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Guest Posting - Behind the Scenes

We’re going to demonstrate how we select & rank blogs for our guest posting service.

Remember that the checklist below is just an indication, and our selection process may look slightly different in each case

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Domain History Review

Checking the domain history is necessary to determine what has happened to the domain from the time of its registration to the present day. Key points we pay attention to:

1) DNS History of the Domain

It provides an indirect indication of how many times the domain has changed hands. Frequent changes in domain ownership can suggest that various manipulations were performed with the domain (such as use in PBN networks or doorway sites), which, in turn, could lead to penalties from search engines.

A change in ownership is not always direct evidence that a site is bad. Nevertheless, it's a certain signal that calls for a more detailed examination of the domain.

2) Content History of the Domain

Sudden changes in themes and languages are a strong signal to search engines that domains were purchased with the intention of manipulating backlink profiles. Sooner or later, they find them and impose corresponding penalties, which can also affect outgoing domains.

For example: if we see that, initially, there was an English website about cars, then it became an Indonesian poker site → it’s a red flag for us

3) Website's Traffic Dynamics Review

Most guest post providers rely on metrics such as DR, DA, AS, etc.

It's important to remember that these metrics may not correlate with a search engine's quality assessment of the website.

Many blogs with a DR of 60+ may not receive search traffic, or they may be on a downward trend. Such dynamics indicate that the site has been penalized by algorithms due to the low quality of certain components, whether links or content.

Additionally, we always check how a resource has handled the latest search engine updates to identify potential future issues (for example, AI-generated content).

If a resource hasn't managed to recover its position several months after an update, its traffic decline will likely continue, and a link from such a domain, at best, will result in wasted money.

Most sites experience ups and downs, but the overall trend over time should be positive.

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The percentage of ups and downs is relative and must be calculated within the context of a specific niche and GEO.

That's why at Crowdo, when analyzing the dynamics of organic traffic → we use special coefficients that help balance these values for a more fair assessment.

4) Outgoing Anchors Review

Even if a website passes all previous checks, we additionally examine its list of outgoing anchors. It's more indicative than the examination of external links since on domains (as we specified earlier), content can change, and the domains themselves may further redirect users and search engines via redirects.

For example, if we have a website dedicated to the music industry, which includes news about stars, concert schedules, and reviews of music albums → it's expected that it links to other sites that are in the same niche or are related to it.

If it turns out that a large part of the outgoing anchors from this resource are to sites with a completely different niche (especially if it's a grey niche), it's a cause for concern.

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Backlinks Review

Just as with organic traffic, we carefully examine how the donor site itself builds its link profile.

In an attempt to manipulate metrics (such as DR), many webmasters may resort to risky methods of building backlinks (such as PBNs or automated submissions).

On such resources, we notice how the increase in the # of backlinks doesn't positively affect the number of organic visitors/month.

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Besides the mere fact of having such “low-quality” links, it's important to consider the timing of their origin.

For example: links acquired 7 years ago will have less influence than links that were built in the last year. That's why, when analyzing domains, we try to focus on fairly recent data (12-24 months).

5) Ratio of “Good Links” to Total Links

Throughout their history, websites build and receive a huge number of links, but quantity doesn't equal quality. Therefore, the majority of backlinks on websites are either useless (as they don't help the site improve its positions) or dangerous (more likely to lead to sanctions from search engines).

Let's take this website as an example. Overall, the site has a fairly impressive number of backlinks, almost 400k.

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However, if we apply several filters that allow us to weed out all those links that are most likely not helping the site in ranking, only about 1K backlinks remain, which is only 0.25% of the total link profile.

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It's important to understand that the filter values we used in the example aren't absolute and will always vary depending on the analyzed niche and the quality requirements for the donor site.

For example: for informational sites with a large search volume, a minimum Trust Flow of 30 and Domain Traffic starting from 500 monthly users should serve as an indicator.

There is no universal value that can be deemed a "gold standard" in assessing the ratio of good links to total links. This value must be assessed over a specific time period and within a specific niche. At Crowdo, we calculate this ratio for approximately 5-10 sites that are currently leaders in the niche. After that, we use a median value, which in turn becomes our KPI for further assessment.

6) Distribution of Links by Type

Additionally, we examine the distribution of link types between dofollow and nofollow. A strong imbalance of one link type (especially dofollow) usually indicates an unnatural growth of the link profile.

Again, it's better to aim for a ratio of dofollow to nofollow similar to that found among leading sites. In general, a proportion of 70% (dofollow) to 30% (nofollow) with an allowable deviation of +-10% can be adhered to.

7) Distribution of Referring Domains by Zones

We perform this check in cases where we need to obtain a link from a specific TLD (top-level domain). If we want to obtain a quality link from a .co.uk domain, the donor site has to receive the majority of its link mass either from Generic TLDs (.com, .net, .org, etc.) or from the target region.

Take a look at an example below:

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8) Visual Inspection

We always manually inspect the blog for UX/UI patterns that are not appreciated by the search engines, such as:

Excessive advertising / intrusive interstitials (e.g., popups) that interfere with the main content

Advertising unrelated to the website’s niche (e.g., casino ads on a gardening blog)

Signs of content auto-generation (e.g., long walls of text without any formatting, headings, or images)

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9) Publication Frequency

For search engines, it's important to provide users with only the most up-to-date information, and therefore, in niches where it's critically important, we always check the publication frequency of the resource to avoid sites that have been neglected.

The transfer of link juice from such an "abandoned" site will be significantly lower than from a resource that is regularly filled with quality content.

10) Distribution of Traffic Across Pages

Another aspect to consider is how traffic is distributed across the pages of the resource.

The image below shows that out of 128 pages, almost all the traffic (about 90%) is concentrated on just one page.

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It signals that the resource is poorly optimized and not well-maintained. Therefore, even a substantial volume of total traffic isn't an indicator of the resource quality.

Additionally, it's worth paying attention to the ratio of the total number of pages to the amount of traffic they generate in the context of the niche.

In the example below, it's evident that although the traffic is more evenly distributed across pages; the amount of traffic in relation to the total number of pages on the site is still extremely low. It indicates that the blog has many low-quality or AI-generated pages → we wouldn’t consider it for a guest post placement.

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Our evaluation

At Crowdo, we fully understand how important it is for our clients that every dollar invested is used as effectively as possible.

Unfortunately, as with "authoritative metrics," the price doesn't always indicate the quality of the donor. That's why we have developed our own “Crowdo Rank”, which serves as a basis for assessing guest post quality and ROI.

11) Crowdo Rank

At each stage of the evaluation, the potential donor site receives a certain score that varies based on our internal quality assessment criteria. After completing the full check, all these scores are summed up, forming a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is the lowest rating and 10 is the highest.

Within this range, we form certain gradations where:

Crowdo Rank

Assessment

< 2

Bad resource

2-3

A resource that can be considered

3-5

Good resource

5-7

Excellent resource

7-10

Top resource

There are no rows in this table

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12) ROI Assessment

Finally, finding a good website is not enough - we want to make sure that clients get the best ROI possible for their investments.

Given our experience and extensive database, we already know what’s considered a “fair price” for any given niche.

Thus, we add a tag “highly recommended” to blogs that deliver the highest SEO value at a targeted price point.

How does a solid blog look like?

Let’s take a quick look at one of our
partner blogs⁠
, its metrics, and our evaluation of the website as a whole.

Evaluation of “computertechreviews.com”

Crowdo Rank

Niche

Computer Electronics

Main traffic sources

Organic, direct

Monthly org. traffic

19,000

Org. traffic growth (1y)

241.76%

Frequently updated

✅

Content quality

Good

Traffic distribution

Even

Key region

🇺🇸

"Grey" links / anchor keywords

❌

Hit by a Google update

❌

1 of 1

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Our verdict:

This is a solid blog that was launched in 2007, and, since then has mantained a clear thematic focus. We could trace how the design and layout of the website evolved over time - it’s clear that a lot of effort is invested in maintaining and growing the website.

Conclusion:

Their price for a guest post is $200 → in our eyes, a juicy link from a niche website is well worth it.

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Ready to take the next step?

We don’t take any payments upfront, so you get a chance to see our service in action without any commitments.

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Get a free quote

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support@crowdo.net⁠

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/crowdo-net/⁠

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