Link relevance tool or spreadsheet? A scorecard for donor sites
Software can sort 50,000 donors in a second. Only you know whether a page about kayak paddles belongs next to a link to your fishing guide.
ArticleWebsite editorial team ·
Why a tool score is not enough
Every dashboard shows a number. Domain Rating from Ahrefs, Authority Score from Semrush, Trust Flow from Majestic, each built from a different link index. None of them reads the donor's articles.
Filters help. A link relevance tool can sort by niche label and language, and the marketplace does exactly that. The label, though, is a category, not a judgement about whether this donor's readers would care about your page. That last step takes two minutes of looking at the site.
Run the scorecard on the three finalists in your basket, not on all 50,000 donors. Ten rows of the sheet take about twenty minutes, and the first time you reject a donor with a great Domain Rating you will have paid for the habit.
The ten-point scorecard
Score each row 0, 1 or 2. Total out of 20. Our own cut-offs are below the table, adjust them for your niche.
Check
0 points
2 points
Niche label
Unrelated category
Same niche as your page
Recent posts
Random topics, many categories
Most posts in one or two topics
Organic traffic
Near zero in the filter
Steady, matching its Domain Rating
Referring domains
Handful, mostly one source
Spread across many sites
Language
Different from your page
Same as your page
Article quality
Thin, ad-heavy, stock text
Readable and edited
Outbound links
Dozens per post to unrelated sites
A few, to credible pages
Site age signs
Cannot tell, no dates
Posts over years, visible archive
Page where your link lands
Footer, sidebar, off-topic post
Inside a paragraph on a related post
Price versus peers
Far above similar rows
In line or below
Reading the total
16 to 20: order it. 11 to 15: order only if the price is at the cheap end. Under 11: leave it, whatever its Domain Rating says. A high score on traffic alone should not rescue a 0 on niche.
Three quick tests that catch most bad rows
Search the donor's name in Google
Add the site to a quoted site: query with a topic word from your page. If nothing relevant comes back, the donor has never written about your subject.
Check the traffic trend, not the snapshot
A site that lost most of its visits after the March 2024 core update tells you something the Domain Rating hides. Look for a flat or rising line.
Read the last five titles aloud
If three of them could sit on a casino blog, you have your answer. This takes under a minute and costs nothing.
Questions on relevance
How relevant does a donor need to be?
Closer is safer, but it does not have to match exactly. A kitchen-equipment page can reasonably link to a recipe site. Aim for same niche first, then an adjacent one. Unrelated categories are where the scorecard tends to fall under 11.
Does a high Domain Rating beat relevance?
No. Domain Rating is a score from Ahrefs about a site's own backlinks, not a verdict on topical fit. We would take a DR 35 donor in your niche over a DR 70 donor from another world.
Can I filter by niche before I open the basket?
Yes. The marketplace lets you filter donors by niche, language, Domain Rating, traffic, referring domains and price. Use the budget guide to set the price ceiling before you start filtering.
Is paying for links allowed by Google?
Google's spam policies say links bought to pass PageRank can violate them. We sell dofollow placements, and you decide the risk. Spread orders out, keep them relevant, and read the competitor gap guide to see what rivals do.