Want to understand the real value of the links you’re building?
Here at Verve Search, for the past five years, we’ve been developing a proprietary metric to do just that. Up to now, we’ve kept it exclusively for our clients, but, in the interests of transparency, and for the benefit of the industry as a whole, in the back end of last year we took the decision to build a free to use, public version.
After a whole bunch of work, we’re delighted to say it’s live and ready for you to play with.
For those of you who just want to get their mitts on it, it’s right here.
For those who want to learn more about how it was developed, read on!
Why did we build the LinkScore tool?
A single metric might not always tell the full story!
We’d always felt that there was probably little point (from a rankings perspective) in having a link on an amazingly authoritative domain if it’s no-followed and in a language that neither you nor your customers speak. Yet, if you use a single metric to determine the authority of a link you may find that you’d be treating those links as if they were of equal value.
As such, rather than use a single metric, our tool blends more than 10 different on and off-site metrics, in order to assign a value to a link.
We needed an international metric…
We found that many SEO tools that assign link metrics are primarily focussed on English-speaking audiences. So, whilst their metrics might work well in primarily English-speaking countries, that might not always be the case in countries where English is not the native language. Therefore, we built the LinkScore to provide scores that give equal value to equivalent authoritative sites in each country – meaning quality links in one country are assigned an appropriate value.
We wanted a tool which could evolve & keep pace with the industry!
Each of the different variables added into the LinkScore were chosen based on our own testing and benchmarking. Where we’re using third party metrics we felt it was important that we weren’t tied to one particular database, and as a result we’ve been able to choose multiple best-in-class metrics that get us as close as possible to measuring the true ranking value of a link. Over the years the LinkScore tool has continually evolved alongside this fast-paced industry.
What does the LinkScore tool do?
It allows you to measure a link’s ability to influence rankings. It also allows links to be compared with each other, and groups of links to be compared periodically. Please note, we built this as an SEO tool, and as such, the tool does not take into account the value a link might provide in terms of PR, branding or any other type of marketing.
When you run a link through the tool a score between 0-500 will be returned. This scale is not logarithmic, however some of the variables used to calculate the score are.
Semantically relevant, followed, in-content links in unique content on authoritative domains yield the highest scores. Example sites which would yield high scores include the BBC and the New York Times.
How are scores calculated?
We could tell you, but we’d have to kill you! Kidding 🙂
We keep the exact metrics, and how they are combined, a closely guarded secret. This is to stop people gaming the algorithm, because it is updated annually and because we think the accuracy of the final scores speaks more to the quality of the LinkScore than any particular one of its metrics.
What do I need to do to use the tool?
You’ll need to input your Majestic, Dandelion and SEMRush API credentials and you’re good to go. Why? Well, the LinkScore uses metrics from each of these providers as part of its algorithm. To prevent abuse of the tool, we require users to use their own API accounts rather than providing free access to our own. Rest assured, your API credentials are stored locally on your computer; we do not keep a copy of your API credentials, nor do we use them for any purpose other than analysing the links you add to the LinkScore tool.
How much does the LinkScore tool cost?
Except to the extent that it uses your third-party API credits, the LinkScore tool is free to use. Rate limiting may, however, be put in place to maintain the experience for all users.
Do we store your data?
Definitely not! We do not store your API credentials, the links that you run through the LinkScore tool, or the score output. However, we do run Google Analytics and so store a number of different metrics related to your visit including, but not limited to your location, browser, time on site and pages visited.
Got more questions? Check out our FAQ, or contact us.
And if you do play with the tool, do let us know what you think.