What is UR in SEO? Does It Matter?

Posted by Coty Perry, in Blog

UR or URL rating is a metric used to determine the strength of a specific page’s backlink profile. Ahrefs developed this metric and it rates web pages on a scale of 0-100. 

So, what is UR in SEO, why does it matter, and how concerned should you be about pages with a low URL rating? We’re going to help you answer all of these questions in this quick reference guide. 

How is UR Calculated?

UR is calculated based on the total number of internal and external backlinks pointing to a specific page. It’s important to understand that the links must be “dofollow” and they should be high-quality if you want them to have a positive impact. 

This means that the links you’re getting should be from websites with a high domain rating and web pages with a high URL rating. 

So, the more great links you have pointing to a page, the higher its UR should be and the higher you should rank, right? 

While this is kind of true. There are many other factors that impact the rankings of a web page such as content quality, user-friendliness, mobile optimization, keyword optimization, and more. 

To have the best results, you’ll want to approach it from an all encompassing perspective. You can’t simply just score a bunch of great links and expect the website to instantly rank. Not to mention that you’ll have a much easier time getting links if your site works well and provides value. 

UR vs. DR

The main difference is that UR is a rating for a specific page on a website and DR is the rating for the website as a whole. 

If you look at this page from Better Homes and Gardens, you can see that the UR is only 18 while the DR of the whole site is 87. 

Why is that? 

The page is pretty new. It was just discovered less than two months ago at the time of writing this. So, it likely doesn’t have a ton of links because it’s so new. 

This tells you that just because a website has a high DR, doesn’t mean that all the pages within the website have a high UR. They are two separate metrics that work alongside each other but not simultaneously. 

Is UR Important?

According to Ahrefs, URL rating has a positive correlation with Google rankings. So yeah, it’s very important. Is it more important than DR? The jury is open on this but in my opinion, it’s not. 

When we perform outreach or do tasks to get backlinks, the goal is to get links to “power pages” that are going to help push the site in the right direction. 

This means that you want to get links to pages that have the potential to make you the most money. Product reviews, hub pages, landing pages, etc. – these are pages with earning potential. 

Getting links to “how-to” articles and other informational guides isn’t as important so these may have a lower UR and it won’t make much of a difference. 

Remember that every backlink has a certain amount of link juice and the higher the UR, the more link juice it has to pass down. 

How to Find Your URL Rating?

You can use Ahrefs to find the URL rating of any page but of course, it’s a paid tool that isn’t the cheapest in the world. 

Ahrefs also has an authority checker but it only provides the overall domain rating for the website. If you’re looking for a free tool, I recommend Ubersuggest. It’s free for up to three searches per day if you sign up for a free account. 

How to Increase Your UR

The best way to increase your URL rating is to get more high-quality backlinks to that page whether they are internal or external. It’s important that the links are relevant to the topic and come from a page that has great content on it. Again, think about link juice. 

Linking to a page you’re trying to rank from a page that already ranks will help increase the UR of the receiving page. Link Whisper can help with this. With Link Whisper, you’ll receive automatic internal link suggestions with relevant anchor text from all articles within the same topic. Give it a try! 

Final Thoughts

Now you know what UR is in SEO and how to compare it to DR and some of the other metrics in the world of SEO. While it’s not quite as essential to worry about as your domain rating, the two work together in a lot of ways and it doesn’t hurt to know what URL rating is and how it can impact other pages on your website. Good luck!