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Honest Link Opportunity Evaluation

Authority scores are trivially manipulated and the entire paid link industry optimizes for them, which means a high score is weak evidence and sometimes negative evidence. What you actually want to know is whether real people read the site and whether Google trusts it, and both can be checked in about ten minutes without any tool subscription.

CATEGORY
Links & authority
FORMAT
link-opportunity-evaluation.md
STEPS
6
PRICE
Free - no account
WHEN TO REACH FOR THIS

Use when a placement, guest post or partnership is offered and you need to judge it without the vendor's metrics.

The skill file

link-opportunity-evaluation.md 
---
name: link-opportunity-evaluation
description: Use when a placement, guest post or partnership is offered and you need to judge it without the vendor's metrics.
---

# Honest Link Opportunity Evaluation

Authority scores are trivially manipulated and the entire paid link industry optimizes for them, which means a high score is weak evidence and sometimes negative evidence. What you actually want to know is whether real people read the site and whether Google trusts it, and both can be checked in about ten minutes without any tool subscription.

## What you need first

- the exact URL where the link would sit, not just the domain
- access to search operators and the site's own visible content
- a rough price or effort cost for the placement

## Method

1. Search the site's own brand name and check it ranks first for it. A site that cannot rank for its own name has a problem you do not want to be adjacent to.
2. Look at the last twenty published posts. If they span unrelated industries with different author names and each carries an outbound commercial link, it is a link farm regardless of its metrics.
3. Check whether the destination page itself is indexed and has any organic traffic, since a link on a page nobody can find passes nothing.
4. Count outbound followed links on the page. A resource page or article carrying dozens of commercial links is diluted and looks like what it is.
5. Judge topical fit by whether a reader of that page would plausibly want your page next. This is also the only honest test of whether the link will send you clicks.
6. Ask what happens in a year - sites that sell links get cleaned out or deindexed, so weight anything paid as a temporary rental and price it accordingly.

## What this produces

A go or no go decision per opportunity with the specific disqualifying evidence recorded.

## Where this goes wrong

- using a third party authority score as the primary filter, which is exactly the metric sellers inflate
- accepting a placement on a site with an obvious write for us page and no editorial identity
- valuing a link on a brand new page that will never be linked to internally and so decays immediately

---

From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/link-opportunity-evaluation
Free to download · no account, no email

What you need first

  • the exact URL where the link would sit, not just the domain
  • access to search operators and the site's own visible content
  • a rough price or effort cost for the placement

Method

  1. 01 Search the site's own brand name and check it ranks first for it. A site that cannot rank for its own name has a problem you do not want to be adjacent to.
  2. 02 Look at the last twenty published posts. If they span unrelated industries with different author names and each carries an outbound commercial link, it is a link farm regardless of its metrics.
  3. 03 Check whether the destination page itself is indexed and has any organic traffic, since a link on a page nobody can find passes nothing.
  4. 04 Count outbound followed links on the page. A resource page or article carrying dozens of commercial links is diluted and looks like what it is.
  5. 05 Judge topical fit by whether a reader of that page would plausibly want your page next. This is also the only honest test of whether the link will send you clicks.
  6. 06 Ask what happens in a year - sites that sell links get cleaned out or deindexed, so weight anything paid as a temporary rental and price it accordingly.

What this produces

A go or no go decision per opportunity with the specific disqualifying evidence recorded.

Where this goes wrong

  • using a third party authority score as the primary filter, which is exactly the metric sellers inflate
  • accepting a placement on a site with an obvious write for us page and no editorial identity
  • valuing a link on a brand new page that will never be linked to internally and so decays immediately

Use this skill in your own AI

The download is a plain markdown file with the name and trigger in its frontmatter. Where an assistant supports skills it can load itself, that frontmatter is what it reads to decide this one applies.

Claude Code Save it as ~/.claude/skills/link-opportunity-evaluation/SKILL.md and Claude loads it on its own when what you are doing matches the trigger line. Put it in .claude/skills inside a project instead if the whole team should have it.
Claude Upload the file in the skills section of your settings. Once it is there it applies itself in any conversation where the trigger fits, so you do not have to remember it exists.
ChatGPT There is no skills format to install into, so paste the file contents into a Project instruction or a Custom GPT instead. It then applies to every chat in that project rather than only the one you paste it into.
Anything else Paste the markdown into the chat before your question. It works in any assistant, it just has to be pasted again each time.

Questions about this skill

When do I evaluate by hand rather than sort offers by an authority score?

Whenever money or a byline is involved. Authority scores are trivially manipulated and the paid link industry optimises for them, which makes a high score weak evidence and occasionally negative evidence. The manual checks take roughly ten minutes per site and need no tool subscription, which is far less than writing the guest post will cost you.

What do I need in hand before starting?

The exact URL where the link would sit rather than just the domain, search operators, and a rough price or effort cost. Judging at domain level hides the usual failure: a respectable site publishing your piece on a page nothing links to internally, which decays immediately. Without a cost you cannot make a decision, only form an opinion.

What do I end up with, and which part gets used?

A go or no go per opportunity with the specific disqualifying evidence written down. The evidence line is what gets reused, because the same sites come back to you every quarter under new names and new prices. Topical fit is the judgement worth spelling out in full, since it is also the only honest test of whether the link will send clicks.

What most often ruins this, and what does it cost?

Accepting a site with an obvious write for us page, twenty recent posts spanning unrelated industries under different author names, and a commercial link in each. That is a link farm whatever its metrics say, and it gets cleaned out or deindexed. Price anything paid as a rental with a life of about a year, not as an asset you own.

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