Most people judge a backlink by one number. It is the fastest way to buy links that do nothing. A domain rating tells you how many links a site has collected — it says nothing about whether anyone reads that site, whether it covers your subject, or whether the page carrying your link will ever be seen.
1. Topical relevance
The host site should cover subjects close to yours. A link from a mid-sized site writing about your exact industry usually does more than a high-authority link from a site that writes about everything.
2. Real organic traffic
Check the site’s organic traffic and its trend. A flat or falling line over twelve months, paired with a high authority score, is often a sign the authority came from links rather than readers.
3. The page, not just the domain
Your link lives on a page. Look at that page: does it rank for anything, does it have links of its own, and how many outbound links does it already carry? A page with thirty outbound commercial links passes very little to any of them.
4. Editorial context
A link inside a paragraph that makes sense is worth more than the same link in a footer, a sidebar or an author bio. The sentence around the link should read as though a writer put it there on purpose.
5. The outbound link profile
Scan the site’s recent posts. If most of them link out to unrelated commercial pages in the same pattern, the site sells links at volume and search engines are likely to have noticed.
6. Indexing
Finally, check that the host pages are indexed. An unindexed page cannot pass anything, and a site with large numbers of unindexed posts is a warning in itself.
The short version
Relevance, real readers, a healthy page and genuine editorial context. If a prospect fails two of those, we pass on it — no matter how good the headline metric looks.