How to Quickly Assess Backlink Quality for SEO (+ FREE Checklist & Tool)

Consider this:

You have built an amazing website.
Ph.D. holder did the content
On-page SEO is top-notch
Technical SEO can earn plaudits
Site speed scores 100/100 in all damn tools
A simple and clear web design

Now, you are in the market to buy backlinks so that the website can rank higher, gets more organic visitors, and puts more $$$ in your pockets. You start searching...and find:

I will give you 10,000 backlinks for $60
Buy 1000s do-follow backlinks for $20
Get 10 Niche edits for $40 and rank at position #1
High DR backlinks - $100 for 15 guest posts, and whatnot?
1 backlink that costs $800

Your head starts spinning

What to buy or which link vendor to select? You are unsure of what you are getting. And whether you should buy backlinks or just do it yourself.

Backlinks serve as signals of credibility and authority to search engines, impacting rankings. HELL YEAH.

If someone still believes that backlinks don’t matter for large content sites, throw this to their face:

(Image Source: Backlinko)

However, not all backlinks are equal. You need backlinks from relevant and trustable websites that have authority.

Why Backlink Quality Assessment?

At RankRight, we build backlinks only if the domain meets the following criteria.

Assessing backlink quality is essential from two perspectives in the world of SEO.

When outsourcing link-building, evaluating acquired backlinks helps ensure their effectiveness and value. It holds service providers accountable and informs decision-making.

For those handling link-building themselves, quality assessment filters out bad websites and enables targeted outreach to high-quality ones. By engaging reputable sites, valuable backlinks are obtained, saving time and resources.

Today, with expert insights and a FREE checklist, and a simple tool, you'll learn how to evaluate link reports OR identify valuable backlink opportunities and boost your website's SEO performance.

Key Factors Determining the Quality of Backlinks

Several key factors determine the quality of backlinks, contributing to their effectiveness in SEO:

Website Authority

Eyeball test/PBN designs/Readability

The "eyeball test" is a quick and effective method for evaluating backlink quality in SEO. It involves visually inspecting a website for patterns and signs that indicate the quality.

By opening the website and examining its design and readability, we can make initial judgments.

Professional layouts, straightforward navigation, and visually appealing content are positive indicators. Conversely, outdated designs, excessive ads, or poor user experience may raise concerns.

The eyeball test also helps detect suspicious Private Blog Network (PBN) designs, which are interconnected websites built solely for backlink purposes.

Domain Rating(DR)

DR indicates the power of backlinks that the site has. However, it can be easily manipulated.

All DR50 sites don’t have SEO value. Often, link sellers would inflate the DR to sell links at higher prices.

And some DR0-10 sites would be an awesome choice if you can land a link on the relevant page that gets organic traffic.

If you get a backlink from a high DR website that passes all other assessment tests too then it’s a GOLD STANDARD.

Organic Traffic and Traffic Growth and Traffic Value

These metrics provide valuable insights into the website's overall performance.

Organic traffic and traffic growth indicate Google's trust in a website. It signifies credibility, authority, and relevance, leading to improved search rankings and increased online visibility.

Traffic Value determines genuine and valuable traffic, not artificially generated for selling backlinks. It helps differentiate between quality organic traffic and fake traffic, ensuring accurate assessments of a website's performance.

Referring Domains And Backlinks

By assessing both referring domains and backlinks, one can gain insights into the overall strength and authority of a website's backlink profile.

Relevancy

Website Categories

To assess niche relevancy, it is important to analyze the categories a website covers. By examining the topics and categories, we can determine if the website aligns with the desired niche. Relevancy is crucial for building a strong backlink profile, as links from websites within the same or related categories carry more weight and relevance.

Page relevancy is as important as domain relevancy though.

For example, if you are building backlinks for a divorce lawyer website then it’s ok to build backlinks from a post about“Splitting bank accounts during divorce” on a finance website.

However, if the prospect website is covering health, technology, legal, beauty, entertainment, casino, and everything under the sun then look at other factors very meticulously. Such sites are often built on expired domains for the sole purpose of selling backlinks.

Top pages & Organic keywords

Now, go to Ahrefs or SEMrush and look at the top pages and organic keywords reports.

If you see closely related keywords ranking on the top pages then it’s usually a good website.

If you see keywords related to downloads, torrent, adult, or celebrities on the websites disguised as niche-specific then stay away from those websites.

Leading country of organic traffic

If 50% or more traffic comes from countries like the US, UK, Canada, and Australia then it’s considered a safe site for English target websites.

If you are building backlinks to an Indian website, it’s ok if most of the traffic is from India or other major English countries.  

Position & Depth of linking page

Till now, we have looked at the domain only. Now, it’s time to analyze the actual page.

If the page is relevant, has traffic OR internal and incoming backlinks then it’s considered strong.

Avoid building backlinks from deep orphaned pages. Link equity is really low because they don’t have traffic OR internal/incoming backlinks.

Trustworthiness and SPAM Check

No casino, pill, or adult outgoing backlinks

We carefully examine the prospect site's outgoing backlinks, avoiding any association with gambling, pharmaceuticals, or adult content. Such links may raise concerns about the site's credibility and negatively impact the quality of backlinks.

If you are building links for casino or adult clients, these are all fine. They look for quick backlinks from anywhere and everywhere.

Outgoing links and anchors

Analyze the quality and relevance of the prospect site's outgoing links and anchor texts. Well-curated and contextually appropriate outbound links enhance credibility and contribute to a positive user experience.

Page Quantity

Investigating the number of pages on the prospect site provides insights into the depth and breadth of its content. A substantial number of pages often indicates a comprehensive and valuable resource, enhancing trustworthiness.

However, if the website has 1000s pages but most of them are not getting any organic traffic then look at the other factors more closely. They are often created to sell backlinks only.

Selling links vs. Other monetization

We assess whether the prospect site primarily focuses on selling links or has diversified monetization strategies. Sites prioritizing other sustainable monetization methods are preferred, as they maintain credibility and ensure higher-quality backlinks.

Indexed Pages vs. Organic Traffic

We analyze the balance between the number of indexed pages and the organic traffic the site attracts. This indicates whether the content is discoverable by search engines and whether it effectively engages and attracts genuine visitors, further confirming the site's trustworthiness.

Backlinks vs. Organic Traffic

Investigating the correlation between the site's backlinks and organic traffic is crucial. A positive relationship suggests that quality backlinks positively impact organic traffic, indicating the site's authority, relevance, and trustworthiness.

Number of Pages vs. Referring Domains vs. Linked Domains

Investigate the interplay between the site's number of pages, referring domains, and linked domains. This analysis helps us assess the diversity and robustness of the site's backlink profile, highlighting its relevance, authority, and overall trustworthiness.

For example,

* If the website has 100 pages but 1000s of linked domains, link equity would be so diluted that getting a backlink from that would be worthless.
* On the contrary, a website with 1000s of pages but not many referring domains is also worthless because of the low link equity.
* Similarly, a website with too many outbound links and few incoming links would yield no SEO value.

How To Do a Backlink Quality Assessment?

Tools we need

*  Website Quality Assessment Checklist(FREE)
*  Ahrefs or SEMrush
*  Prospecting - Quality Assessment List
* Email Outreach Tool - BuzzStream/PitchBox/MailShake/Lemlist (Optional)
* Whois checker(Optional)
* WayBackMachine(Optional)

Step-By-Step Process for Backlink Quality Assessment

Open Website Quality Assessment Checklist(FREE) and add the prospect domain in C1

Now open automatically generated URLs in column C to check and analyze the different factors we have talked about.

Phase 1: SPAM outgoing anchors

Click the link in C2. Here, we are using Ahrefs to check spam anchors in the outgoing links to know if the website is linking out to too many questionable sites.

Phase 1.1: SPAM pages

Open the link in C3. This is similar to phase 1 but we are checking SPAM pages that are indexed on Google.

If a site fails in Phase 1, we don’t do a further evaluation and blacklist the website for backlinks.

Phase 2: Relevancy & Authority

Open links in C4 to C7 one by one.

C4 - For Checking things like backlinks vs ref domains vs traffic vs traffic value. Then check organic traffic growth, main traffic location, etc

C5 - Check the relevancy of the top pages

C6 - Check the relevancy of organic keywords

C7 - Check backlinks quality

Phase 3: Domain history

C8 - Domain WHOIS to check drop and other details

C9 - WayBackMachine snapshots to check if the domain is used for PBNs or SPAM in the past

Prospecting for LinkBuilding

If you are working through a big prospecting list, use this Prospecting - Quality Assessment List and record data for all the websites.

We build 250-300 high-quality backlinks a month. So this prospecting sheet becomes tough to manage. Thus, we use Buzzstream to record this data and escalate our link building process.

Assessing Backlink Quality for SEO Success

This backlink quality assessment process helps you in different ways.

Buying links? Run the delivery report through this process. You will immediately know if you are getting quality backlinks or not. Whether the backlinks would boost rankings or do nothing.

Building links on your own? Now, you have a step-by-step process to reach out to authority and relevant websites only and land premium backlinks.