Ahrefs switches to DR4 on December 1, and a Thelemata study of 222 outlets PR teams pitch found that 139 now score DR 90 or higher, up from 107 under the current model. Consumer media gained the most, subdomains and university publications lost the most, and Cision, Meltwater and PRWeek moved in different directions. The takeaway for PR teams: Tier 1 labels now need audience and fit, not just a Domain Rating.
Updated November 11, 2026
Summary
Ahrefs replaces its current Domain Rating with DR4 on December 1. Thelemata, a PR agency, scored 222 outlets that PR teams commonly pitch under both models. The number scoring DR 90 or higher rises from 107 to 139. Consumer media gains the most, subdomains and university publications lose the most, and PR's own tools move in different directions. The update is a good reason to tier placements by audience and fit, not by a single number.
In this article
- What is Ahrefs DR4 and when does it start?
- What did the 222-outlet study find?
- Which outlets gained and lost the most?
- Why does DR4 matter for Tier 1 media lists?
- How should PR teams tier placements after December 1?
- What should PR teams tell clients before December reports?
- What are the limits of this data?
- Frequently asked questions
What is Ahrefs DR4 and when does it start?
Domain Rating, or DR, is Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score for the strength of a site's backlink profile compared with other sites in its database. Many PR teams use it as a quick proxy for how prestigious an outlet is.
Ahrefs previewed DR4 on November 5, 2026. The update reaches the standard Ahrefs interface on December 1, and DR3 scores stay available through the API for a short period afterward. One change in the new model matters a lot for media lists: subdomains now get their own score instead of copying the main domain's rating. Ahrefs explains the change in its DR4 announcement.
Publishers that live on subdomains, or sit inside larger domains, can see their scores move noticeably even though nothing about their journalism changed. For PR teams, that is the context for every number in this article.
DR is an Ahrefs metric, not a Google ranking signal. It describes link profiles. It does not measure audience size, readership quality or whether an outlet is right for a given story.
What did the 222-outlet study find?
Thelemata scored 222 outlets that PR teams commonly pitch, using Ahrefs' DR4 preview on November 10, 2026, and compared the results with the current model. The full write-up and chart are in Thelemata's DR4 Earned Media Study.
| Measure | Current model | DR4 |
|---|
| Outlets scoring DR 90 or higher | 107 | 139 |
| Share of the 222 outlets at DR 90 or higher | About 48% | About 63% |
Key findings reported by Thelemata:
- 139 of 222 outlets now score DR 90 or higher, up from 107, a net gain of 32 outlets.
- 36 outlets crossed into the 90s, including the Miami Herald, Barron's, Real Simple and GQ.
- Consumer media gained the most. Health and wellness outlets rose 2.4 points on average, and food and travel rose 2.1 points.
- None of the 30 lifestyle titles went down.
- Subdomains and university publications lost the most. Subdomains fell 2.8 points on average, and MIT Sloan Management Review and Knowledge at Wharton each fell 7 points.
- PR's own tools slipped. Cision fell 6 points and Meltwater fell 3 points, while PRWeek rose from 80 to 83.
The headline "139 of 222" depends on a DR 90 cutoff, which is the line many teams use for a Tier 1 label. A different cutoff would give different counts, so treat the number as a measure of how the label shifts, not as a ranking of quality.
Which outlets gained and lost the most?
Broad consumer publishers with strong link profiles did well, while outlets whose authority was partly borrowed from a parent domain did less well.
Gainers
- Health and wellness outlets, up 2.4 points on average.
- Food and travel outlets, up 2.1 points on average.
- Lifestyle titles, where none of the 30 in the study declined.
- Regional and business names that crossed into the 90s, such as the Miami Herald and Barron's.
Decliners
- Subdomain-hosted publications, down 2.8 points on average.
- University publications, including MIT Sloan Management Review and Knowledge at Wharton, down 7 points each.
- Cision, down 6 points, and Meltwater, down 3 points.
PRWeek moved the other way, rising from 80 to 83. That is a useful reminder that DR4 does not simply reward or punish whole categories. Individual link profiles drive each change.
University and academic publishers are a good example of why a link-based score should never be the only filter. Business school journals and research digests often reach exactly the decision-makers a B2B campaign wants, even when their DR drops.
Many agencies label outlets Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 using DR bands, and those labels end up in pitch plans, proposals and client reports. When the scoring model changes, the label can change with no change in the coverage a client actually earned.
Zac Hunter, founder of Thelemata, put it this way: "Most PR teams use DR to decide what counts as a top-tier placement. On December 1, that line moves in every client report in the industry, with no change in the coverage behind it. When 139 of the 222 outlets we checked clear DR 90, the Tier 1 label stops telling you much. Audience and fit have to do that work now."
That is a constructive way to read the update. If nearly two thirds of a typical media list clears the same bar, the bar no longer separates a landmark placement from a good one. Teams that add audience, relevance and AI citation signals to their tiering will have a more useful system.
This matters beyond reporting. Muck Rack's May 2026 study of more than 25 million links found that earned media made up 84% of AI citations across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, a finding covered in our guide to how earned media drives search and AI visibility. If coverage feeds both search and AI answers, the quality of tiering decisions affects where PR time and budget go.
How should PR teams tier placements after December 1?
A practical approach is to keep DR as one input and add others. Here is a simple sequence teams can adopt before the switch.
- Record both scores now. Save DR3 and DR4 for every outlet on your target lists with today's date, because DR3 stays in the API only briefly after December 1.
- Check subdomains first. Any outlet or section hosted on a subdomain is the most likely to move.
- Rebuild your tier thresholds. If your Tier 1 line was DR 90, test whether a higher line or a different system separates your list better.
- Add an audience score. Rate each outlet on how closely its readers match the client's buyers, from 1 to 5.
- Add a topical fit score. Rate how often the outlet covers the client's beat.
- Check AI citation presence. Note whether the outlet is cited in AI answers for the client's category.
- Label the result. Use the combined score for tiers and keep DR as a reference column.
This takes less than a day for most lists and makes the tiers easier to defend in a client meeting.
What should PR teams tell clients before December reports?
Client reports that show DR beside each placement will look different after December 1, and clients may ask why. Preparing a short note now avoids confusion later. Useful points to include:
- Ahrefs changed how DR is calculated, so scores in December reports are not comparable with earlier months.
- Many outlets moved up, a few moved down, and the movement reflects link profiles, not editorial quality.
- Past placements were not changed by the update, only the label attached to them.
- The team is adding audience and fit measures so that tiers stay meaningful.
A line comparing old and new scores for a client's top placements can also help. Most clients will see mostly stable or improved numbers, which makes the conversation easy.
What are the limits of this data?
Good reporting on a study includes its limits, and these are worth knowing before anyone cites the figures.
Method notes and caveats
- Scores were pulled from Ahrefs' DR4 preview on November 10, 2026. Live scores on December 1 can differ by a few points, so counts near the 90 line may shift.
- The study covers 222 outlets chosen by Thelemata. It is a sample of outlets PR teams pitch, not the whole media landscape.
- Thelemata is a PR agency and published the study as part of its own thought leadership. Its full report lists all 222 outlets with DR3 and DR4 scores so readers can check the numbers.
- The DR 90 cutoff is a convention, not an Ahrefs category. Domain Rating is a metric by Ahrefs.
- Link-based scores trace back to PageRank, introduced by Brin and Page in 1998 in "The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine." They describe link structure, not audience quality.
