There’s a special kind of high that comes from seeing a shiny Domain Rating (DR) score on Ahrefs. You punch in a URL, hit enter, and boom — that little green number makes you feel like a digital kingpin. And when it's your domain? You start walking like you’ve just raised $10 million in funding.
But here's the problem.
Buying high DR backlinks has quietly become one of the most tempting traps in digital marketing — especially for SEOs, startups, and bloggers desperate for quick authority. It's the equivalent of buying followers on social media. You see the numbers go up, your ego gets a little boost, and for a moment, you feel like you’re doing something brilliant. But beneath the surface, it's usually just a costly illusion.
Let’s talk about how this happens.
You’re building a site — maybe an affiliate blog, a niche product, or even your personal brand. Traffic is slow. Google doesn’t seem to care. And then you watch a YouTube video or read a thread on Reddit where someone casually drops that they “just bought a few DR 70+ backlinks and ranked in 3 weeks.” Now your wheels are turning.
You find a marketplace. Dozens of domains, all with DR 50+, for sale. A few hundred bucks each. Sellers toss in fancy metrics like "Referring Domains", "Spam Score", "Niche Relevance", and everything looks legit. You convince yourself it's an investment.
So, you buy a few. Maybe even ten. You link them to your site.
And then?
Well, the earth doesn’t shake. Your rankings don't leap. Your traffic still crawls. But your wallet is definitely lighter.
Here’s why.
High DR doesn’t guarantee trust. It doesn’t mean the site is clean, or that Google sees it as authoritative in your niche. Many DR scores are inflated — propped up by link farms, expired domains, or shady redirect networks that existed for a minute, just long enough to spike metrics. The backlink profile might look strong on paper, but the links are hollow. They’re like fake diplomas — impressive at a glance, but meaningless when examined.
And this brings us to something more uncomfortable.
Many SEOs already know this, but they still buy DR to impress clients. Agencies flaunt DR 70 links in their reports. Clients, who often don’t know the difference between a domain rating and a domain name, think they’re getting gold. Meanwhile, the agency marks up a $100 link and sells it for $500. Everyone feels smart — until the rankings stagnate and the client starts asking tough questions.
Domain Rating is a vanity metric.
That’s it. That’s the tweet. That’s the billboard. That’s the thing that’ll save you thousands of dollars if you truly take it to heart.
Because here's what actually matters: real traffic, natural links, and content that solves actual problems. You can have a DR 20 blog that pulls in 50,000 monthly visitors and converts like crazy. You can have a DR 80 site that gets zero clicks because it’s bloated with fluff and artificial links.
The dirty secret in SEO is that there are no shortcuts left that scale well and last long. Every loophole gets closed. Every trick gets outdated. But the fundamentals? They age like wine.
So if you're thinking about buying DR — stop. Take a breath. Ask yourself what you're really buying.
If it's a shortcut to avoid building something useful, it’s a losing bet. If it's an ego boost to make your Ahrefs dashboard look pretty, you’ll feel the dopamine hit for a day, then stare at flatline graphs for weeks.
There are better uses for your money.
You could invest in great content — not the $25-per-article kind, but deeply researched, genuinely helpful writing that earns links naturally. You could run a few low-budget ads to test traffic and collect real data. You could hire someone to do outreach that brings real, editorial backlinks — not some expired travel blog repurposed as a crypto directory.
Even better, you could spend time building relationships. Connect with people in your niche. Offer value. Share what you learn. Over time, these human connections become backlinks — real ones, from real people who actually like your stuff.
That’s how you grow.
And that’s the irony. Buying DR makes you feel like you're smart. You get to say you’re doing “technical SEO” and throw around acronyms in Slack. But often, it’s just a distraction from the hard (but worthwhile) work.
You don’t need a DR 70 to succeed. You need a reason for someone to care about your site, to share it, and to trust what’s on it. DR will follow naturally, if it matters at all.
So, the next time you’re hovering over that PayPal button on a backlink marketplace, ask yourself: do I want to look smart or be smart?
One path costs money and gives you little in return. The other takes work — but it builds something that lasts.
And hey, when your traffic really starts to grow, and your site genuinely earns authority, you won’t need to check DR anymore. You’ll have proof that matters a whole lot more.
Organic clicks.
Conversions.
And a reputation that no metric can measure.
Credits:
Kim Jones