If an SEO Consultant looking to do link building, he or she is often evaluating the architecture and delving into site metrics. Link builders should be on lookout for cues, which make a site probably a good potential partner. Generally, they consider metrics like a SEO, but also some less tangible cues such as engagement or trustworthiness. What are the right strategies or steps to follow to qualify a potential link partner?
Will this particular link actually pass value, and if indeed so, how much? This is the question that we are actually trying to address with link building metrics. Let’s be real or practical. There are quite a many metrics, which could come into play. So how does one arrive at those that really matter? This is one major problem area for new or inexperienced link builders – what metrics to look at while validating potential link partners?
If you want to efficiently get the job done, you should know exactly how to scale, and not waste time getting one link. There are only a few metrics that you need to consider to decide if a prospect is worth following.
Domain authority: This sure is among the top metrics you need to look at, since it will help you decide the value of any prospective site for all different types of projects. If you are seeking a guest post or something like promoting an infographic, the new webpage that the piece will be put nay or may not have metrics, such as page authority and, for that matter, # of linking root domains. It though must have domain authority.
# of linking root domains: This is something we have just mentioned above. ‘# of linking root domains’ is one of the most powerful correlated Moz metrics since ULD is quite heavily correlated with search engine rankings, so you would want to consider this.
The site will ideally have a good amount of ULDs to the page in question as well as domain. You are able to get a fair sense of how popular a page/domain is to external sites, and obviously, more ULDs could mean more. And indeed, if the number is higher, it may be safer to assume upon first look that both the DA/PA metrics are significant statistically, and thus far more likely to remain consistent (in case of doubt, the backlink profile can be looked at to check if these ULDs are perhaps manipulated).
Page authority: You need to look at this when on the home page. Overall you may choose to ignore this in case of promoting for placement on, for example, a blog post. This is so because it would be a new page sans any PA value yet. There is reason to be watchful for static pages if this happens to be a high number plus a good enough number of ULDs.
Also, if you are opting for outreach for a subdomain placement – such as NAME.blogspot.com, blog.DOMAIN.com and NAME.wordpress.com, look at its PA, since the DA will be rather irrelevant for such targets.
