Why Did My Domain Authority Drop? (DA and DR Explained)
You lost followed links, or other sites gained links faster than you. Both scores are relative, so yours can fall while your own links stay the same. Google uses neither score.
Check: lost referring domains, links switched to nofollow, your Search Console clicks.
Ignore: a 1 or 2 point move with no change in traffic.
Of 2,891 sites MentionAgent checked twice, a median 60 days apart, 17% had a lower DR the second time. Only 3.6% fell 3 points or more.
The rest: 48% unchanged, 35% higher.
Ahrefs DR, April to October 2026. Method at the end.
"Domain authority" usually means one of two scores: Moz's Domain Authority (DA, 1 to 100) or Ahrefs' Domain Rating (DR, 0 to 100). Both are built from the links pointing at your site, and both are relative: Moz calls DA "a comparative metric", and Ahrefs says "when a DR-100 website gets more backlinks, we can't make it DR-101. So instead we push all the other websites down by 1."
The four reasons domain authority drops
| Reason | What the metric's owner says | Caused by you? |
|---|---|---|
| Other sites gained links | Ahrefs: "Other sites did a better job on linkbuilding." Moz: DA moves with "changes in competitors' scores". | No |
| You lost followed links | Ahrefs: "You are losing high-quality dofollow links." Moz: "shifts in your backlink profile". | Sometimes |
| A link became nofollow | Ahrefs: "DR ignores any backlinks or referring domains with the Nofollow attribute." | No |
| Your linking sites weakened | Ahrefs: if your referring domains drop in DR, or start "linking to more sites", they pass less to you. | No |
Moz adds one more for DA: "updates to the DA calculation model." Sources: Ahrefs' help article on DR drops and DR explainer, and Moz's Domain Authority guide.
How often domain rating actually drops
MentionAgent stores the Ahrefs DR of every site it evaluates for outreach, and many sites come up twice, weeks apart. For the 2,891 sites read at least 30 days apart:
| DR at first reading | Sites | Lower later | Down 3+ points | Higher later |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 9 | 101 | 15 (15%) | 1 | 67 (66%) |
| 10 to 19 | 98 | 25 (26%) | 10 | 59 (60%) |
| 20 to 29 | 177 | 48 (27%) | 18 | 92 (52%) |
| 30 to 39 | 253 | 77 (30%) | 16 | 129 (51%) |
| 40 to 49 | 264 | 69 (26%) | 18 | 131 (50%) |
| 50 to 59 | 385 | 93 (24%) | 15 | 164 (43%) |
| 60 and up | 1,613 | 172 (11%) | 26 | 375 (23%) |
| All | 2,891 | 499 (17%) | 104 (3.6%) | 1,017 (35%) |
- Most drops are small. 395 of the 499 lost less than 3 points; the biggest fall was 20.
- Mid-range sites drop most often: about one in four between DR 10 and 50, against one in nine above 60.
- Rising is more common than falling at every level.
Our own site went from DR 37 to 36 on 7 October 2026. One point is routine.
How to find the reason yours dropped
- Lost referring domains. Ahrefs suggests checking its Referring domains report for dofollow links lost around the date of the drop. A lost link from a strong site is the cause you can act on.
- Links switched to nofollow. Run pages that link to you through our free nofollow link checker.
- Your linking sites' own scores. Check them with our domain rating checker.
- Nothing lost or tagged? Then it's likely other sites gaining links, your linking sites weakening, or, for DA, a model update.
Before disavowing anything: Google says "most sites will not need to use this tool"; see how to disavow backlinks for when you do.
Does a drop hurt your Google rankings?
Not by itself. Moz says "Domain Authority is not a direct ranking factor" and calls it "a Moz-specific metric". DR is likewise Ahrefs' own estimate. What can hurt is the cause: if you lost strong links, that loss is real. Check clicks and positions in Search Console. If they held, only the score moved.
Why your domain authority is 1 or your DR is 0
- DA 1: Moz says "new websites always start with a Domain Authority of 1 and increase as they earn authoritative backlinks over time."
- DR 0: DR counts only followed links from other domains, so a site with none sits at or near 0.
How fast it climbs from there is in how long it takes to increase domain authority.
Getting the score back up
Earn followed links from sites that have links of their own. Pitch pages that fit the article (relevant backlinks), turn unlinked mentions into links, and skip bought links: Google's spam policies list "exchanging money for links" as link spam (buying backlinks). To estimate how many you need, see how many backlinks do I need.
Replace lost links on autopilot
MentionAgent finds relevant sites, pitches the page that fits each article, follows up, and checks that every link it wins stays live. From $99/mo.
Start Getting Mentioned On AutopilotMethod
- Source: MentionAgent's prospect table. Each row stores a site's Ahrefs DR from Ahrefs' free DR endpoint, read when the site was evaluated for outreach.
- Pairs: each domain's earliest and latest reading, kept if at least 30 days apart. 2,891 domains; median gap 60 days, longest 160.
- Excluded: rows created 10 to 21 August 2026, when an Ahrefs outage meant some DRs were filled in later.
- Limits: these are sites chosen as outreach targets, and 56% started at DR 60 or above. Moz DA wasn't recorded.
Frequently asked questions
Why did my domain authority go down?
You lost followed links, a link became nofollow, your linking sites weakened, or other sites gained links faster than you. Moz also lists updates to its DA model.
Can domain authority drop if I didn't lose any links?
Yes. Both scores are relative. Ahrefs says DR can drop because other sites did a better job on link building.
Does a domain authority drop hurt rankings?
Not by itself. Moz says DA is not a direct ranking factor; DR is Ahrefs' own metric. Check Search Console clicks and positions instead.
How often does domain rating drop?
Of 2,891 sites MentionAgent checked twice at least 30 days apart, 17% had a lower DR and 3.6% had fallen 3 points or more.