Link building and digital PR
How to evaluate backlinks: our vetting scorecard for local service sites
Written by the Top SEO Experts Team
Reviewed by Siddharth GangalLast updated 19 min read
Quick answer
To evaluate a backlink, check first whether getting it would break Google’s spam policies, and stop if it would. If not, score the site on four things: real readers, topical relevance, fit with your service area and how the link is placed. Pursue only the strong scorers.
Here is a label guide for this post.
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| “Our view” | A working rule from how we vet, and it isn’t a Google statement |
| “Documented” | Something from a Google page we opened on 22 October 2026 |
We vet before we pitch. By the time a questionable link turns up in a backlink audit, the costly decision was made months earlier.
It was usually made by someone who counted links without reading the sites that carried them. Below is the checklist we run first, in order, with the scoring spelled out.
What does it mean to evaluate a backlink before pursuing it?
Definition Evaluating a backlink means judging a possible linking page on policy risk, audience, topic and location before you spend effort or money on it.
It is different from a backlink audit, which reviews links you already have. Vetting prevents the problem an audit has to clean up.
Which checks come first?
Cheap checks come first. By our rough timing, here is how long each one takes.
| Check | Rough time |
|---|---|
| The policy gate | Two minutes |
| Reading the site | Ten minutes |
| Asking an editor | A day |
What makes a local service business different?
A local service business also asks a narrower question than a national publisher does. It needs people in its metro area to find it, trust it and call, so the useful link is rarely the biggest site on offer. It’s the one a nearby customer might actually read.
What is the scorecard, and how do you use it?
The scorecard is one pass/fail gate, then scores of 0, 1 or 2 on four criteria. Here are the cutoffs, which are our view.
| Total score out of 8 | Call |
|---|---|
| 6 or more | Pursue |
| 4 or 5 | Hold |
| 3 or less | Pass |
In plain words, a call to pursue means go ahead and pitch. A call to hold means one criterion is dragging an otherwise usable prospect. A call to pass means move on.
Our view A hard fail overrides any score. The cutoffs are unvalidated, so tune them.
How is each criterion scored?
Each row below is one step, in order.
| Step | Question | Scoring |
|---|---|---|
| Gate | Does getting the link break a Google spam policy? | Yes means stop. No means continue. |
| Readers | Does a real audience read this site? | 0 none visible, 1 some, 2 clear |
| Relevance | Does the page’s topic fit what you do? | 0 unrelated, 1 adjacent, 2 same field or same customers |
| Local fit | Does it connect to your service area? | 0 none, 1 regional, 2 your metro or neighborhood |
| Placement | Would the link sit in editorial content, with natural wording? | 0 paid or templated, 1 listing or partner page, 2 editorial |
Add the four scores for a maximum of eight. The arithmetic is deliberately plain, since a rough scorecard people use beats a precise one they skip.
Quick check Before you score anything, ask whether getting this link would break a Google spam policy. If it would, stop.
Think of the gate as a yes or no question. Think of the four criteria as a quick grade for each part of the link, and add the grades at the end.
- GateWould getting the link break a Google spam policy? If yes, stop.
- ReadersDoes a real audience read this site?
- RelevanceDoes the page's topic fit what you do?
- Local fitDoes the site connect to your service area?
- PlacementWould the link sit in editorial content, worded naturally?
Which links fail before you score them?
Some prospects fail on policy alone. Google’s spam policies were last updated 28 August 2026 on the page we read. They define link spam as creating links to or from a site “primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.”
What does Google list as link spam?
The page lists what that includes. We treat each item as a hard fail:
- Buying or selling links, defined as exchanging money for links or for posts that contain links, unless the link is qualified (more on that below).
- Excessive link exchanges, the “link to me and I’ll link to you” pattern.
- Advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass ranking credit.
- Links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites.
- Links created with automated programs or services.
- A link required by a terms of service, contract or similar arrangement, where the content owner cannot qualify the outbound link.
Are paid links always a problem?
Documented: Google says buying and selling links is a normal part of advertising and sponsorship. It also says paid links are fine when qualified with rel=“nofollow” or rel=“sponsored”.
Watch out Whether money changed hands is not the test. What matters is whether the link poses as editorial when it isn’t.
Google’s guide to link attributes says to mark advertisements and paid placements with rel=“sponsored” and to use ugc for user-generated content. Our guide to buying backlinks covers when a paid placement is worth buying as advertising.
What other prospects do we rule out?
Our view adds three prospect-level fails:
- A site that publishes unrelated guest posts across dozens of topics.
- A “write for us” page with a price per link.
- Any seller who promises a score or a link count.
We haven’t yet heard a good reason to keep talking to one.
How do you tell whether a site has real readers?
A site has real readers when you can see signs that people visit it, come back and act on it. You rarely get its analytics, so read the site like a visitor and ask the editor for what you can’t see. Third-party traffic estimates are a tie-breaker at most.
Here is our ten-minute read, in order.
- Search the site's nameDoes it appear, with its own pages, near the top? A site that cannot rank for its own name is a poor place to hope for reach.
- Open the last ten postsCheck dates, named authors, comments and whether the topics hang together.
- Look at who it links out toA page where nearly every outbound link points to a paying business is a sign of a link shop.
- Check the contact pageDoes it name a real person or organization with a real address or service area?
- Ask the editorHow do people find you, and roughly how many read a typical post? Real editors answer. Link sellers deflect.
These checks need only a browser. You read the site the way a visitor would, which is why they fit in about ten minutes.
Why not trust a metric?
Scores such as Domain Authority and Domain Rating come from SEO software vendors. They describe a vendor’s model of a site and say nothing about what Google thinks.
Our glossary entry on Domain Authority has the background. We look at them last, only to break a tie.
Why does indexing matter?
Indexing matters too. Google’s SEO starter guide says the vast majority of new pages Google finds each day are found through links. In our view, a link on a page Google never indexes cannot do that work.
So we search a distinctive phrase from a recent post to confirm the site is indexed.
How relevant does the linking page need to be?
The linking page should cover a topic your customers or your trade cares about, and the link should make sense to the person reading it. Score 2 for the same field or customers, 1 for an adjacent topic and 0 for an unrelated one.
Relevance has two layers.
- Site-level relevanceAsks whether the whole publication fits. A regional home-improvement blog suits a plumber, a coupon site does not.
- Page-level relevanceAsks whether this page fits. A plumber's link beside a water heater guide makes sense, but not in a roundup of travel apps.
When the two layers disagree, we favor the page. A local news story about your trade and your town beats a trade blog with no tie to your region.
How should the anchor text read?
Anchor text follows the same logic. Write it as an editor would: your business name, a plain description, or the page title.
Google’s guidance on link text asks for text that is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant.
Watch out When a prospect asks for an exact-match keyword anchor, we take it as a warning about the prospect.
What counts as a local signal?
A local signal is evidence that the linking site belongs to the area your customers live in. Score 2 for your metro or neighborhood, 1 for your state or region, 0 for no geography at all. Generic link checklists often skip this criterion, but for a local service site we weigh it heavily.
What markers do we look for?
Markers we look for:
- The site names your city, county or neighborhoods in its own content, not only in a footer.
- It is run by a local organization: a chamber, a trade association chapter, a school, a nonprofit, a neighborhood group.
- It links to or features other businesses in your area that you can verify exist.
- It reaches people in the buying moment, such as a home-improvement resource, an event page or a supplier’s contractor directory.
Our local link building guide lists where these links usually come from. Our local link building service explains how we source them. The post on contractor link building covers the trades.
What can a local link honestly do?
Be honest about what a local link is. It may help search visibility, and it may send a referral.
Key takeaway Google hasn’t published how much a geographic match weighs, so we justify local fit by relevance and referrals and never promise a ranking.
How should the link itself be placed?
The best placement is a link inside editorial content that a human editor chose to include, worded to fit the sentence. Score 2 for that, 1 for a listing or partner page, and 0 for anything paid without a qualifier or dropped in from a template.
Listings are fine. A supplier’s “preferred contractors” page or a chamber directory is honest about what it is. It scores 1 because no piece of content earned the link.
Which two details can move a score?
Two details can move a score:
- Who controls the attribute. If the arrangement requires the link and stops the owner from qualifying it, that matches Google’s listed examples of link spam. Walk away.
- What the link points to. A link to a useful service page or local guide can earn a click. A link to a thin page built to receive links earns only risk.
For a paid placement, ask for rel=“sponsored”. Google’s page says nofollow is still acceptable for paid links, but sponsored is the more precise label.
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Not sure where to start? Get a plan for your own business.
What does the scorecard look like on sample prospects?
We have no set of real client prospects we can publish, so the table below uses seven hypothetical prospects for a plumber in Phoenix. The business and the sites are invented, and the scores show how we’d treat each one. Add Readers, Relevance, Local fit and Placement to get the total.
To read the table, compare each total with the cutoffs above. A gate fail overrides the total, so those two rows show no score.
| Hypothetical prospect | Gate | Readers | Relevance | Local | Placement | Total | Call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Regional home-improvement blog, named editor, monthly posts, covers Phoenix | Pass | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 7 | Pursue |
| Local chamber of commerce member directory | Pass | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | Pursue |
| Plumbing supplier’s contractor partner page | Pass | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | Hold |
| Local news “best of” section that requires a sponsor fee | Pass | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | Hold, buy as advertising only |
| National marketing blog with 200 posts a month, no local angle | Pass | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | Pass |
| “Write for us” site with a price list per link | Fail | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | Pass, hard fail |
| Multi-topic blog that publishes casino, crypto and plumbing guest posts | Fail | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | n/a | Pass, hard fail |
In short, the top two rows would get a pitch. The next two rows wait on a Hold. The last three rows are dropped.
How do the rows add up?
The first row scores 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 7. The chamber directory scores 2 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 6. A chamber membership is dues for belonging, not a payment for a link, but it is a judgment call and we say so to clients.
Example Row five has the biggest audience and still loses, because none of those readers will hire a Phoenix plumber. A big site isn’t a good fit just for being big.
The “best of” row shows how a sponsor fee changes the question. You are buying visibility, so the link carries rel=“sponsored” and the decision rests on whether those readers are worth the fee.
To calibrate the scores to your market, run the same exercise on two or three of your own real prospects.
What do you do with a Hold?
A Hold means one criterion is dragging an otherwise usable prospect, so find which one. Our decision rules, all our view:
| If this is true | Do this |
|---|---|
| Readers is 0 because you can’t see an audience | Email the editor the plain question from the ten-minute read and re-score once. If the answer is vague, pass. |
| Placement is 0 because of a fee | Decide as an ad buyer. Pursue only if the readers are worth the price with no ranking benefit counted, and insist on rel=“sponsored”. |
| Relevance is 0 or 1 but Local fit is 2 | Look for a page that fits your trade before giving up on the site. |
Never re-score more than once. A prospect you have to argue yourself into is usually a pass.
What do we refuse to do?
We refuse bulk link packages, private blog networks, guest-post packages, niche edits and any promise of a set authority score or of specific rankings. That matches how we describe our own work: links built inside an organic growth system and never sold by count. The reasons, one by one:
- Bulk links. A count says nothing about whether a link helps a customer find you. Our link building service is built around fewer, vetted placements.
- Private blog networks and link farms. These sites exist to pass links. Our glossary entry on link farms defines the pattern.
- Guest-post packages and niche edits. Packaged posts with chosen anchor text sit in Google’s listed examples of link spam.
- Promised Domain Authority scores. The metric belongs to a vendor, and nobody controls it.
- Automated outreach and link creation. Google names automated link creation as link spam.
- Mass AI-written pages. Google’s guidance on generative AI content says generating many pages without adding value may violate the scaled content abuse policy. We hold the pages we ask people to link to, and our own, to that standard.
To check whether links you already have fall into these groups, read our post on link building mistakes and the glossary entry on toxic backlinks.
What mistakes do we see most often?
Most vetting mistakes come from checking the wrong thing first. These are the ones we’d flag in any prospect list:
- Starting with a metric. A list sorted by vendor score rewards sites that are good at selling links, so sort by relevance and local fit instead.
- Reading “no money” as “no risk.” Excessive link exchanges are still on Google’s list, so check the pattern as well as the invoice.
- Forgetting the target page. A good link to a weak page is wasted. Our post on how many backlinks you need explains why the quality of the target beats volume.
- Vetting the domain and ignoring the page. A strong site can still carry your link on a page with no readers, such as an old tag archive or a thin roundup.
- Skipping the indexing check. If a distinctive phrase from the page returns nothing in Google, the link is unlikely to be found through that page.
- Scoring from a screenshot of someone else’s metrics. Open the site yourself.
What does this scorecard not tell you?
What can’t it predict?
It cannot tell you what a given link will do for your rankings. Google has not published link weights, and we cannot see them. A prospect that scores 8 can have no measurable effect, and one that scores 5 can send three good customers.
What judgment does it hide?
It also hides judgment. Scoring Readers 1 instead of 2 depends on what you can see, and an editor who won’t share numbers may still run a real site. Two vetters can land a point apart.
Watch out The cutoffs are ours and unvalidated. We have not tested whether 6 beats 5 against ranking or lead data, and we publish no such results.
Does AI search change the check?
AI search doesn’t change the check, as far as the documentation goes. Google’s page on AI features and your website was last updated 10 December 2025 on the copy we read.
It says no special optimization is needed for AI Overviews and AI Mode. We treat any claim beyond that as theory.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a backlink good?
A good backlink is one an editor placed because the page helps their readers. It sits on a site with real readers, on a topic and in a place that match your business. Google’s documentation never gives a quality score, but it describes what to avoid and build, so we judge links against them.
Are paid backlinks against Google’s rules?
Google’s spam policies list exchanging money for links as link spam. They also say buying and selling links is normal for advertising, and that paid links are acceptable when qualified with rel=“nofollow” or rel=“sponsored”. So a paid placement is advertising, not link building, and should be bought on those terms.
Should I trust third-party authority scores?
Use them, at most, as a tie-breaker, because they are third-party estimates made by SEO vendors, not numbers Google publishes. A site can score high and still sell links, or score low and send real customers. Check relevance, readers and placement first, then glance at the score.
Do nofollow and sponsored links have any value?
They can send real visitors, brand mentions and referral leads, which is often the better reason to want them. Google’s documentation says links with these values will generally not be followed. We do not count them as ranking links, and we do not hide them either.
What if a good prospect asks for payment?
Handle it as an advertising purchase and decide on audience value alone. Ask for the link to carry rel=“sponsored” and for the page to be labeled as sponsored if it is a paid article. If the seller refuses the attribute, that tells you what you would be buying.
If you want a second pair of eyes on a prospect list, or a link plan built on this scorecard, we can scope it. For a quick baseline first, run your site through our website SEO checker, then Get Your Organic Growth Plan.
Sources
- Google Search Central, Spam policies for Google web search, accessed 22 Oct 2026.
- Google Search Central, Qualify your outbound links to Google, accessed 22 Oct 2026.
- Google Search Central, SEO starter guide, accessed 22 Oct 2026.
- Google Search Central, Make your links crawlable, accessed 22 Oct 2026.
- Google Search Central, Guidance on using generative AI content, accessed 22 Oct 2026.
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website, accessed 22 Oct 2026.
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