DR, RD, Clean Score & Estimated Value: Every Metric on a Listing, Explained

An aged domain is only worth what its history and link profile are worth. This guide walks through every number and checkbox you see on a listing so you can judge a domain in under a minute.

The SEO metrics block

• DR (Domain Rating) — Ahrefs’ 0–100 authority scale. It compresses the strength of the whole backlink graph. DR 10–20 is a solid supporting-site range; DR 30+ starts commanding real premiums.
• Referring Domains (RD) — how many unique websites link in. More important than raw backlink count: 100 links from 100 domains beat 1,000 links from 3 domains.
• Authority Links — links from Wikipedia, major media and .edu/.gov sources. Even 2–3 of these meaningfully raise trust.
• Age — first registration year via RDAP. Age alone is weak; age plus a continuous history is strong.

The quality checks — filled by the clean-check pipeline

The green ticks are not marketing. Each one is the output of an automated scan (plus manual review) that examines:

• No 301 redirect history — the domain never spent its recent years redirecting to some other site to pass link equity.
• Not re-used after drop — nobody drop-caught it and burned it in the meantime.
• Indexed by Google — the domain still appears for a site: query.
• Clean Wayback history — no gambling/pharma/adult content, no CJK spam periods, no long suspicious gaps in the archive.
• Trademark-free — the name does not collide with a registered mark.

Listings also show the raw clean score (0–100). 80+ is clean; 55–79 means one signal needs a manual look; below 55 we generally do not list at all.

BAO Estimated Value — how the range is computed

The estimated value is not a formula guess. We continuously record real closing prices from domain auctions (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Dynadot and manual imports). When a listing has at least 8 comparable sales — similar DR band, similar referring-domain range, same TLD class — the range shown is the 25th to 75th percentile of those actual sale prices, adjusted by the domain’s cleanliness. If there are not enough comparables yet, a link-strength model provides the estimate and the listing says so.

Want the same numbers for a domain you own or found elsewhere? Run it through the free appraisal tool and the clean checker.