Ceria nanorods doped by various metals (Zr, Zn and Tb) have been successfully synthesized by a facile hydrothermal method. TG/DTG, XRD, nitrogen adsorption-desorption, SEM, TEM/HRTEM, Raman, XPS are employed to characterize the as-synthesized materials. Various metal-doped ceria nanorods with uniform sizes and different oxygen vacancies have been obtained. The results of XRD and HRTEM indicate that dopant species are well incorporated into the lattice of ceria. The presence of mesoporous in these nanorods has been determined by nitrogen adsorption-desorption. Raman and XPS characterizations show that the species and amount of metal dopant can greatly affect the amount of oxygen vacancies. Vibrating sample magnetometer device is used to illustrate ferromagnetic properties of these materials. The relationship between oxygen vacancies and magnetic properties has been presented. Results show that there is a good correction between the amount of oxygen vacancies and the saturation magnetization (Ms) value for various ceria nanorods.