Evaluation of Domains

The goal of link building is to improve the credibility and authority of your own website. However, not all links have a positive impact, and some may even harm your site’s reputation. That’s why it is crucial to understand how to evaluate a domain before obtaining a link from it based on key performance indicators (KPIs). In the following section, we will discuss four criteria that can help evaluate a domain for link building purposes.

Visibility Index (Sistrix)

The “Sistrix” tool has gained popularity in Germany, especially for its visibility index, which measures a domain’s prominence in search results. By tracking this figure over time, one can monitor the progress of a website. Changes in the domain’s visibility are easily identifiable through its historical data. The visibility index is calculated as follows:

• There is a keyword pool for each country (1,000,000 keywords for Germany)

3 components play a role in the calculation:

• How many of the keywords does your website rank for?
• How high is the search volume for these keywords?
• How well does the page rank for these keywords?

The more positive the answers are to these three key questions, the higher the visibility index of a website. Notes on the evaluation of the visibility index KPI

1. 1. This KPI (the visibility index) is only an indicator, as pages with a low visibility index can also be of great importance for your own link building strategy. For example, websites that are in a niche market can never achieve high visibility. That’s because there are not so many keywords on them that are worth ranking for, which explains the comparatively low search volume. Of course, these websites are still of great importance if you want to establish yourself in this their specific market.
2. 2. Refrain from comparing the visibility index between countries. Each country has its own database and therefore uses a different basis for calculation. In Slovenia, for example, many domains have a very high visibility index, whereas in Germany most domains have a value that is well below “1”. If you were to compare the values of these two countries directly, you would get the impression that all German domains are bad and all domains from Slovenia are incredibly good, which would be false. Therefore, the visibility index should only be compared within a country.
3. 3. The visibility index is not available for all countries. In some cases, this could result in a displayed “0” here, particularly for lesser-known countries, which can give a false impression of the quality of the site when looking at this key figure alone.

If you do not have a paid account, you can query individual domains here free of charge..

Domain Authority (DA)

This key figure is an indicator of how important a website is in its specific field It is formed from various factors such as the quality of the content, the incoming links and the age of the domain. There are other factors that contribute to this key performance indicator (KPI) and there are multiple analysis tools that measure it in slightly different ways. However, MOZ’s calculation is likely the most widely utilized. In the end, it is definitely an interesting indicator of how trustworthy a website is. It is particularly interesting because it also works across countries.

Power*Trust (P*T)

This is a KPI used by the tool provider LRT, which is made up of the product of two key figures:

• Link Power (Power) How much link power a link can inherit from this domain
• Link trustworthiness (Trust) How trustworthy the link from this domain is

Below we have created a list of the four possible combinations of Power*Trust:

Short Boost: These links don’t inherit much trust but can mean a short-term push for the site. But it’s not enough to just have links like this. Waek Links: They have neither trust nor power. These are links that nobody really needs. Potential: Domains with this distribution enjoy a lot of trust but have a weak link profile themselves. This distribution is often found with public authorities or educational institutions. You should definitely build these links if you have the opportunity to do so. Top Links: These are hard-to-find premium links that offer everything you want for your own site. If you have the opportunity to get a link like this, you should go for it.

Topic Relevance

According to Google, links are particularly valuable if they come from the same topic area as your own page. Therefore, links with weak metrics that would normally be discarded can also be of interest. As already indicated in the definition of the visibility index, this is particularly true for very specific niche sites. So don’t just pay attention to the KPIs, but also to the thematic environment of the domain from which you want a link.

Conclusion

It’s crucial to comprehend that one KPI alone cannot accurately assess the quality of a domain. Only when all KPIs are taken into consideration can we get a comprehensive understanding of its performance. At Working Digital, we analyze all KPIs to maintain a thorough view of the true quality of each domain.