Raise Domain Rating to 20
DR is the gate on every competitive keyword you will ever want. It is bought with an afternoon of forms.
Target: ahrefs_dr ≥ 20 · referring_domains ≥ 30
Inside this
- Prepare the submission kit
Written once, pasted fifty times. Skipping this turns a 3-hour batch into a 3-day slog.
- Submit to software and SaaS directories
The bulk of your first 30 referring domains. Work top-down by DR; expect 3 hours a batch.
- Claim the entity profiles that feed AI training data
These three are how assistants learn that your company exists and what it is.
- Claim high-DR profile and content platforms
The highest-DR links available without building an integration. Each takes minutes.
- Submit to AI tool directories
Only if the product is genuinely AI-native — forced listings get rejected. Price the branch first: unlike the rest of 2.2, three of the four majors now charge a one-time review fee.
- List on agent and MCP registries
A genuine moat: traditional SaaS cannot list here, and assistants read these directly.
- Get included in “best of” listicles
A dofollow link, editorial trust and in-market traffic — and these roundups are what AI answers quote most, well ahead of anybody’s own product page. Better than any directory.
- Reclaim links you have already earned
The cheapest referring domains available — someone already decided to mention you.
- Submit to no-code directories
A small, high-intent audience that converts well because they are shopping for exactly this.
- Register the blog and syndicate milestones
Blog directories are worth doing once. Press-release sites pass DR but carry no editorial trust — treat them as plumbing, never as PR.
- Verify and maintain the link profile
Directories silently flip outbound links to nofollow. Unverified listings are assumptions.
- Work the pages that already link to your competitors
Someone has already decided this kind of page links out. Why they linked decides whether you can be next.
- Answer the journalist requests in your field2h
The one route where the writer is already looking for you. Answer the question in the first sentence, from experience you can substantiate — no original data required, which is what makes it work at DR 20.