DR is Not The Main Thing You Should Look At - Episode 113

Summary

Podcast Summary: Grumpy SEO Guy – "Dr. is Not The Main Thing You Should Look At" (Episode 113)
Release Date: June 18, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 113 of the Grumpy SEO Guy podcast titled "Dr. is Not The Main Thing You Should Look At," host Grumpy SEO Guy delves into the overemphasis placed on Domain Rating (DR) within the SEO community. Drawing from his 14 years of experience running an SEO agency, he challenges the prevailing notion that DR is the primary metric for making SEO decisions.

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Understanding Domain Rating (DR)

00:00 – 05:30

Grumpy SEO Guy begins by defining Domain Rating (DR) as an estimation of a website's authority, provided by the SEO tool Ahrefs. He explains that authority, a critical ranking factor, measures a website's trustworthiness. The podcast revisits the four essential factors for ranking:

1. No penalties
2. Content
3. Relevancy
4. Authority

Grumpy emphasizes that while authority is vital, it's the most challenging factor to achieve.

Grumpy SEO Guy [05:00]: "Authority, while last on the list, is probably the most important rank. Well, depends on how you look at it. It's the most difficult ranking factor to get."

He further clarifies that DR is merely Ahrefs' approximation of Google's hidden PageRank, which is no longer publicly available. Various SEO tools, including Moz’s Domain Authority (DA), Semrush’s Authority Score (AS), and Majestic’s Citation Flow (CF) and Trust Flow (TF), offer their own versions of authority estimates due to PageRank's secrecy.

Grumpy SEO Guy [04:22]: "Because nobody knows what page rank is, other SEO tools created their own approximations of authority."

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Problems with Relying Solely on DR

05:30 – 17:22

Grumpy criticizes the SEO community's over-reliance on DR, arguing that it oversimplifies the complexities of SEO. He highlights common misconceptions, such as:

• High DR ≠ High Quality: A website with a high DR might be spammy or previously used for dubious purposes.

  Grumpy SEO Guy [12:00]: "But they forget that there are other things that are more important. Like that domain has good doctor, but is it spammy? That domain has good doctor, but was it used as a casino?"

• Low DR ≠ Poor Quality: Conversely, a site with lower DR can be an excellent source for backlinks if other quality factors align.

Grumpy stresses that DR is an estimate and does not directly correlate with search engine rankings:

Grumpy SEO Guy [15:12]: "Higher doctor does not mean a website is good. Higher doctor does not mean a domain is good. It just means it has a higher estimate of authority."

He advises SEO practitioners to look beyond DR, considering factors such as:

• Backlink Quality: Not just the number but the relevance and trustworthiness of referring domains.
• Spam Indicators: Assessing if a site's previous use aligns with your SEO goals.
• Penalty Risks: Ensuring the domain hasn't been penalized by search engines.

Grumpy SEO Guy [13:38]: "So stop focusing on doctor. Stop buying backlinks based on the doctor of the website. Stop buying domains just because of doctor."

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The Importance of a Holistic Approach

05:30 – 17:22

Grumpy advocates for a comprehensive evaluation of potential backlink sources or domains, integrating multiple metrics and qualitative assessments rather than fixating on a single metric like DR. He underscores the significance of understanding SEO fundamentals to adapt to changes rather than relying on static guidelines.

Grumpy SEO Guy [09:00]: "SEO is not about doctor. Higher doctor is not definitely better."

He recounts instances where clients misunderstood the role of DR, leading to poor SEO decisions based solely on this metric. Grumpy emphasizes the importance of contextual analysis over numerical indicators.

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Author's Perspective on Teaching SEO

05:30 – 17:22

Grumpy addresses his audience, explaining why he hasn't created a formal SEO course despite frequent requests. He believes that the podcast is sufficient for teaching SEO effectively:

Grumpy SEO Guy [07:56]: "I literally teach it for free in the podcast, okay? So there's no reason to make a course because I already teach it for free."

However, he remains open to developing a course if there's significant interest, highlighting the depth and adaptability of his content:

Grumpy SEO Guy [08:30]: "Because if you understand the way it works, then if there's changes in the future to how a search engine, you know, determines what's important or not, it won't matter to you because you'll understand how it works."

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Practical Advice for SEO Practitioners

17:22 – 18:06

Grumpy wraps up the episode by reiterating the need for SEO professionals to adopt a balanced and informed approach. He encourages focusing on multiple aspects of SEO rather than overemphasizing DR:

• Evaluate Backlink Sources Thoroughly: Look at various indicators beyond DR to assess the quality and relevance of backlinks.
• Understand SEO Fundamentals: Grasp the underlying principles to adapt to algorithm changes effectively.
• Avoid Metric Obsession: Don’t let a single metric dictate your SEO strategies.

Grumpy SEO Guy [17:22]: "Stop doing those things and focus on the manner in which these things behave together and look at the full picture of the domain."

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Conclusion

Grumpy SEO Guy's episode serves as a critical reminder to the SEO community to avoid being swayed by singular metrics like Domain Rating. By promoting a holistic and informed approach, he empowers SEO practitioners to make more nuanced and effective decisions, ultimately leading to sustainable SEO success.

For more insights and in-depth discussions on SEO strategies, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to the Grumpy SEO Guy podcast and engage with the community on Reddit or via email.

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Notable Quotes:

• [05:00] Grumpy SEO Guy: "Authority, while last on the list, is probably the most important rank. Well, depends on how you look at it. It's the most difficult ranking factor to get."
• [12:00] Grumpy SEO Guy: "But they forget that there are other things that are more important. Like that domain has good doctor, but is it spammy? That domain has good doctor, but was it used as a casino?"
• [15:12] Grumpy SEO Guy: "Higher doctor does not mean a website is good. Higher doctor does not mean a domain is good. It just means it has a higher estimate of authority."
• [17:22] Grumpy SEO Guy: "Stop doing those things and focus on the manner in which these things behave together and look at the full picture of the domain."

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Connect with Grumpy SEO Guy:

• Reddit: Grumpy SEO Guy Subreddit
• Email: hellorumpyseoguy.com
• Patreon: patreon.com/grumpyseoguy

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This summary captures the essence of Episode 113, providing listeners and non-listeners alike with a comprehensive understanding of why Domain Rating should not be the sole focus in SEO strategies.

Transcript

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

This is grumpy SEO guy. Episode 113, Doctor is not the main thing to look at. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because people are putting too much importance on Dr. For making all their SEO decisions, like buying domains for a private blog portfolio or as a metric for getting backlinks. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about why you should focusing on Dr. But before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Okay, so before we do, some reminders, and let's do this very quickly. New episodes come out on Wednesday, 9am Central Standard Time. That's just the podcast. If you're listening on YouTube, it's gonna be a little bit after that. If you leave a comment on YouTube, I try to reply on Wednesday, but sometimes it's not until Thursday. If you enjoyed the podcast enough on YouTube to leave a comment, please subscribe. I'm trying to get 3,000 subscribers, and I'm very close by the way. It tells me who subscribes and who doesn't, so you should subscribe. If you'd like to support the podcast on Patreon, you can do [e-mail] grumpy seoguy and if you have a question that can't be answered with a quick email, or if you need more comprehensive strategy or anything, you can set up a zoom SEO advisory call. If you want to do that, you can email [e-mail] okay. Let's get started. Let's talk about why you need to concentrate less on on Dr. But you should still pay some attention to it. Okay, so some of you guys probably know this already, but let's do it quickly anyway. What is doctor? Doctor is an Ahrefs. So that's the tool. A H R E F S. Ahrefs. I said that. Funny. I'll say it again. Okay, there's a tool called Ahrefs. It's a. The letter a h r e f s dot okay. Ahrefs.com Ahrefs is a. Is an SEO tool and one of their metrics or one of their values is called Dr. Which is domain rating. And it is a guess of authority. Now we all know what authority is, but let's review it really quickly. Anyway, authority is a measure of trustworthiness. How much trustworthiness does your website have? Okay, it's probably the biggest ranking factor and if you remember from different episodes, there are four things you need to rank. Okay, let's go over them really quickly. 1, no penalties. 2. Content. 3. Relevancy. 4. Authority. Authority, while last on the list, is probably the most important rank. Well, depends on how you look at it. It's the most difficult ranking factor to get.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

No penalties. That's not very difficult. Content. That's not very difficult. Relevancy. That's not very difficult. Authority is difficult to get. It is the hardest thing to. Okay, Anyways, so here's super quick summary because we have mentioned this a lot before. There is one. Well, this is as far as Google goes, okay? Every search engine is different. There is one measure of authority, okay? It is called pr, which stands for page rank. Page rank is private. Nobody knows what page rank is.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So because nobody knows what page rank is, other SEO tools created their own approximations of authority.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So a long time ago, PageRank was actually public. You could check the page rank of any website or any webpage on the Internet.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

But what happened was people doing search engine optimization were kind of leveraging that for their own benefit. And Google said, hey, we're not going to tell you this anymore. So it became private. Google still knows what it is, but nobody else does.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So then other tools came out and invented their own versions or estimates of page rank or of authority.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So a very popular one is by Moz.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

There's a tool called Moz M O Z. And a very popular estimation of authority is da, which is domain authority. That is a Moz estimate of authority.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Then you have Ahrefs they have Dr. Domain rating. That is an estimation of what authority really is. Then Semrush has one. Semrush has as, which is authority Score.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Majestic has their own versions. They call them cf Citation Flow and TF Trust Flow.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Every. Every SEO tool mostly has their own version of authority. And the reason they all have these is because why PageRank is private.

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

And because authority is such an important ranking factor, people want to know, what's the authority of my website? Okay, so Google won't tell. You can't find out what your page rank is, but can find out what your doctor is or what your DA is or what your trust flow is or whatever. Okay, now let's get into some of the problems with this.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So, as you know from the different episodes that we've made, there are numerous things that you need to look at when buying a domain or if you are getting backlinks from a website.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

There are many things that you need to look at.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Not simply Dr.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

People get this wrong, and the reason they get it wrong is because they want things to be simple. They want things to be easy. They want to go, ooh, I know, doctor. I will just look at doctor and then I will know if I can get a backlink or not. No, you can have a high doctor website. That's terrible. And you can have a low doctor website. That's excellent. Okay, doctor is not a quick response to your question of is this a good website? Dr. Is. Wait for it, an estimate of authority. An estimate. It doesn't even actually mean anything. It has no correlation with rank. It is an estimate of what your authority might be according to the specific program that is running it.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Which is why AHREFS will tell you something different from semrush, which will tell you something different from moz, which will tell you something different from any other program you're going to use. Okay, so look, is Dr. Useful? Yeah, we use Dr. Every day. But is it the main thing you should look at? No, of course not. Of course not. Look, I have another episode. It's called How Much doctor Do youo need to Rank?

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

You should probably go listen to that episode. But there's a lot of things that you need to look at when deciding if you're gonna buy a domain for your private blog portfolio and deciding if you want to get a backlink from a certain website. There's a lot of things you should look at. And I have multiple episodes on all of these topics, but people keep asking me the Questions, and people are asking me, hey, Grumpy SEO Guy, do you have a course that explains all of this? Okay, first of all, no, because I literally teach it for free in the podcast, okay? So there's no reason to make a course because I already teach it for free.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

But second of all, and I'm slightly joking when I say this, but if you want me to make a course where I put all of this stuff together, okay. And sell it, by the way, let me know in the comments. Like, I actually will. Even though I've already. I've already shared pretty much everything that you need to know for this, probably 99% of what you need to know for this in the episodes. But if you want a course where, like, everything is all together, okay, and it would probably. It would probably be like, a cheat sheet and maybe a book and a video or something, okay, I'm not exactly sure yet. It would definitely be the best material on this that exists. Because as you know, Grumpy SEO Guy is the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. And I'm pretty sure it's the most complete SEO source of information that exists anyway, because I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who is teaching SEO who actually understands SEO and has experience doing SEO. Anyway, look, so if you want, like, if you want, like, the ultimate guide to buying. I don't know, I don't know what I call it. The ultimate guide to buying domains for building your own private blog portfolio or something. I don't know, I don't know. Let me know. I'll put together a course. It's funny to me that people literally keep asking me, like, I already teach it all for free. But if you. I'm being serious. I wanna do what is easiest and best for you. So if you want it all together in, like, one location or something with, like, a document or, I don't know, like a book or a cheat sheet or something to like, help you through the. Then let me know and I'll try to make that for you, okay? But here's the other thing, because we've actually been doing it the same way for the last, oh, probably 12 years at this point. Like 11 or 12 years. And, like, mostly. Mostly the same. But here's. Here's the thing. Okay? Look, people. This would only be for, like, a small number of people, okay? Because people don't want to learn. People just want to be told how to do a thing. Like, nobody, okay? So when I make episodes that are, like, when I make episodes that are, like, here's how you do a thing. Everybody loves those episodes. And when I make episodes that explain a theory, people don't like those episodes as much. But those episodes are more important, okay? Because you need to understand the basis for something to work, okay? That's the reason why we make episodes like the one called how to Tell. If something is a ranking factor. If you understand the way it works, then if there's changes in the future to how a search engine, you know, determines what's important or not, it won't matter to you because you'll understand how it works. But if you're just following a guideline, first I do this, then I do this, then I do a different thing, and then the rules change. You're not going to know what to do because you don't understand how SEO works, okay? So I could. I could make a.

[Listener]

This is.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

This is my problem. Like. Like, I can make a cheat sheet that explains how to do all the things, but if you don't understand the theory behind it, as soon as a little thing changes, it's not gonna make sense to you anymore. I don't know. I don't know. That's why I make those other episodes. Anyway, if you want. If you want a course, let me know. I'll make one. I wasn't planning on doing it, but if you really want that, let me know. I will try to put something together, okay? So anyway, look, people like Dr. And they like things like that. Cause they want everything to be easy. They want it to be easy. I just wanna see the number, and then I know which domain to buy. But they forget that there are other things that are more important. Like that domain has good doctor, but is it spammy? That domain has good doctor, but was it used as a casino? That domain has good doctor, but do its backlinks make sense? That domain has good doctor, but is it penalized? It's not about the doctor.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So I have an episode where I tell you that I think. I'm trying to think how I said it, so this might not be quite right, but it was talking about number of backlinks. Because everybody always focuses on number of backlinks, which is probably the least important factor that exists, okay? And I said, for a week, I want you to not even look at the number of backlinks. Now, obviously, you need to look at number of backlinks, right? Because it can indicate, like, too many backlinks from the same domain can indicate, like, some, you know, Some uncertainty going on with the domain. Right? Or can indicate some confusion going on with the domain, right? So, like, you don't want to ignore number of backlinks, but it's not. It's not like more is better, okay? It's not like more is better. So anyway, look, I said so just for the next week, whenever you log into Ahrefs or whatever tool you're using, don't look at number of backlinks, okay? You should look at number of referring domains, but not number of backlinks.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Anyway, I want you to not look at Dr. Just for a little bit until you stop focusing on it so much. I want you to not look at Dr. I want you to look at all the other things I want you to look at. Do the backlinks look spammy? Do the IP addresses look spammy? Okay, how many referring domains does it have? How many backlinks does it have? Where are the backlinks from?

[Listener]

Okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

How quickly does it get backlinks?

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Like, I want you to look at all of the normal things that we talk about, but not Dr. Because you are putting too much emphasis on Dr. And it's not. And it's not as important as you think it is.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Okay. So again, yes, having good doctor is kind of important. We do look at it, but it's not what makes the decision for us as far as getting a backlink or buying a domain, okay? Because there's so many other things that you have to look at in consideration to the doctor.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

And I don't. I don't. I don't know how to explain this. And again, people, like, I can. I can tell people are getting, like, aggravated with this episode because they're like, grumpy SEO guy. Just. Just tell me what a good doctor number is. You're not understanding the concept. SEO is not about doctor. Higher doctor is not definitely better.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

People who are starting to understand SEO, they're starting to understand SEO, they will email me and say, why does this website outrank this other website when it has less doctor? Because doctor doesn't mean anything. Doctor is ahrefs guess of how much authority a website has, okay? And it doesn't mean anything, though. Why? Because search engines don't use doctor. Doctor is an estimate. It is an estimate of page rank or whatever the real authority is, okay? It is an estimate of the real authority, okay? And there's other factors besides just authority. Remember, there are four factors that you need to rank. We talked about them earlier. Let's talk about them again. 1. No penalties. 2. Content. 3. Relevancy. 4. Authority.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

So just because Dr. Is higher doesn't mean a page ranks better, okay? Just because Dr. Is higher doesn't mean a website is going to rank higher, okay? Because there's three other things you have to consider. But also, even if everything else was the same, Dr. Doesn't matter because search engines don't use Dr. Dr. Is an estimate of authority.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I don't know another way to say it. Because it's an estimate. Like, it's an estimate.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

I don't know another way of saying this. Higher doctor does not mean it ranks higher. Higher doctor does not mean a website is good. Higher doctor does not mean a domain is good. It just means it has a higher estimate of authority. Authority is extremely important, okay? But there are other things you have to look at besides doctor, okay? And I think a lot of people that are fans of grumpy SEO guy understand this because I've had emails from some of you and I've had meetings with many of you, and some of you are doing a very good job, okay? Actually, most of the people that I've met with have been doing a very good job building private blog portfolio. But some people are just like, I don't get it. Here's two domains. One has one. One has higher doctor. Should I buy that one? Is it better? It's like, did you look at any of the other things? Well, no, but this one has higher doctor. Okay, but do you remember all those episodes where I explain all the things you have to look at? Yes, but this one has higher doctor and that means more authority, right? No, I don't. I don't know what to say to you because that's. I've literally. I've literally never said that. I've literally never said more doctor means more authority because doctor is an estimate of authority. I've literally never said that more doctor is better than lower doctor. We often buy lower doctor websites because they look better than higher doctor websites, okay? Why? Because doctor is one thing of many that you have to look at, okay? It is one thing out of numerous things that you have to look at. So stop focusing on doctor. Stop buying backlinks based on the doctor of the website. Stop buying domains just because of doctor.

[Listener]

Okay?

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Stop doing those things and focus on the manner in which these things behave together and look at the full picture of the domain, okay? We have episodes that explain that, by the way. And finally, let me just say this. So look, Dr. Is a nice metric. Again, we use it all the time, but it is not what causes us to make a choice about buying a domain or not. Okay, if all of the other factors are better but on a different domain but some other domain has higher doctor Will buy the first domain where everything else is better.

[Listener]

Okay, okay.

[Grumpy SEO Guy]

Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe and if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or or you can email [e-mail] if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do [e-mail] grumpy SEO guy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode.