How to Vet a Link Opportunity Before You Pursue It

Before spending time or money pursuing a link through outreach or any other link building tactic, it is worth asking whether the link is worth having at all. A link from a relevant, editorially run site whose readers care about your topic can bring visitors and recognition. A link from a site that publishes anything for a fee, links out to everyone, or exists to sell placements can bring nothing, or a problem: Google’s link spam policy covers links created “primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings”, including buying or selling links for ranking purposes (Google’s spam policies). Vetting is a repeatable check done before outreach. It concerns prospective links; deciding what to do about links you already have is a separate question.

A repeatable opportunity vetting checklist

Score each item as pass, concern or fail. A fail under placement terms or risk, or two or more fails elsewhere: do not pursue.

1. Relevance

• [ ] The site’s topic overlaps with yours, or its audience is one you serve.
• [ ] The specific page where the link would appear is about something related.

2. Editorial standards

• [ ] Content is written by named people with apparent knowledge of the subject.
• [ ] Articles are edited: consistent quality, corrections when needed.
• [ ] There is an about page and a real contact.
• [ ] The site does not advertise “guest posts accepted, do-follow links, $X.”

3. Audience

• [ ] The site has real readers: comments, social engagement, newsletter, visible community. (Third-party traffic estimates are rough; treat them as hints.)
• [ ] The audience would plausibly click through to your page.

4. Outbound link pattern

• [ ] Outbound links in articles point to relevant, reputable sources.
• [ ] Articles are not crowded with commercial links on unrelated topics (casinos, payday loans, unrelated affiliate offers).
• [ ] Anchors are descriptive, not stuffed with keywords.

5. Ownership and network

• [ ] The site is not one of a network of similar sites with the same owner, templates and outbound link patterns.
• [ ] The domain’s history fits its current content (an expired domain repurposed for unrelated content is a warning sign; Google’s spam policies describe expired domain abuse).

6. Placement terms

• [ ] No payment or exchange for the link, or, if there is one, the link will be qualified as rel="sponsored" and disclosed.
• [ ] The site keeps editorial control.
• [ ] No requirement for specific keyword anchors.

7. Risk

• [ ] Nothing in the arrangement matches the examples in Google’s link spam policy.

What metrics can and cannot tell you

Third-party authority scores (domain authority, domain rating and similar) estimate a site’s link profile using each vendor’s own data. Moz states that Domain Authority “is not a Google ranking factor and has no effect on the SERPs” (Moz on Domain Authority). Such scores can help sort a long list; they say nothing about editorial standards, relevance or whether links on the site are for sale. A high score on a site that sells links is not an opportunity.

Red flags

• a “write for us” page listing prices or link types;
• articles on every topic imaginable with no editorial focus;
• many outbound commercial links per article;
• author names with no history elsewhere;
• sudden topical changes after a domain changed hands;
• offers from brokers selling placements across many sites.

Vetting vs disavow

Vetting decides whether to pursue a link that does not yet exist. It is not the same as reviewing existing backlinks for possible disavowal; for that, Google’s disavow guidance sets narrower conditions (a considerable number of spammy, artificial or low-quality links that have caused or are likely to cause a manual action). A site that fails vetting is simply one to avoid, not one to disavow preemptively.

Vetting three opportunities side by side

Picture an accounting software company evaluating three opportunities.

A good link opportunity is one you would be glad to be associated with even if search engines ignored links entirely. The checklist is a way of testing that before you invest in it.