The Importance of Link Quality
Not all links are the same. Each inbound link to your site carries a different level of trust and respect from Google. Google constantly evaluates your website for keyword relevance and valuable content, and it does the same for the sites that link to you. If a reputable website links to you, that link holds more value. Conversely, links from low-quality or spammy sites are devalued or may not count at all. Monitoring the number of links to your website helps you identify fluctuations and address any issues. One high-value link from a renowned site can offer more benefits than numerous links from lesser-quality websites.
SEO KPI Definitions
- External Backlinks (Majestic SEO): The total backlinks to your website, based on MajesticSEO’s Historic Index. This reflects changes when gaining or losing links, and updates when MajesticSEO refreshes their index.
- External Backlinks (Moz): The total backlinks to your website as determined by Moz’s Site Explorer tool.
- Citation Flow: A metric from Majestic SEO that assesses a website based on the number of times a URL or domain is cited by external pages.
- Trust Flow: Another Majestic SEO metric predicting trust based on the credibility of external websites linking to you.
- Domain Authority: Moz’s prediction of a website’s search engine ranking potential, combining various metrics into a single score.
- MozRank: Reflects a page’s importance on the internet based on the number and quality of links pointing to it.
- MozTrust: Moz’s score for link trust, highlighting the quality and trustworthiness of linking sources.
Page Rank (PR)
- Calculated by: Google
- Scale: 0 – 10 (integer numbers)
- Formula: PR measures a webpage’s popularity by the quantity of links pointing to it, irrespective of link quality. It’s an outdated metric, and although widely recognised, it’s just one of many signals Google uses.
MozRank (mR)
- Calculated by: SEOmoz
- Scale: 0 – 10 (two decimal numbers)
- Formula and Analysis: Similar to Google’s PR but with key differences, like being a decimal value. It provides a clearer picture of link profile strength. High mR requires more effort to improve.
MozTrust (mT)
- Scale: 0 – 10 (two decimal numbers)
- Formula and Analysis: Focuses on the quality of links, indicating a page’s long-term strength rather than sheer volume, helping to gauge the maturity of a link profile.
Domain-Level Metrics
- Domain MozRank & MozTrust (DmR/DmT): Scores for the entire domain, not just individual pages, offering insights into overall domain authority.
Page Authority (PA)
- Scale: 0 – 100 (integer numbers)
- Calculated by: SEOmoz
- Analysis: Indicates the potential for high rankings by aggregating link metrics, though not perfectly correlated with search result positions.
Domain Authority (DA)
- Scale: 0 – 100 (integer numbers)
- Calculated by: SEOmoz
- Analysis: Useful for competitive analysis and partnership evaluations, providing a broader picture of entire domain strength.