Guide
How to judge a guest post site before you pay
A practical checklist. Use it on any site, whether it is ours or someone else's.
1. Relevance
Does the site cover a topic close to yours, and would your article make sense to its readers? Relevance matters more than any single number. Look at the last ten articles: if they are all over the place, the site is a link seller, not a publication.
2. Real readership
Check estimated traffic in a third-party tool, and look at the trend, not just the number. A site whose traffic fell off a cliff, or that has high traffic from countries unrelated to its topic, deserves a closer look. Tools disagree, so check two if you can, and treat the figures as a guide.
3. Authority
DA (Moz) and DR (Ahrefs) are third-party scores, not Google metrics. They are useful as a rough filter, not as proof of quality. More on that in DA vs DR explained.
4. Is it indexed and alive?
- Search site:theirdomain.com in Google. If nothing comes back, walk away.
- Is the site updated regularly? When was the last post?
- Does it load properly, with a real About page and contact details?
5. Content quality
Read two or three articles. Are they written by people, edited, and useful? Thin, repetitive or machine-spun articles are a warning sign for the whole site.
6. Outbound links and sponsored posts
Look at how many outbound links each article has and how many look paid. A page stuffed with links to unrelated sites is not a page you want to be on. Ask how sponsored content is labelled and whether the link will be nofollow, sponsored, or normal.
7. Price against value
If a very high-authority site is offered for a tiny price, ask why. Cheap prices on strong-looking numbers are often explained by something you cannot see in the metrics.
Red flags
- A "write for us" page that accepts every topic
- No named contact person, only a form
- Many articles in the last week that are unrelated to each other
- A site that looks like a repurposed expired domain
- Casino, adult or pharma links in the navigation or footer
Let us do the checking
This is the work we do on every site before it reaches your shortlist. See our standards, or order a guest post and judge us on what we send.
Order a guest post
Send your website and niche. We reply with a shortlist you can check yourself.