Domain authority is the metric everyone quotes and the one that misleads most. It’s a third-party score, not something search engines publish, and it can be inflated by links that carry no real weight. Before we approve a placement we look at several things that matter more.
Real organic traffic
A site with a high authority score and almost no organic traffic is a warning sign. It usually means the score was built through link exchanges rather than by publishing things people search for and read. We check actual traffic estimates and how consistent they are over time.
Topical relevance
A link from a mid-tier site squarely in your field routinely outperforms one from a high-authority site with no connection to what you do. Relevance is a signal in its own right, and it is the one most commonly traded away in pursuit of a bigger number.
Editorial context
Where the link sits inside the page matters. A link inside well-researched body copy, placed where a reader would plausibly click it, reads very differently from one in a footer, a sidebar, or a list of unrelated outbound links.
Outbound link patterns
If a site links out to gambling, pharmaceuticals and payday loans in the same month it links to your SaaS product, that pattern is visible and it is not helping you.
What we do with this
Every prospect is checked against these criteria before it reaches your approval list. You see the domains we intend to use and decide. Nothing goes live without a sign-off.