Most bad backlinks are bought by people who checked one metric. Domain rating looked acceptable, the price seemed fair, and nobody opened the site.
This is the checklist to run before agreeing to any placement. It takes about four minutes per site and removes the majority of prospects, which is exactly what it should do.
Check One: Organic Traffic on the Actual Page
Start here, because it disqualifies faster than anything else.
- Look at traffic to the specific page that will host your link
- Check the domain trend over the last twelve months
- Discard sites where traffic is negligible regardless of authority score
A domain rating of 60 with almost no visitors usually means the authority was manufactured. Rating is a sorting tool, never a verdict.
Check Two: Traffic Trend Shape
The direction of travel reveals more than the current number.
- Steady growth: a healthy site worth pursuing
- Sudden vertical spike: often expired domain abuse or manipulation
- Sharp cliff: the site may already have been penalised
- Flat near zero: no audience, so no value beyond a raw link
Check Three: Topical Relevance
Relevance beats authority for SaaS placements almost every time.
- Does the site publish in your category regularly, or was it a one off?
- Would your buyer plausibly read this publication?
- Do the surrounding articles share a coherent subject area?
A relevant site with modest metrics contributes more than an unrelated high authority domain, and it looks far more natural in your profile.
Check Four: Outbound Link Patterns
Open five recent articles and look at who else the site links to.
- Count commercial links per article, since more than three or four is a warning
- Watch for unrelated verticals sitting together, such as casinos beside software
- Check whether sponsored content carries any disclosure
- Look for the same anchor patterns repeating across posts
A site linking out to gambling, crypto, and enterprise software in the same week is selling placements to anyone who pays.
Check Five: Editorial Signals
Real publications leave evidence of human involvement.
Green Flags
- Named authors with credentials and history
- An about page describing a real team
- Articles updated after publication
- Distinct editorial voice across pieces
Red Flags
- No bylines, or generic admin accounts
- Dozens of near identical posts targeting keyword variations
- A public price list for guest posts or link insertions
- Content that reads as though nobody expected a human to finish it
Check Six: Audience Location
- Confirm traffic comes from markets where you actually sell
- A site with strong traffic from irrelevant regions adds authority but no pipeline
- For most B2B SaaS, prioritise placements reaching your target geographies
Check Seven: Indexation
A quick sanity check that costs seconds.
- Search for the domain to confirm pages are indexed at all
- If the site does not appear for its own brand name, walk away
- Deindexed sites pass nothing whatever their metrics claim
The Four Minute Scorecard
Run every prospect through this before quoting or paying for anything.
| Check | Pass Condition | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Page level traffic | Genuine monthly visitors | Critical |
| Traffic trend | Stable or growing | Critical |
| Topical relevance | Publishes your category regularly | Critical |
| Outbound links | No unrelated commercial mix | High |
| Editorial signals | Named authors, real about page | High |
| Audience location | Matches your sales markets | Medium |
| Indexation | Ranks for its own brand name | Critical |
Any critical failure removes the site. No combination of other strengths compensates.
Questions to Ask the Seller
If a site is offered to you rather than found by you, the questions change.
- Can you show me two live placements you have made here?
- Is the link permanent, and what happens if it is removed?
- Will the article be disclosed as sponsored?
- How many outbound commercial links will the page carry?
- Who is the editor, and can I speak to them?
Hesitation on the last two is usually your answer.
When to Accept a Lower Metric Site
Rigid thresholds cause teams to reject genuinely good opportunities.
- The site is small but read closely by your exact buyer
- It is a niche community publication with an engaged audience
- The placement sits on a page already ranking for a term you want
- It is an integration partner or category directory
Final Thoughts
Evaluating sites properly means rejecting most of what you see, and that feels unproductive until you compare results. A hundred vetted prospects will outperform a thousand unfiltered ones at a fraction of the cost.
Traffic, relevance, and evidence of human editing. If a site fails any one of those, no price makes it worthwhile.
Why Cheap Placements Cost More
Price is often the clearest signal of what you are buying.
- The average acceptable price for a quality link sits around $500 across industry surveys
- Niche edits average roughly $361 per placement
- Anything offered at a fraction of that is almost certainly shared inventory
Shared inventory means the same site sells to dozens of buyers, producing detectable footprints across many profiles at once. When those sites are devalued, every link on them goes with it, and the ranking benefit cannot be recovered.
Building a Reusable Vetting Process
Evaluation only scales if it is written down and repeatable.
Document Your Thresholds
- Minimum page level traffic you will accept
- Categories you will never place in
- Maximum outbound commercial links per page
- Required editorial signals
Keep a Rejection Log
- Record why each site failed, not just that it did
- Prevents the same domain being re-evaluated months later
- Reveals which sellers repeatedly offer weak inventory
Re-check Before Renewing
- Sites decline, and a good publication in January may be selling links by June
- Re-run the traffic and outbound link checks before any repeat placement
