Most link lists are sorted by one number, usually Domain Authority or Domain Rating. That number tells you far less than it seems. Here is how we decide which sites make it into a plan.
Why DA and DR alone mislead
Domain Authority (Moz) and Domain Rating (Ahrefs) are vendor estimates built from each vendor’s own crawl of the web. Neither comes from Google, and both are easy to inflate by buying or swapping links. A site can look impressive on paper and have almost no real readers. We record these scores, and we never let them decide on their own.
The checks every site has to pass
- A real topic. The site is clearly about something, and its homepage is content, not a wall of “write for us” offers.
- A real audience. We look up organic traffic ourselves rather than trusting screenshots from the site owner.
- Traffic that isn’t collapsing. A site whose traffic has halved in six months is flagged.
- Recent posts by named authors. Sites filled with mass-produced filler don’t pass.
- Not selling to everyone. Sponsored posts on every page, or casino and loan posts mixed into every topic, rule a site out.
- Indexed in Google. A site Google has dropped is always rejected.
- A fit for your plan. The site’s topic and audience have to match your business, so your article reads naturally there.
Grades
- A: our strongest sites, with a close topic match and a real readership.
- B: sound sites that passed every check.
- C: useful for one specific job, such as a very local audience. We tell you why when we include one.
- Reject: never used.
A grade is our judgement of the site when we reviewed it. It isn’t a forecast of your rankings.
Honest link labels
Every site in your plan shows the link attribute the publisher applies, such as dofollow or sponsored, and whether the article carries a sponsored label. If a link goes live with a different attribute from the one we stated, you get a replacement or a refund.
After your link goes live
We check that the link is live and correct before we report it to you, then re-check it every month for 12 months. If it disappears or changes, our guarantee applies.