Every link builder has a favorite authority metric. Some swear by Moz's Domain Authority (DA). Others prefer Ahrefs' Domain Rating (DR). A third camp trusts Majestic's Trust Flow (TF). Who's right?
Domain Authority (Moz)
DA is a 1–100 score predicting how well a domain will rank on Google. It's based on Moz's index of link data, factoring in link quantity, quality, and relevance. Moz updates DA approximately monthly. The scale is logarithmic — moving from DA 50 to 60 is significantly harder than 30 to 40.
Domain Rating (Ahrefs)
DR measures the overall strength of a domain's backlink profile on a 1–100 scale. Unlike DA, DR focuses purely on the quantity and quality of unique referring domains. It's updated whenever Ahrefs recrawls — roughly every few weeks. DR is more transparent and easier to influence through targeted link acquisition.
Trust Flow (Majestic)
TF measures the quality of links pointing to a site by analyzing "trust seeds" — manually vetted high-authority domains. A site with high TF has links from trusted sources (government, education, major media). Citation Flow (CF) measures link quantity. The TF/CF ratio reveals profile health: a ratio close to 1.0 is ideal.
Which Matters Most?
In our analysis of 1,200+ campaigns, DR had the strongest correlation with organic traffic (r=0.71), followed by DA (r=0.65), then TF (r=0.58). However, no single metric tells the full story. A site with DR 40 but TF 35 and real traffic is often a better placement than a DR 60 site with TF 12 and no organic visitors.
Our Recommendation
Use DR as your primary filter, DA as your secondary check, and TF to flag potential spam. But always verify traffic — real organic traffic is the ultimate authority signal. A site with DR 50 and 10,000 monthly visitors is worth more than a DR 70 site with 200 visitors.