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Hard rules (any failure disqualifies)
- Ahrefs DR 40 or higher — an entry filter, never the verdict
- 2,000+ monthly organic visits in Ahrefs, checked against the site itself (not just the number in a marketplace)
- Topical relevance to the client’s product category confirmed by reading the site, not by category label
- No “write for us” or “advertise with us” pages (site search + footer + nav check)
- No link-farm patterns: the 30-second test — open the site; if you’re jumping from crypto to health to SaaS to home improvement with commercial links dropped into everything, walk away
- Site is indexed (check
site:search or manual index check on a recent article) - No deindexation history or manual-action signals (Wayback Machine + recent crawl behavior)
Traffic quality
- Traffic trend flat or rising over the last 6 months (no cliff)
- Traffic sources predominantly organic, not direct/referral spikes
- Top pages match the site’s claimed topic (not scraped news or tool spam)
- Top country distribution makes sense for the client’s market
Content quality
- Recent publishing activity (site is alive, not a cemetery)
- Articles read as written for readers, not as link carriers
- Existing outbound links are relevant and sparingly placed
- No AI-slop hallmarks: repeated boilerplate intros, stock “conclusion” paragraphs, 800-word shells
Risk screen
- Outbound link profile: no casino/adult/pharma/essay-mill patterns
- Anchor text of existing outbound links is varied (not one keyword repeated)
- Site is not a known PBN node (cross-check host/IP neighbourhood, registration patterns)
- Placement will carry no marks — flag to the client that this is a paid placement with devaluation risk before they approve
Record
- Log: domain, DR, traffic, relevance note, verdict, date, screener
- Verdict: QUALIFIED / REJECTED — one line reason either way
