Backlinks aren't the whole game like they were 10 years ago.
These days they're more like the missing piece when the rest of the foundation is right. But the "where" matters more than ever, and I'm curious how folks here vet sites before getting a link from them.
Here's my rough checklist, would love to see yours:
These days they're more like the missing piece when the rest of the foundation is right. But the "where" matters more than ever, and I'm curious how folks here vet sites before getting a link from them.
Here's my rough checklist, would love to see yours:
- Real organic traffic, not just DR/DA. A DR 50 site with 200 monthly visits is a red flag, someone's been feeding it links to sell.
- Traffic trend, not snapshot. Flat or growing is fine. A cliff after a core update means Google already made its judgment.
- Outbound link patterns. If every post links out to 5 different unrelated sites, it's a link farm with a nice theme.
- Relevance over authority when forced to choose. A niche site at DR 35 beats a general site at DR 70 for us, almost every time.
