So you need backlinks for your website in order to grow. Let’s say an SEO professional approaches and claims that he can provide quality backlinks for your website. Will you believe him or will you check backlinks quality before accepting his service?
You need some sort of ‘Backlink Vetting Checklist’ in order to quickly determine if the backlink you are receiving is valuable for your website or not. Here is a Backlink Vetting Checklist you can use before requesting any backlink from anywhere. This will help you ensure you’re getting high-quality, safe, and valuable links that will rank up your website in search engines.
1. Check Domain Metrics
Check domain metrics such as DA, organic traffic, website spam score and referring domains.
- Domain Authority (DA): Preferably should be 30+
- Organic Traffic (via Ahrefs/SEMrush): At least 500+ monthly visits
- Spam Score (via Moz): Below 10%
- Referring Domains: Ensure the site has natural backlinks, not all from PBNs (Private Blogging Networks)
2. Check Site Quality & Content
To determine site and its content’s quality check the following factors.
- Niche Relevance: Content should match or relate to your industry
- Content Freshness: Blog should be updated regularly (at least 1–2 posts/month)
- Article Quality: Are posts well-written? Should not be AI spam or spun content
- Outbound Links: Posts should not link out to gambling, adult, or pharma sites
- Link Count Per Article: Avoid getting backlinks from posts with 5+ external links — it dilutes link juice
3. Check Technical SEO Health
Check if website owner cares about his website and keeps it clean and functional.
- Indexed in Google: Use ‘site:example.com’ to check indexed pages
- Is the website HTTPS secured?
- Should be no massive drop in traffic (use Ahrefs/SEMrush graphs to check the traffic trend)
- Is the website mobile-friendly?
4. Check Link Placement Specifics
How the backlink will be placed and how will it be treated after the placement.
- Do-Follow: Confirm the link will be do-follow
- In-Content Placement: The link should be placed contextually within content and not at the end of article
- Natural Anchor Text: Avoid exact-match anchor text overload
- Permanent or Long-Term: Confirm the link will stay live indefinitely or has a replacement guarantee
5. Check Platform Seller Credibility
If there is third party involved in between check it’s legitimacy and its online reviews.
- Check positive reviews or ratings on the platform
- Clear communication about delivery time, replacement policy, and reporting
Bonus Tip
Once you start getting backlinks for your website, you will need to track those for their online availability. Use following fields in a Google Sheet to track all backlinks.
- Site Name
- URL
- DA
- Traffic
- Date Placed
- Anchor Text
- Link Type (do-follow/nofollow)
- Status (Live, Removed, Replaced)
Final Thoughts
What is your strategy when you get backlinks for you or your clients? Do you check backlinks quality before getting backlinks?