When you’re deciding whether you want a link from a website,
your best friend is metrics.
Let me show you the wrong way to go about it:
“Ooh, here’s a car website — maybe I should try to get a link from these guys.
Let me check their backlink profile on Ahrefs… Great! A bunch of DR90+ domains.
Those are probably good… Wait, what’s this? A coupon site? Will that hurt me?
Oh no — a Chinese blog link? Is this toxic?”
People spend all this time overanalyzing link profiles
before they even know if the site is willing to link to them in the first place.
Truth is, you only need a few key checks:
1. Traffic threshold: 1,000+ visitors/month
If a site doesn’t get any traffic, Google probably ignores its links —
no matter how clean the profile looks.
Only 9.37% of websites get organic traffic,
so by focusing on sites with real search visitors,
you dramatically reduce your odds of landing in Google’s “ignored links” bucket.
2. Domain Rating (DR) of 20+
Anything under DR 20 is usually not worth your time.
You’re trying to build authority — not waste effort for little return.
3. Relevance is nice — but not mandatory
Yes, getting links from relevant sites helps.
But let’s not pretend you’d turn down a backlink from The New York Times
just because it’s not a “car blog.”
Bottom line:
- Don’t overthink link analysis.
- Focus on traffic, DR, and keep relevance in mind —
but prioritize opportunity.
- Ask first. Analyze later.
When you’re deciding whether you want a link from a website,
your best friend is metrics.
Let me show you the wrong way to go about it:
“Ooh, here’s a car website — maybe I should try to get a link from these guys.
Let me check their backlink profile on Ahrefs… Great! A bunch of DR90+ domains.
Those are probably good… Wait, what’s this? A coupon site? Will that hurt me?
Oh no — a Chinese blog link? Is this toxic?”
People spend all this time overanalyzing link profiles
before they even know if the site is willing to link to them in the first place.
Truth is, you only need a few key checks:
1. Traffic threshold: 1,000+ visitors/month
If a site doesn’t get any traffic, Google probably ignores its links —
no matter how clean the profile looks.
Only 9.37% of websites get organic traffic,
so by focusing on sites with real search visitors,
you dramatically reduce your odds of landing in Google’s “ignored links” bucket.
2. Domain Rating (DR) of 20+
Anything under DR 20 is usually not worth your time.
You’re trying to build authority — not waste effort for little return.
3. Relevance is nice — but not mandatory
Yes, getting links from relevant sites helps.
But let’s not pretend you’d turn down a backlink from The New York Times
just because it’s not a “car blog.”
Bottom line:
- Don’t overthink link analysis.
- Focus on traffic, DR, and keep relevance in mind —
but prioritize opportunity.
- Ask first. Analyze later.
