Which launches held their rating on Ahrefs DR4
50 startups launched on Aback Launch, each read on both of Ahrefs' models on the same day. Updated every Monday until DR4 becomes the default on December 1.
The median launch at DR 10+ lost 21 points on DR4
- Median DR3
- 26
- Median DR4
- 0
- Scored lower
- 90%
- Held or rose
- 10%
Of 50 launches, 45 scored lower on DR4, 3 stayed the same and 2 went up. Among the 39 that started at DR 10 or more, the median change was -21. A site at DR 0 cannot fall, so that second number is the fairer one.
Domain Rating by Ahrefs, read November 9, 2026.
The launches that held their rating best
Launches that started at DR 10 or more, ranked by the smallest fall, then by the higher DR4. Click one to see the product.
Domain Rating by Ahrefs. A founder who would rather not be listed can ask us through the contact page.
2 launches scored higher on DR4
DR4 weighs links by where they come from, so a site with a few links from popular, real sites can score higher than it did on DR3.
How far launches fell
Share of launches by the change from DR3 to DR4, in points.
Compared with the sites founders list on
In our study of 2,026 directories and media sites, the median launch platform fell from DR 45 to DR 10, a change of -28. Aback Launch itself falls from DR 43 to DR 25. The median startup launched here changed by -16, or -21 for those at DR 10 or more.
What a lower DR4 means for your startup
- Your Google rankings do not change. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' estimate of your link profile. Ahrefs changed how it measures, not how Google ranks.
- Links from popular sites count for more. The sites that held their score in our study were the ones real people visit. One link from a site with an audience is worth more than many from directories nobody reads.
- Compare like with like. A DR3 number and a DR4 number are on different scales. After December 1, compare your score with other sites' DR4, not with your old DR3.
- Choose where to list by readers, not by DR. Many directories lost most of their score. Pick places that send visitors, and check their DR4 before you pay.
How we measure
- Every Monday until December 1, we read each live launch's site from Ahrefs' free Domain Rating API twice: the default model (DR3) and
version=dr4. Both readings for a site are taken the same day. - Only sites on a domain of their own count. A site on a shared host (for example a vercel.app or github.io address) would show the host's rating, not the founder's.
- From December 1, 2026 Ahrefs answers DR4 by default, so DR3 can no longer be read. The pairs then stay as they were on the last Monday before.
- Ahrefs' licence lets us show these scores with credit, but not hand them on as a dataset, so this report has no download. Every number is Domain Rating by Ahrefs.
Cite as: Aback Launch, “Which launches held their rating on Ahrefs DR4”, updated 2026-11-09, https://abacklaunch.com/research/dr4. Please link to this page when you quote it.