Some link builders treat Domain Authority (DA) as the only important factor when considering a website, but there is a lot more to consider. If you want your website to thrive, you need links from high-quality websites that provide real value for actual people.
Our team knows this. And to determine which sites provide real value, we ask these crucial questions:
How specific is the site?
We want sites that are aimed at a niche and/or audience. For example, a tech website shouldn't have food recipes on its front page.
How good is the content?
Low effort, poorly written, and spammy content full of exact-match anchors are all red flags. We avoid those.
How relevant are their links?
A tech article shouldn’t have random links to weight loss websites. We look for publications that use contextual and relevant links throughout their content.
When was the last article published?
Blogs and websites need content to stay alive. We avoid working with sites that do not publish high-quality content regularly.
Does the organic traffic look healthy?
A healthy organic traffic chart will show sustained growth at a reasonable pace. Sites losing traffic or going through random peaks and valleys are all red flags.
Does it rank well for any keywords?
Websites that rank well for niche-relevant keywords are always more valuable. It shows that Google recognizes the site as valuable and useful.
What is the age of the website?
We avoid recently-created websites. These haven't had time to build authority or an audience yet.
How good are the numbers?
SEO metrics aren't the only thing we consider, but they're still very important. We weigh sites based on their DA, DR, Spam Score, number of referring domains, and more.
What are their link policies?
Some sites will insert random links to guest posts, add links to old articles in their back catalog, or remove links after a while. We look for signs of this and avoid those sites.
Are they part of any link network?
We cross reference a site to lists of known link networks and PBNs – and run various other tests – to make sure these are real publications that grew organically. And not just sites built to game Google’s algorithm.
We are continually reviewing all the sites we work with to ensure they meet all of those criteria. It's constant work, but that's how we keep our customers happy, and our outreach success rate above 99%.
