guides
Metrics
What the numbers on a row measure, what they miss, and how we verify them.
Domain rating: what DR measures, what it does not, and how sellers inflate it
DR is a link-based score that can be bought. How to read a claimed DR, why we measure it separately, and what a DR is worth at each band.
Organic traffic as a backlink quality signal
Traffic is the one metric a seller cannot buy into a rating. How we measure it, why a low reading is not automatically a failure, and what traffic adds to price.
Link survival: does a bought link stay up?
How long paid links last, how we check every placement we sell out to a year, and how a publisher's survival record reaches a quote line.
Referring domains: the count that matters more than the rating
Why distinct linking domains beat raw backlink counts, how to read a claimed count against a measured one, and what a domain's own referrers say about it.
Spam score: what it catches and what it misses
A spam score rates the link profile, not the site. Where it fits among the five quality tests and why it is a supporting signal rather than a verdict.
Placement Score: one number, with the evidence attached
How the v1 composite is built from authority, visibility, quality, graph and survival, why it is capped for suspect sites, and how to use it without being misled by it.