How to evaluate backlink quality (3 important factors)

Websites use link building to increase their online visibility and gain attention in a fierce competition. However, here’s the problem. Not all backlinks are good news. In fact, it could even ruin your online reputation altogether in Google’s eyes.

For example, getting low-quality backlinks from questionable websites or link farms can negatively impact your site’s rankings. Rather than helping you climb the digital ladder, these can cause you to drop in search results.

In the worst-case scenario, building too many low-quality backlinks can penalize your website and cause you to lose all your hard-earned rankings.

In this article, we’ll show you three easy ways to check the quality of the backlinks you’re trying to build. Use these tips along with his other SEO techniques to quickly climb your search engine rankings.

Related: What are backlinks? Why do you need backlinks for SEO?

1. Evaluate your website’s quality metrics

When evaluating backlinks, you should first look at the overall quality of your website. There are several metrics you can use to determine how influential your website is in your overall SEO plan. Here’s a quick overview:

Check DA or DR.

Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are third-party numerical ratings that give you a better idea of ​​the quality and influence of your website. Values ​​range from 1 to 100, the higher the DA or DR, the more valuable the backlink is.

Here’s a quick overview of the DA/DR range:

• DA/DR 0-20: These websites are probably new and don’t have a lot of backlinks. Your rankings can only improve if your website is new.

• DA/DR20~40: This is an okay range. Backlinks in this zone are good, but not perfect.

• DA/DR40~60: Backlinks here are great and can greatly improve your website.

• DA/DR 60 and above: Backlinks from websites with a DR of 60 and above are great, but difficult to secure. Nevertheless, they are worth the investment.

While DA and DR are useful, be aware that some websites inflate these numbers to sell backlinks. Therefore, you should keep in mind all the other factors on this list to more accurately assess the quality of your backlinks.

Check your website traffic.

A website with no traffic is almost always not worth your time. Generally, high traffic indicates legitimacy and the potential to attract more readers to your site through backlinks.

Websites that people are interested in and visit are more likely to be genuine and provide authentic and valuable content. This resonates with your users and encourages them to come back and share your site with others.

Obtaining backlinks from such websites can help build credibility and positively impact your online presence.

Verify that the website is legitimate.

If you’re trying to get a link from a website, you need to make sure it’s a legitimate website with real people and a real audience. There are several ways to do this:

• About us page: Make sure your “About Us” page clearly indicates that real people are behind the site.

• Social media presence: Regular posts on social media are a good sign that your website is active and authentic.

• LinkedIn employee list: LinkedIn’s official employee listings add credibility.

• Content niche: Check the type of content you’re publishing. A well-defined niche topic is better than a random topic.

Check if the website sells guest posts on a regular basis.

Guest posting is a great way to build backlinks, but websites that only sell guest posts without high-quality, organic content won’t offer much value. The sole purpose of these websites is to sell backlinks, and Google doesn’t tolerate that.

To find out if they only sell guest posts, look for a dedicated section or disclosure on their website. Additionally, you can explore blogs and content to give it a real “real his website” feel. This will help you differentiate between sites that are focused on providing valuable content and sites that simply exist to sell backlinks.

Related: Why is your backlink profile so important for SEO?

2. Analyze your website’s SEO position

Now that we have covered the basics of checking a website’s credibility, let’s take a closer look at the important aspect of a website’s SEO status. This step is essential to ensure that the backlinks you’re looking at aren’t just smoke and mirrors.

Some shady websites publish tons of content on various topics in order to inflate their traffic and appear suitable for link building. In reality, they are probably ranking for hundreds or thousands of low-effort keywords that are irrelevant to your business.

Checking your SEO standing using an SEO tool will help you identify which keywords are bringing you the most traffic and whether they are relevant to your business.

A big red flag you can look out for to spot such websites is a sudden and sudden drop in website traffic. This is an indication that something went wrong due to common SEO mistakes or questionable SEO practices.

3. Ensure topical relevance

Ensuring that your backlinks match your website’s topic is very important for Google to find it natural and relevant. If your website’s content is not relevant to your girlfriend’s website, that’s a red flag for Google.

For example, let’s say you run a supplements website and suddenly get a backlink from an SEO agency’s blog. Google’s algorithm doesn’t think this is natural and valuable because your niche doesn’t match the backlink’s niche.

To maximize the impact of backlinks, they should come from websites in the same niche as you, or in closely related niches. For example, if you run a website about entrepreneurship, you will need backlinks from his website for business and startups. This helps build a narrative of relevance and authority. In comparison, getting backlinks from travel websites is like mixing a business plan and a travel itinerary: they don’t match at all.

Additionally, you need to make sure that the particular post on which the backlink will be placed is topically relevant to your business. This strengthens the credibility of your backlinks and improves your website’s SEO impact.

Related: Top 8 Backlink Strategies to Increase Traffic

The quality of your backlinks can make or break your SEO strategy.

Get the highest quality backlinks by evaluating your website’s quality metrics, analyzing its SEO standing, and ensuring topical relevance.

These SEO tips will help fuel your link building efforts to improve your search engine rankings.