Every week we see link packages sold on one number: Domain Rating. It is a useful filter, but it is easy to inflate and it says nothing about whether a link will move your rankings. These are the signals we check before a link earns any of your budget.
1. Real organic traffic
A site that Google sends visitors to is a site Google trusts. We look for steady, organic traffic to the publisher and, ideally, to the section your link will live in.
2. Topical relevance
A link from a respected site in your industry beats a stronger link from an unrelated one. Relevance helps search engines understand what your page is about.
3. Editorial context
The best links sit inside the body of a useful article, surrounded by related text, and were placed because the content is better with them.
4. A clean outbound pattern
If a site links out to casinos, loans and pills on every page, it is selling links to anyone. We avoid those.
5. Citation value for AI search
Increasingly, we also ask whether AI assistants cite the site. A mention there can put your brand in front of buyers who never click a search result.