Authority Score methodology
The SEO LvL Authority Score is our own 0–100 metric for how much link authority a domain has earned across the open web. It is built to track a domain's trend over time — not to match any other vendor's number, and not to be a single-shot ranking predictor.
We're transparent about the recipe because every other Authority-style metric in the SEO space (Moz DA, Ahrefs DR, Semrush AS, Majestic TF) is a black box. We don't think that's the right posture for a metric we're asking people to make decisions on.
Where the data comes from
Three independent layers, no paid third-party APIs.
- The open-web link graph. We blend the public OpenPageRank graph score with the domain-level Common Crawl web graph to count who points at a site and how much weight each of those referrers carries. Both are public, both are independent of Ahrefs / Semrush / Moz.
- Our own live HTTP verification. For credible referrers (dofollow + source DR ≥ 20), we fetch the source page ourselves on a weekly rolling schedule and confirm the link is still there. No SERP scraping, no proxy data — we look at the actual live HTML. A link only counts as "lost" after it misses two consecutive verifications, killing false alarms from CDN blips and anti-bot challenges.
- Domain-level signals. Registration age, SSL trust, tech-stack stability, and basic on-page health feed alongside the graph signal so a fresh domain with no link history isn't treated identically to a long-running site.
We do not run a proprietary deep crawler, we do not resell Ahrefs or Moz data, and the only thing we send to a paid third party is your Stripe payment if you upgrade.
How the 0–100 score is shaped
A raw open-web link signal compresses most real sites into a narrow low range, which makes the displayed number hard to read at a glance. We apply a monotonic power-law transform on top of the underlying graph signal so the distribution lands in a readable range across the full 0–100 scale. Important properties:
- Monotonic. Relative ordering is preserved. If site A has more authority than site B in the underlying graph, A's Authority Score is always higher than B's. Leaderboards are never reshuffled by the transform.
- Deterministic. Given the same input data, the same score comes out every time. We don't tune scores per-domain, per-user, or per-tier.
- Bounded. A genuine 0 stays 0 ("not yet rated") — new or link-poor sites start there until they earn referrers. 100 is asymptotically rare.
- Not calibrated to Ahrefs DR or Moz DA. Different graph, different scale, different intent. Trying to match them would just be copying their black box with a less complete dataset behind it.
The transform shape is fixed and gets re-evaluated only when the underlying data layers materially change (e.g., a new Common Crawl release with substantially different graph coverage). Changes to the shape are documented in the changelog.
How often it updates
- Authority Score: daily refresh at 02:00 UTC for every tracked domain.
- Free DR checker: live lookup on demand — no caching of the answer.
- Live backlink verification: rolling weekly per credible link (dofollow + DR ≥ 20). Independent of any crawl ingest cadence, so losses are detected within ~9 days max regardless of when the open-web graph last refreshed.
- Common Crawl link graph ingest: quarterly, matching Common Crawl's publication cadence. This is the discovery layer (finding new referrers). Loss detection does not depend on it.
How to read the score
| Range | Reading |
|---|---|
| 0 | Not yet rated |
| 1–9 | Weak |
| 10–29 | Early |
| 30–49 | Developing |
| 50–89 | Healthy |
| 90–100 | Elite |
The trend is the signal. Don't compare a SEO LvL Authority Score against an Ahrefs DR or a Moz DA — different graphs, different scales, different goals. Compare a domain against itself over time: is it compounding, flat, or quietly bleeding authority?
What it is not
It's a link-authority proxy, not a ranking guarantee and not a traffic estimate. A high score means a domain has earned many (and strong) referring domains in the open-web graph — a necessary input to organic ranking, not a promise of it. Ranking depends on dozens of signals only Google has direct access to.
It is also intentionally not a deep prospecting tool. If you need fresh 24/7 outreach discovery on a single site, pair us with Ahrefs or Semrush — they're built for that. We're built to give a portfolio of 10–200 sites a consistent, transparent authority reading on a $1.58-per-site budget.