500 or more.
Method: domains first emailed 19 August to 16 October 2026, link outreach only, one row per domain, auto-replies left out, at least 14 days to reply.
What counts as a high DR backlink
Domain Rating is Ahrefs' score, not Google's. Ahrefs defines it this way: "Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a website's backlink profile compared to the others in our database on a 100-point scale." The same page says there is no fixed line: "It's not possible to say that a Domain Rating of 30 is good, or 50, or 60, or 70. It's all relative."
In practice the line is drawn by whoever is selling. Web20Ranker, a top-five Google result for "high dr backlinks" on 30 October 2026, sells guest posts in tiers from DR 20+ to DR 60+. To look up a site's DR, paste it into our free DR checker. For how the score is calculated, see what is Domain Rating.
What high DR backlinks cost
Many sites answer a link request with a price. These are the prices quoted to MentionAgent users in the cohort above, by the Ahrefs DR of the site that quoted. We took the first figure in each quote (the highest, where a site quoted more than once), currency as written.
| Site's DR | Median price asked | Middle half of quotes | Quotes of $500 or more |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 9 | $120 | $99 to $299 | 5% |
| 10 to 29 | $110 | $50 to $215 | 6% |
| 30 to 49 | $140 | $73 to $295 | 12% |
| 50 to 69 | $150 | $80 to $300 | 15% |
| 70+ | $200 | $100 to $450 | 24% |
The median only moves from $110 to $200 across the bands. What changes most is the top end: about one DR 70+ quote in four was $500 or more.
Link sellers price the same tiers higher. Their listed prices, checked 30 October 2026:
| Tier | FATJOE | Web20Ranker (on sale) | Asked directly, median |
|---|---|---|---|
| DR 50+ | $336 | $233.10 | $150 (DR 50 to 69) |
| DR 60+ | $456 | $359.10 | $200 (DR 70+) |
The seller does the outreach and writing for that price. To compare more of them, see link building packages and link building agencies. Link insertions against guest posts are in how much backlinks cost.
Who says yes, by DR
Same cohort. "Said yes" means the reply agreed, showed interest, asked for details or moved on to placing the link, and doesn't include price quotes.
| Site's DR | Domains that replied | Domains that said yes | Replies that asked to be paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 9 | 7.7% | 4.3% | 14% |
| 10 to 29 | 7.0% | 2.7% | 29% |
| 30 to 49 | 7.7% | 1.9% | 34% |
| 50 to 69 | 9.2% | 1.4% | 35% |
| 70+ | 8.5% | 0.55% | 28% |
High-DR sites don't ignore you. They reply as often as small ones or more. But the replies change: at DR 0 to 9, 56% of replies were a yes. At DR 70+ it was 6.5%, and most of the rest were price quotes, refusals, and replies our classifier marked general, off topic or spam. Our agent skips most sites at DR 85 and above, so the top band is mainly DR 70 to 84. Our link prospecting tools page found the same slope in July to September.
How to get high DR backlinks
- Pitch pages, not domains. Find high-DR sites that already have a post on your topic, and ask for a link in that post, a link insertion. Link building tools can find and pitch these pages for you. At the yes rates above, three yeses take about 70 pitches to DR 0 to 9 sites, or about 550 to DR 70+ sites. Start from link building email templates.
- Answer journalist requests. Reporters on news sites post requests for sources, and a quote sometimes comes with a link. HARO alternatives compares the services that carry them.
- Publish something worth citing, such as your own data, and pitch it to the sites that cover your field. See digital PR.
- Mix in lower DR. Ahrefs' own page says "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." By that logic, a link from a huge platform that links out to millions of sites adds little to your DR.
Before you buy "DR 70+ backlinks"
Google's spam policies list "Exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links" as link spam. If you buy anyway, check four things first:
- The page, not just the domain. Ahrefs notes that DR "correlates with Google rankings pretty well" but not as well as URL Rating, its page-level score.
- Relevance. Check the site has posts on your topic.
- Traffic. Ask for organic traffic as well as DR. FATJOE's tiers pair each DR floor with a traffic range, for example 1k to 30k monthly traffic at DR 50+.
- The sample. Ask for live examples from the last month and check they are still up.
Warning signs and common traps are in link building scams, and the policy side in buying backlinks. If a site you pitched asks for money, here's how to reply.
Pitch the sites that write about your topic
MentionAgent finds blog posts on your topic, shows each site's Ahrefs DR, finds the contact and writes each pitch against that post. It doesn't buy links. Follow-ups go only to people who replied. From $99 a month.
Start Getting Mentioned On AutopilotFrequently asked questions
What DR counts as a high DR backlink?
There is no official cut-off. Ahrefs, which makes the metric, says DR is relative. Sellers draw the line themselves: Web20Ranker, a top-five Google result for this search, sells tiers from DR 20+ to DR 60+.
How much does a high DR backlink cost?
DR 70+ sites that quoted MentionAgent users a price between August and October 2026 asked a median of $200, against $120 at DR 0 to 9. About one DR 70+ quote in four was $500 or more.
Can you get high DR backlinks for free?
Yes, but expect far more pitches per yes. In our data DR 70+ sites said yes or asked for details 0.55% of the time, about an eighth of the rate at DR 0 to 9.
Is buying high DR backlinks against Google's rules?
Google's spam policies list exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links, as link spam. A paid link that is marked sponsored or nofollow is allowed.
What are high DA backlinks?
Links from sites with a high Domain Authority, Moz's version of the same idea. Moz says DA isn't a direct Google ranking factor. See Domain Authority.
Do backlinks still matter in 2026?
Google's ranking systems guide says it has "various systems that understand how pages link to each other", and that PageRank "continues to be part of our core ranking systems."