What are referring domains, and how do you track them in Metabase?

Referring domains is the count of unique domains linking to a target — each domain counted once, however many links it sends. It's the backlink metric that resists inflation: one sitewide footer can add 10,000 backlinks from a single domain, but only breadth of endorsement moves the referring-domain count, which is why it's the one to trend.

What referring domains measure

Links work like citations: the breadth of independent sources pointing at you matters more than the raw volume of pointers. The first link from a new domain is a new endorsement; the five-hundredth link from a domain that already links sitewide adds almost nothing. Referring domains counts endorsements, which is why it tracks ranking ability better than the backlink total and why the backlinks-per-domain ratio is worth watching as a sanity check.

The count is a stock, and stocks hide churn — profiles lose domains constantly as pages die and links get edited away. The flow view (domains gained, domains lost, net) tells you whether growth is real, and the lost list is a work queue: high-authority domains that dropped out are often recoverable with one email.

What data does it need?

• An ahrefs_authority_daily table with target_domain, stat_date, referring_domains, and backlinks for the running totals.
• An ahrefs_backlink_changes table with one row per gained or lost referring domain — referring_domain, change_type ('gained' or 'lost'), stat_date, and domain_rating_source for quality segmentation.
• The same snapshots for competitor domains if you benchmark — gaps are only meaningful within one vendor's link index.

SQL patterns

SELECT
  date_trunc('week', stat_date) AS week,
  MAX(referring_domains) AS referring_domains,
  MAX(backlinks) AS backlinks,
  ROUND(
    MAX(backlinks)::numeric
      / NULLIF(MAX(referring_domains), 0),
    1
  ) AS links_per_domain
FROM ahrefs_authority_daily
WHERE target_domain = 'yourdomain.com'
  AND stat_date >= CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL '12 months'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1;

SELECT
  date_trunc('month', stat_date) AS month,
  COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE change_type = 'gained') AS gained,
  COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE change_type = 'lost') AS lost,
  COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE change_type = 'gained')
    - COUNT(*) FILTER (WHERE change_type = 'lost') AS net,
  COUNT(*) FILTER (
    WHERE change_type = 'gained' AND domain_rating_source >= 50
  ) AS gained_dr50_plus
FROM ahrefs_backlink_changes
WHERE target_domain = 'yourdomain.com'
  AND stat_date >= CURRENT_DATE - INTERVAL '12 months'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY 1;

Pitfalls

Where this metric applies

• Ahrefs + Metabase — the reference backlink index, with daily authority snapshots and a gained/lost change feed
• Semrush + Metabase — backlink summaries with referring-domain counts and Authority Score context
• SE Ranking + Metabase — daily new and lost backlink monitoring alongside rank tracking

Related

Metrics

Dashboards

FAQ