By Shad Super in Questions —

How Can Link Scores Be Used to Prioritize Link Building or Link Pruning Efforts for SEO Campaigns?

Summary

Link scores evaluate the quality and relevance of backlinks pointing to a website. Using link scores effectively can help prioritize link building or link pruning efforts, ultimately boosting an SEO campaign. Here’s an in-depth guide on how to utilize link scores for these tasks.

Link scores are metrics used by SEO tools to quantify the quality and influence of a backlink. These scores generally consider factors such as domain authority, page authority, relevance, and trustworthiness. Higher link scores usually indicate a more valuable backlink.

  • Domain Authority (DA): Developed by Moz, DA measures the overall strength of a website [Moz Learn, 2023].
  • Page Authority (PA): Also from Moz, PA evaluates the strength of individual pages [Moz Learn, 2023].
  • Trust Flow and Citation Flow: Metrics from Majestic that consider the quality and quantity of backlinks [Majestic Glossary, 2023].
  • Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR): Measures the strength of a target website's backlink profile on a scale from 1 to 100 [Ahrefs Blog, 2023].

Effective link building is essential for improving your site’s search engine ranking. Here are steps to prioritize link building using link scores:

Start by identifying websites with high domain authority and relevance to your industry. Tools like Moz, Ahrefs, and Majestic provide link scores that help you gauge the potential impact of a backlink from these sites [Ahrefs Blog, 2023].

Example

If your website focuses on health and wellness, aim for backlinks from high-authority health sites, such as Healthline (DA 88) or WebMD (DA 81). A backlink from these domains can significantly boost your own site's domain authority and search rankings.

Analyzing your current backlink profile helps you focus on nurturing relationships with high-scoring sites. Use tools to generate a list of your backlinks sorted by their link scores, and prioritize outreach or content collaborations with sites that offer the greatest SEO value [Moz Blog, 2023].

Removing low-quality or harmful backlinks (known as link pruning) can improve your site’s SEO. Here’s how to use link scores for effective pruning:

Low link scores often indicate backlinks from spammy, irrelevant, or low-authority websites. Using tools to generate a list of your backlinks sorted by link scores will help you spot which ones to prune [Ahrefs Blog, 2023].

Example

If your site has backlinks from domains with a Trust Flow score of less than 10 (according to Majestic), these could be dragging your site's trust and relevance down. Consequently, they may need pruning.

If manual removal of a harmful backlink isn't possible, disavowing them is the next best step. Tools from Google Search Console allow you to submit a disavow file, which instructs Google to ignore specific backlinks in their ranking calculations [Google Support, 2023].

Regularly monitoring your backlink profile ensures that new low-quality backlinks are identified and managed promptly. Controlling the quality of your link profile helps maintain and improve your site's search engine performance [Neil Patel, 2022].

Conclusion

Using link scores to guide your link building and pruning efforts helps enhance your SEO campaign effectively. By targeting high-score link opportunities and eliminating low-score harmful links, you can significantly improve your site's domain authority, relevance, and overall search engine ranking.

References