How do we check Bloggers websites?
Making sure that we use good quality Blogger websites is key to delivering benefit to our clients so we’ve spent a lot of time perfecting the process of identifying the good, versus the bad bloggers.
The big website analysis software companies like Moz, SemRush and AHRefs have their own bespoke formulas for calculating how good a website is and we’ve cherry picked the best ones from their offering, combined with our own interpretation of the traffic profiles.
Domain Authority (DA)
First up is Domain Authority calculated by Moz and you can read our article here for more info on what this is. We use this as a first hurdle to see the good v bad websites especially because in the blogger outreach industry, the higher the DA, the higher the cost of a link. So we only consider using websites with Domain Authorities (DA) of 10 or more. Websites with a DA of less than 10 tend to be brand new, small and no following with little value from an SEO perspective.
SPAM Score
The second technical indicator we use is the Spam Score. Again this comes from Moz and the higher the percentage the worse the website. We don’t work with any websites that have a spam score higher than 6% as in our experience websites with higher than this tend to get worse over time and thus end up having little value. Websites with high Spam scores have poor quality content and unnatural link profiles.
Google Traffic Profiling
We then have our in house method of reviewing traffic profiles of websites using SEMRush data from the past 2 years. We want websites that build traffic sustainably over the long term as these are the ones that give our clients the highest value from an SEO perspective and least likely to turn into high spam score websites, or be penalized by Google. The websites we exclude typically fall into the below:
- have big spikes then drops of traffic
- rapid rises in traffic which we expect will at some point fall
- those that are in terminal traffic decline
Any websites that meet this criteria go on our Black list, see below.
The Black List
The dreaded black list. We analyse hundreds of websites each week to identify the best bloggers for our clients. Once we’ve reviewed a website and it doesn’t meet our criteria it goes on the black list so we make sure to never use it. In some rare cases a website might get through our initial checks, then the website owner may stop investing in their website meaning it changes into a bad website. At this point we will move it to the black list and source new links for any clients negatively impacted.
One topic in the industry that comes up is PBNs or Private Blogger Networks. These are collections of websites designed to trick the Moz, SEMRush and AHrefs tools to thinking they are good websites for blogger outreach. Where they are easily identified is in analysis of the traffic profiles. These all get sent to the black list never to return. Quite often these PBN websites are from the people that spam thousands of email addresses from Gmail accounts offering thousands of bloggers at very cheap prices. Known by us as the Gmailers.
Who runs a Blog type website
The other less technical ways we analyse websites is to decide which categories a website falls into. We try to match our client’s website with that of a blogger ie if a client sells car parts then we will match with one of our automotive bloggers. We have around 40 different categories of blogger but perhaps of interest is to share why some of these blogs coming into existence.
- The hobby bloggers
These blogs are typically run by one person and focus on a specific niche like travel, food, or parenting, so the majority of the content is on their hobby or interest. For us, these passion bloggers are great and we assign a category of interest to the blogger which we can then match up with any requests for Blogger Outreach we receive.
- Money earning bloggers
Unlike the above, these websites tend to cover a broad range of topics which is not necessarily a bad thing as it means they can cultivate a wide audience using their social media channels and email marketing to get people to the website. Their goal is to have a mix of paid content and sponsorship from Display Ads so they can make a living from the website. It also means there are more topics the website could rank for in Google. These websites still have value as long as they are getting traffic.
- News bloggers
There are quite a few forms that news bloggers take. Some focus on a specific geography, some focus on specific type of news ie business, entertainment etc but the content tends to be fact based rather than opinion pieces. The websites often struggle to gain a traffic following purely due to the number of news websites out there.
- Product Based
Other bloggers review products from suppliers and try to attract readers that are searching for reviews on a potential purchase. Again the key with these websites is to make sure they are receiving traffic from Google.
- Topics of interest
The last category to highlight is those bloggers focusing on a generic topic like cars, construction, education etc. They build a website focused on the topic they’ve chosen, then publish themes of content on that topic. Its great for us as we can easily match our clients requirements with the relevant topic plus these websites tend to have an engaged audience meaning lots of potential customers could view the article we publish on their website.
Hopefully the above gives an insight into how we check the good v bad bloggers so you know any orders placed will come from thoroughly vetted websites. A good way to test the service is just buy one of our links for yourself, or your client, and see if you like the process and deliverable. It’s a low cost investment starting at £50 and you don’t need to sign up for an account or long term commitment. Just click here to place your first order.