Grumpy SEO Guy
How Much DR Do You Need to Rank? - Episode 65
This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 65. How much DR do you need to outrank your competition? 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 many people ask the following question. How much DR do I need to outrank my competitors? And if you don't like DR, you can replace that with any other value you want. I just say DR because A, I use AH reps a lot. And B, that's what people always seem to ask. How much DR do I need to outrank my competition? Okay, in this episode, we're going to talk about what the answer to that question should be. 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 is not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. Before we begin this episode, I'm going to read a message that I got from a listener. Check it out. You are my hero, Grumpy. My best and longest term client asked me to do their SEO. I had only done local, so diving into this world had me going down the, and then he named a couple well-known SEO people. Rabbit Hole, somehow I found your podcast, OMG. The SEO presentation I had prepared was Word Salad BS. I would have wasted their money and ruined our relationship. BTW, your intellect and presentation style had me hooked two minutes into the first podcast. The only thing that's come close in 25 years was at uni. Only two professors stood out, econ and statistics, subjects most didn't even want to take. These two had wait lists, one even smoked in class and paced the entire lecture. He was amazing and so are you. I'm gonna find the link that brought me into your world of SEO as I'm incredibly grateful for their post. You may want to know where the link was as well. Take care, stay strong, and thank you for being patient with newbies like me. It's exciting to take the path less traveled. Well, thank you. What an amazing message. I actually responded and said, this is the best DM I have ever gotten. So anyway, if you like Grumpy SEO Guy, as much as that person does, you can support the show at www.patreon.com/grumpyseogi. Anyway, let's get on to the episode now. So I want to begin by saying, there's probably two groups of listeners to this episode. And the advanced group is probably laughing a little bit. If they even chose to listen to this episode, because if you see a question like, how much DR do I need to outrank my competitors, like you're probably like, oh, no. Okay, so the advanced, the advanced listeners, right? Like, by the way, I'm not saying that like, that's a, I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing. Okay, I'm just saying like, some people are more advanced with SEO than others. Okay, so those people are probably like, yeah, that's a weird question. And they're probably laughing a little bit. And then like the beginners, the novices, right? And everybody was a novice at one point. They're probably like, oh man, look, I need to listen to this episode. I need to know how much DR, I need to know how much DR I need to outrank my competitors, because I wanna outrank my competitors, and I need to get all the DR. Okay. Okay, I'm laughing too a little bit, let's be honest. No, but look, okay, look, so here's the thing. The short answer to that question is, that's not the right question to ask, okay? Let me kind of explain this a little bit. When you first start learning about SEO, like probably what you hear is old content is king, right? Okay, whatever. And then like eventually, hopefully, you realize that that's not true. Okay, so if you are a total beginner and you think content is king, please go listen to episode 21, which is called Everything You Need to Know About SEO in 38 minutes, or episode 51, which is called the Four Things You Need to Rank, okay? But I'm gonna assume that you already know content is not really a ranking factor. Okay, so the next thing that you probably learn about is authority. Okay, if you're at the point where you're learning about authority, you're already better than many people in the SEO industry, because many people in the SEO industry are all about content and they think that if you don't rank, it's a content problem, and if they think that if you aren't ranking, you just need to write more content. Oh, I'll just write more content, or I'll write better content, right? Because somebody told them that content is king and they think that, well, search engines like good content, I better write good content, no, just hard no. Okay, most people think that, but eventually you get to a point where you realize that's not the case and you realize that authority is what matters. Okay, so we understand authority is what matters. Okay, so then what's the first thing that you would naturally think of or that somebody probably tells you? It's probably something like, well, there are different ways to measure how much authority you have, and then they learn about things like DR, okay, which is Ahref's measure of authority, or they learn about DA, which is Moz's measure of authority, or they learn about TF and CF, which are majestic measures of authority, or they learn about whatever the other places call their own 'cause every SEO tool has its own version, okay? Let's take a minute here and just stop and let's talk about authority. Now, I know a lot of you guys know this already, so this is going to be a very quick summary. There is only one measure of authority that actually is significant, okay? And that comes from Google. Now, of course, this only applies to Google as a search engine, right? Bing probably has its own. Yandex probably has its own, okay? Like all the other ones, DuckDuckGo, which is awesome, by the way, DuckDuckGo probably has its own, but because many people only care about Google, that's what people tend to focus on. How can I increase my Google rank? I rarely get asked how do I increase my rank in some separate search engine. I do get asked that, but not very often, okay. So, there's a measure of authority from Google. It's called PageRank, PR, PageRank. Now, PageRank is hidden. Google will not tell you what your PageRank is, okay? They will not tell you. Why do you think they won't tell you? It's because people were taking advantage of it. Many years ago, you could find out the PageRank of a site, okay? There was a toolbar that you could install. I think, I'm pretty sure it was a toolbar. It was a long time ago, I'm trying to remember, but I remember seeing it in my browser, so I think it was a toolbar. And it would tell you the PageRank of whatever site that you were on. It was cool. It went from zero to 10. I think actually it went from like NA to 10, NA being like not applicable, like a brand new site that doesn't have any PageRank yet. Okay, so anyway, look. Oh, and then I think there was, I think, guys, I might be wrong. I think there was also PageRank negative one, which is when you had a penalty, okay? But it doesn't matter. So PageRank, let's just say it went from zero to 10, right? So it went from zero to 10. The more PageRank you had, the more authority you had, probably the better you ranked. And the more authority a backlink would provide if you got a backlink from that site, okay? So people wanted to get high PR backlinks. Guys, do you have any high PR backlinks? Guys, we are selling our links from high PR websites. Like that was the marketing all over the place. By high PR backlinks. Anyway, Google, and I'm just guessing, but I'm pretty sure this is what happened. Google said, wait a minute, guys, people that are doing SEO are utilizing this PR data to manipulate the results. We don't want that. Let's not share PR data anymore. So then they stopped. Now, I'm pretty sure they still use it. And if they don't use it, they use some substitute, probably, right? I don't know who Google works. I tell you that, but I'm just guessing, right? 'Cause there has to be some measure of authority. Anyway, why does that matter? Because PR is a secret, okay? Nobody knows what PR is. Anybody who tells you they do is lying to you. Nobody knows what PR is. So all of these other SEO tools invented their own analog, okay? A replacement, a substitute, an estimate. They are estimating what the actual PR is. So, for example, Moz probably heard of them. They're an SEO tool company and they do a lot of other stuff, but most people use them because they provide some values, like one called DA, okay? DA is domain authority. DA is not PR. DA is an estimate based on Moz's proprietary formula of what a domain's authority might be, okay? Ahrefs has DR, domain rating, okay? DR is not PR. DR is an estimate based on AHrefs proprietary formula for what they think a domain's authority is, okay? And there's other tools. SEMrush does it, majestic does it, key search does it, I can't think of any more right now, there's more, but it doesn't matter. The point is any measure of authority is an estimate and not actual PR. But that doesn't stop people from going crazy, "Oh, I need to hide DR backlinks." Okay, anyways, look. I'm like, (laughs) Okay, okay, anyway, look, I'm sorry, like I'm not making fun of anybody, but like that's just people ask a question all the time. Where can I get high DR backlinks? Anyway, look, here's the thing. It's not, if you're a beginner or an intermediate, it's not a terrible question to ask, okay? Let's think about it for a minute, okay? If you know that you need authority, okay, you know that you need authority and you know that the more authority a website has, the more authority it will provide with a backlink, it makes perfect sense that you might feel you need to look for high DR backlinks or whatever, you know? It makes sense, I want backlinks from websites with more authority, I want backlinks from websites with high DR, I want high DR backlinks. Okay, okay, cool, cool, that's fine. It doesn't exactly work that way. I actually have an episode about that, it's called, is this lower authority website actually outranking this higher authority website? It's episode 52 where I use an example shared by a Redditor who asked a question about why is this one specific site with less DR outranking another specific site with higher DR. So if you wanna learn why that was the case, you should listen to that episode. But anyway, by the way, for listeners who want to know more about that, episode 52 is called, is this lower authority website actually outranking this higher authority website? In that episode, I use an example that was provided by a Redditor of a website with less DR, outranking website with higher DR, okay? So I explain why in that episode. So if you're curious, play that episode next. Anyway, I wanna clear up one more misconception before we go any further, okay? DR or whatever, DR is not proportional to rank necessarily. As I explain in the episode I was just talking about, a website with less DR can outrank a website with more DR, okay? So, and this is friendly advice. You can think however you want, but DR is not linear to your position. In other words, if your DR is five and then it becomes 10, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're ranking higher, okay? If it is 10 and then it becomes 50, okay? I'm just picking random examples here. Here's my disclaimer, I'm just picking random examples, okay? Doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna rank higher. It might, it probably will. I would say many websites, if they went from DR 10 to DR 50, would also be ranking higher, okay? But, that might not be the case. Look, DR is an estimate of authority. That's all it is. It's not rank, it's not SERP position, SERP, S-E-R-P, search engine result page, okay? Where you rank in the results for your keyword, okay? It's not, it's not that. That's called SERPs. Use a SERP tracker to determine where you rank. So, let's kind of just like mix all of this together now. People know that they need authority and they know that higher DR probably has more authority than lower DR. Therefore, they think they need backlinks from higher DR websites, which will probably help you, but not necessarily, okay? And then they think, well, all I have to do is increase my DR enough and I will rank at the top of the search engines or I will rank my competitors 'cause those are probably the same thing. Okay. So, all of those things blend together and you get the question, how much DR do I need to outrank my competitors? People will ask this question in different ways, but it's always this question. They look at their competition and let's say the website in position one has DR 60. Great. So, they think, well, if they're DR 60 and I'm DR 20, I probably need to be DR 61 to outrank them because 61 is higher than 60 and that means that I will rank higher than them. No, it doesn't work that way, but the question, look, I don't even get annoyed when I get asked that question because the question makes perfect sense. Why would you not think that? Okay, so I wanna remind you, the purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines, okay? People somehow like forget that and then they ask questions like how much DR do I need? No, it doesn't matter. And the other reason that I say that is because I always see posts on Reddit or I get emails from people and they will say things like, yes, I'm looking for an SEO agency to blah, blah, blah and increase our DA. And for some reason, they always say DA, they don't say DR, but look, what, I don't know. I don't know why that's the question and increase our DA, right? Wasn't a question, the comment, I don't know why that's a comment. We're looking for a search engine optimization agency to get us more traffic, which is a separate topic and I have an episode about that too, by the way. That's episode 59, okay? You might find this episode to be educational, it's called traffic is not an SEO metric and what you should use instead. Anyway, and then they say end to increase our DA because I understand they're thinking that you want to rank higher and that authority probably means you rank higher and that more DA means more authority, therefore higher DA means you will rank higher, but it doesn't always work that way. So let's talk about SEO for a second, ready? What is the purpose of SEO? The purpose of SEO, and I've said this a million times, you should know the answer. The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines, okay? That is literally all it is. SEO, search engine optimization, okay? The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines. Okay, I want to make a little analogy here, I hope this makes sense. Let's talk about bodybuilding for a second. What is the purpose of bodybuilding? Okay, the purpose of bodybuilding, purpose of bodybuilding is to get big muscles, right? Purpose of bodybuilding is to get big muscles, okay? Now, let me ask you a question. Is the purpose of bodybuilding to be able to bench press 500 pounds? No, the purpose of bodybuilding is not to be able to bench press 500 pounds. And guys, I'm just picking a number here, 500 pounds. That's a pretty large bench press. Like, I can't bench press 500 pounds, but if you can, that's awesome. Here's the point, the purpose of bodybuilding is not to be able to bench press 500 pounds. Some bodybuilders can probably bench press 500 pounds, okay? But that's not the purpose of bodybuilding. The purpose of bodybuilding is to be the biggest bodybuilder on stage. And of course, with the most definition and symmetry and all that stuff, okay? But ultimately, it's just about like, you know, making your muscles larger. So anyway, you get the point, I hope. Okay, what's the purpose of SEO? The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines, okay? The purpose of SEO is not to get a certain DA or whatever. The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines. What's the purpose of bodybuilding? To get huge muscles, okay? What's the purpose of SEO? To get to the top of the search engines? The purpose of bodybuilding is not to be able to bench press 500 pounds. The purpose of SEO is not to get a certain DA rating, okay? You might be able to bench press 500 pounds and your competitor can only bench press 450 pounds, but he beats you in a bodybuilding competition. Why? 'Cause he's better at bodybuilding or the judges think he is or, you know, whatever. I don't know. But look, that doesn't matter. Nobody cares if you can bench press 500 pounds, except your friends at the gym and the people that you're bragging to online, okay? That's not the purpose of bodybuilding. Now, powerlifting, yes, the purpose of powerlifting is to lift as much weight as possible. Powerlifting is not bodybuilding, okay? The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines. You might have huge DA if you do that, but not necessarily, okay? Now, I hope this makes sense. Probably a piece of people turn this off and they're like, "Stop talking about bodybuilding, "this is an SEO podcast. "I can bench press 500 pounds, all right, cool, bro. "I'm proud of you, bench press 500 pounds." That's pretty cool. But look, I hope that makes sense. The purpose of SEO is to get to the top of the search engines. That's the only thing that matters. So asking a question like, "How much do I need "to outrank my competitors?" Is like asking, "How many backlinks do I need "to outrank my competitors?" It doesn't, it just, no, that's not even a question. I can't even, I literally add loss for words right now because there's no answer to that question that isn't like a rationale for how it actually works, okay? One backlink might outrank all your competitors, okay? And 100 backlinks might do nothing because they're garbage. Okay, I don't know. So the answer to your question, "How much DR do I need to outrank my competitors?" You need 100 DR, okay? That's as high as it goes. If your DR is 100, you probably outrank your competitors, okay? How's that for an answer? So anytime that anyone asks me in the future, "How much DR do I need to outrank my competitors?" I'm gonna say 100 because if you get 100, I would be willing to assume that you are at the top of the search engines. But, now hold on for a second. I'm not saying that these metrics are useless. I pretty much use these metrics all the time, okay? Why? Because they are estimates. Look, if somebody tells me they can bench press 500 pounds, I'm willing to figure that's probably a pretty big muscular individual, okay? Like, I mean, I don't know, but probably, okay? So if a website has DR of whatever, it's probably pretty authoritative, but that doesn't mean that you can't outrank it with less DR, okay? Unless you're in a DR competition, which literally nobody is, oh my gosh, I bet that's a thing actually. Somebody's gonna make that. Whose have, let's see, you can get the most DR, and I don't know, whatever, like, I don't know. Look, look, SEO is about getting to the top of the search engines. Bodybuilding is about getting big, okay? Powerlifting is about lifting a lot of weight, okay? Those are all three different things. But, as far as SEO goes, I don't really care what your DR is. I care where you're ranking, okay? Like, yes. And again, I feel like I'm just confusing people now because I'm saying that DR doesn't matter, but then I'm saying that we also use it. And I don't, I don't know a way to clearly explain this. So I hope this makes sense. DR is an estimate of authority, okay? Just like DA, just like all the other ones. It's an estimate, higher DR is probably more authoritative, but that's not conclusive that it means a website ranks higher, okay? Because there's other things like relevancy. For example, goals in episode 51, which is called the four things you need to rank. Anyway, look, I hope this makes sense. DR is an estimate of authority, okay? Now, if we had access to PR, then yes, this would be a different episode. But, we don't, and nobody does, except for Google, and they're not gonna tell you what it is. So, I hope this makes sense. On average, so this is probably what people wanna know. Maybe not, I don't even know. I feel like people just wanna know a number. Okay, that question makes about as much sense as this question. Hey guys, how much do I need to be able to deadlift to be a competitive bodybuilder? The question has no answer. You might be able to deadlift less than another guy, but beat him in a competition, okay? Because bodybuilding isn't about who can deadlift the most, okay? You might have less DR than a different website, but rank better than them. Because SEO is about where you rank and getting to the top of the search engines, it's not about who can get the highest DR. They're like, what DR do I need to rank? And I'm like, it doesn't work that way. And they're like, okay, cool. What DR do I, and then they go ask the next person, what DR do I need to rank? Like, do you know, okay, do you know those people who like, they ask a question and they need a specific answer, and even when that answer doesn't exist, they just get frustrated and then they go ask the next person. There's a name for that and I can't think of what it's called, but it's like, how much DR do I need? Like, or how many backlinks do I need to rank? Like, okay, how about a question that doesn't make any sense at all? How many backlinks do I need to be at the top of the search engine? And like, they don't even tell you their website or their keyword. They're just like, how many backlinks do I need? Like, first of all, even if you know that information, you still can't answer that question, okay? But like, they don't even give you that information. They're just like, how many backlinks do I need? Dude, it, I don't know, nobody knows and you didn't even give enough information. And then, so they're like, okay, thanks. And then they go to the next guy and they're like, how many backlinks do I need? And the other person hopefully gives them the same answer because that's like the proper answer. And then they're like, okay, thank you. And then they go to the next guy and they're like, how many backlinks do I need? And like, do you wanna, okay, do you wanna know what happens? Like, eventually, okay, eventually some liar will be like, "You need 50 backlinks." And then they're like, okay, cool, you saw me 50 backlinks. And then they're like, yes, I will. And then like, guess what, nothing happens because, oh, anyways, like, I don't know. I don't know, I guess there's a fun note. If you are in the SEO industry, you're gonna get lots of questions from people like that. They're gonna be like, they're gonna ask you a question. Like the question literally is unanswerable and doesn't make sense. And then when you try to educate them, they're just gonna go to the next person and ask them the same question. I don't know, I think that might actually be part of why the SEO industry is so suspicious because there are people out there that will say, oh yeah, you need this many backlinks and oh, we happen to sell backlinks and oh, a hundred backlinks for $10 or whatever, right? Like, by the way, I'm gonna do a future episode called Don't Buy Backlinks Off a Menu. Because like, same thing, that's the other question we get. Grow up a SEO guy, how much do your backlinks cost? My response is we're not looking for new clients and even if we were, we're not selling backlinks off of a menu. But if somebody does, probably don't buy them from that person for so many reasons, which will be addressed in a future episode. By the way, that might not be the name of it, but this subject will definitely be shared because it's the wrong way to do it anyways. Yeah, so somebody's like, how much DR do I need? The answer is 100, okay? You need 100 DR and then you will outrank competition. And I can confidently answer that without knowing your website or your keywords. That's how much DR you need. Good luck getting it, that's not gonna happen. But I mean, I don't know. Actually, if you get 100 DR email me, you can be a guest on the Grow up SEO guy podcast, okay? Anyway, so I hope this makes sense. Look, so if you're buying backlinks, okay? And like, let's be honest, you probably are, okay? The only white hat way to get backlinks is to do nothing and let people find your website. But that's not going to occur if you don't already rank. If you're a brand new website and you're not on page one or two or three, and by the way, I can tell you this now because Google has gone back to having page numbers. So anyway, if you're buying backlinks, and again, you probably are. Now, buying backlinks, let me just be honest here, buying backlinks is technically against the terms of service. I believe of different search engines, okay? I am not telling you to go out and buy backlinks, okay? I'm just telling you a lot of people do, and that's pretty much how the SEO industry works. But I'm not suggesting that you go out and buy backlinks because that's against the terms of service, okay? That's manipulation, don't do that. I am telling you don't buy backlinks, but I'm explaining how it works in case you wanna know how to buy backlinks because that's how SEO works. Anyways, if you're buying backlinks, DR is a decent analog for how good a link might be, okay? But please make sure that you listen to episodes 37 and 39 before you buy backlinks, okay? Episodes 37 and 39 are called the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks. Part one and the difference between good backlinks and bad backlinks, part two. Please listen to those episodes before you buy backlinks, okay? Because you're probably buying spam. You are probably buying spam. I don't care how flashy the sales page is. You're probably buying spam, okay? Please listen to those two episodes and then decide if you want to buy whatever backlinks you're thinking about buying. Also, don't buy backlinks because that's against terms of service, but also if you're not ranking, you need backlinks, so it's up to you to get them. However you want, I'm just explaining the ways to do it. By the way, episode 49 is called the four ways to get backlinks and it will explain the four ways to get backlinks because there are four. Do I mean to tell you what they are right now in case you haven't listened to that episode? Okay, method number one, do nothing and let people discover your website on their own and link to you. Hmm, that doesn't work if you're not ranking. Okay, way number two, buy backlinks, but don't do it before you listen to episodes 37 and 39. Okay, way number three, guest posting and link outreach. Yeah, not my favorite, they can work, but you know, I don't probably listen to that episode for more information and then number four, build your own portfolio of websites and use those, which is the most expensive and takes the longest at first, but is way cheaper over time if we're talking about money. Up to you, I don't care. I'm just teaching you the different ways that people might build backlinks. So anyways, let's get back on topic, okay? How much DR do I need to rank my competitors? I don't know man, but probably more than you have right now. Okay, like, I hope, I hope this is clear and I hope that it makes sense why that's not the right question to ask, okay? So if you wanna know what you need to do to outrank your competition, don't focus on DR so much. If you need, look, if you need a metric to focus on, look at your competitors, like actually look at them, find out things like how many referring domains do they have backlinks from? What is the DR of those websites? Okay, that's, you know what, that's a good place to start. I'm just gonna leave it at that for now. That's a good place to start. That is way better than using any keyword difficulty tool. I don't like keyword difficulty tools because A, they're all different. And B, like, I don't know, I'll tell you, but I don't know, I don't have a second point. Like, I just, I don't like things that simplify things more than they need to be because somebody's gonna go out and they're gonna see, oh, keyword difficulty 20, right? Let's assume a one to 100 scale. And they say, oh, keyword difficulty 20, oh, that's easy. Is it, is it really easy? Have you looked into the websites that are ranking for that keyword and seen what their SEO is doing? Hmm, maybe you should do that first and then determine if it's easy. I don't know, up to you, that's what I think. Okay, I'm so off topic, now I'm just gonna end this episode. 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 wanna suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is grumpyseoguy. You can visit the grumpyseoguy subreddit or you can email me at hello@grumpyseoguy.com. 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 wanna support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so at patreon.com/grumpyseoguy. And I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpyseoguy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday when we talk about how many websites should you have in your private blog portfolio and how many of them should you buy at auction as opposed to starting over with a fresh site. (dramatic music)