What does it mean if a website has zero for Ahrefs Domain Rating but has high numbers for Moz DA and PA

A website with a zero or very low Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) but high Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) from Moz generally indicates a discrepancy in how different third-party tools calculate authority, often caused by a new site, a newly crawled site, or a niche link profile that one tool appreciates more than the other. [1, 2] 
Here is what this specific combination means:
1. The Discrepancy: “Newness” or Indexing Speed
A zero DR in Ahrefs usually means the site has very few (or no) external dofollow links from strong domains.

• What it means: If the site is new, Moz might have indexed its initial authority signals (or a few high-quality links) faster than Ahrefs, which relies heavily on a massive, constantly updating index.
• Likely Scenario: The website is new, and the data is waiting to update in Ahrefs. [4, 5, 6] 

2. Difference in Evaluation Metrics (Moz vs. Ahrefs)

• Moz (DA/PA): Tends to focus more on a curated, quality-focused approach to links. If the site has a few high-quality, relevant links from authoritative sources, Moz may rate it highly.
• Ahrefs (DR): Focuses heavily on the raw quantity and “link popularity” of dofollow links. If a site has many links, but they are nofollow or from low-DR domains, the DR will stay at zero, even if Moz sees the site as credible. [2, 5, 7] 

3. The “High PA” Paradox
If the PA is high but DA is low, it suggests that a specific page (or a few pages) has garnered strong backlinks, but the overall domain hasn’t established wide-reaching authority yet.

• Interpretation: You might have one really popular blog post or landing page that is being linked to, but the homepage and other pages are not strong.

Summary Table

| Metric [8, 9, 10, 11, 12] | Typical Meaning | What 0 DR/High DA+PA Means  |
| — | — | — |
| Ahrefs DR (0) | Few or no “dofollow” links from strong sites. | Site is new, or links are nofollow/low-value.  |
| Moz DA (High) | High, quality-focused link profile. | Site has high-trust, relevant, or curated links.  |
| Moz PA (High) | A specific page is very strong. | One or few pages are acting as the main authority drivers.  |

Bottom Line: The site is likely promising and has decent, targeted, or high-quality backlinks (as evidenced by Moz), but Ahrefs has not yet acknowledged a large volume of them or the site is too new for the DR to have updated. [1, 2, 13, 14, 15] 

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/11tip3i/what_if_my_pa_is_higher_than_da_is_it_good_or_bad/
[2] https://harohelpers.com/dr-da-tf-wtf-website-quality-metrics-how-do-they-compare-and-which-should-you-use-now/
[3] https://ahrefs.com/website-authority-checker
[4] https://databox.com/metric-library/metrics/ahrefs/domain-rating
[5] https://www.outrank.so/blog/difference-between-moz-and-ahrefs-domain-ranking
[6] https://wolf-of-seo.de/en/what-is/ahrefs-domain-rating-2/
[7] https://www.thecreativemomentum.com/blog/what-are-page-authority-and-domain-authority-scores
[8] https://www.flyingvgroup.com/seotools/what-is-ahrefs-used-for/
[9] https://harohelpers.com/dr-da-tf-wtf-website-quality-metrics-how-do-they-compare-and-which-should-you-use-now/
[10] https://www.thecreativemomentum.com/blog/what-are-page-authority-and-domain-authority-scores
[11] https://moz.com/community/q/topic/72007/da-and-nofollow
[12] https://linkstorm.io/resources/explaining-link-juice-in-seo
[13] https://supple.com.au/how-many-backlinks-do-i-need-to-rank-on-google/
[14] https://www.deptagency.com/insight/what-makes-a-high-quality-backlink/
[15] https://on-page.ai/pages/google-search/