Guest Post Selection Tips (1) – Seller-Provided Data May Not Be Accurate

Whether it's BlackHatWorld or other platforms, there are always guest post sales experts, and they typically provide an Excel sheet like this.

The six most common metrics:​

DA / DR / PA / TRAFFIC / INDEXED / LINKS TYPE (do/nofollow)

These can serve as selection criteria, but unfortunately, only DA/DR/PA tend to be accurate. The other metrics are often inaccurate or even fabricated. Worse still, the so-called "accurate metrics" only mean the numbers are correct, but they provide no real benefit to your website’s ranking.
DA/DR – These Numbers Are Just Like a Website's Language Setting, They merely indicate whether a website is English, Japanese, or Chinese.
Yes, these metrics aren’t fake, but they provide no real SEO benefits.

The Three Most Important Metrics:​

• TRAFFIC / INDEXED / LINKS TYPE
  These are the key indicators, but the data you receive is often unreliable. This is not necessarily the seller's fault—they simply don’t update their records frequently. For example: A site may show high traffic, but if Google penalizes it later, its actual traffic will drop.
• A site might initially offer d0follow links, but over time, it may switch to n0follow.

Later, I will explain how to identify truly valuable guest post platforms.

When you come across a website with seemingly impressive metrics, make sure to verify the following details accurately:
1. Ensure the Posting Domain Matches the Listed Domain
The domain where your guest post will be published must be the same as the one shown in the Excel sheet.

For example, if the spreadsheet lists [amazon.com] with high authority, but the actual guest post placement is on helloworld.amazon.com, you should be aware that:

• The authority of the main domain (amazon.com) has no direct impact on the subdomain (helloworld.amazon.com).
• Subdomains and main domains are treated separately in terms of SEO value.

Refer to the illustration below for a better understanding. Never assume that a subdomain carries the same authority as the main domain.
You might finally find a guest post where the URL matches the main domain, but be cautious—not all placements provide real SEO value.

Avoid These Types of Placements:​

If the post is hosted in any of the following formats, it is usually not ideal:

1. PDF File Placement
   • Example: www.*****.edu/sites/default/files/webform/*******.pdf
   • Issue: PDFs are often not indexed properly and do not pass SEO value like standard web pages.
2. Sandbox or Temporary Areas
   • Example: www.*****.edu/cgi-bin/twiki/bin/view/Sandbox/*******
   • Issue: These areas are typically unmonitored, may be purged regularly, and do not hold lasting value.
3. Forum Discussions
   • Example: www.*****.edu/evirtual/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=*******
   • Issue: Forum posts are usually user-generated content, which often has limited authority and may not be considered a strong contextual backlink.
4. Tag Pages or Index Pages
   • Example: www.*****.edu/tag/index.php?tc=1&tag=*******
   • Issue: These are aggregated content pages that do not carry as much ranking power as an independent, dedicated article.

Simply looking at the URL structure is not enough—you need to click and review the actual post. A good guest post should look like a real article, properly formatted with title, content, and contextual relevance.

[D0Follow / N0Follow / NoIndex] – Don’t Trust Excel Data Blindly​

As mentioned earlier, the D0Follow status shown in an Excel sheet is often unreliable. Instead of trusting the seller’s data, I personally verify whether a link is truly D0Follow using the following method:

How to Check If a Link Is Really D0Follow​

1. Use a Chrome Extension
   • Install this Automatic Backlink Checker extension:
     https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/automatic-backlink-checke/fkllkmgclnabanhckclcipnddfbindan
   • With this tool:
     • Blue Links = D0Follow
     • Red Links = NoFollow
2. Same as above, seeing blue means the link itself is set to the default value (which is D0Follow by default) and has not been explicitly set as NoFollow. However, don't be too happy yet, because a webpage can also set NoFollow in another way. Check the following link:
   https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4480271/is-the-rel-********-more-important-than-meta-nofollow
   Now, here’s the issue:
   If a webpage's meta tag is set to NoFollow, but the hyperlink remains at its default setting (D0Follow), then even though the link appears blue, it is actually still NoFollow.
   
   For those unfamiliar with coding, you can right-click on the webpage, select "View Page Source", and search for [name="robots"].
   If you find NoFollow in the meta tag, then you should immediately disregard this guest post.
3. If you don’t find the word NoFollow in the page source and the link appears blue, there’s still one last challenge: Will the guest post page be indexed?
   The image below shows the page source, indicating that the link is D0Follow, but the page itself does not appear in Google search results.
   From a technical perspective, link equity transfer will still occur, similar to having a giant python that is permanently sealed and can never be seen.
   This type of guest post is not my first choice. Usually, for such posts, I consider $10 as the maximum acceptable price.
   
4. Of course, we can verify whether a URL can be indexed by Google by using the following tool. Simply paste the sample URL into the input box below:

• https://www.siteguru.co/free-seo-tools/noindex

Up to this point, we have concluded the discussion on whether a guest post will appear on Google and whether link equity will transfer.

The next article will focus on the real key topic:

[How to Choose Cost-Effective Guest Post Platforms]​

This is the most crucial step, because the domain lists we receive usually contain 2,000 to 5,000 entries, making it impractical to check them one by one. We rely on supporting software.

Personally, I prefer targeting domains with:

• Monthly traffic ≥ 80,000
• Filtering out fake traffic
• A golden ratio between direct traffic and search traffic – if a site falls below this ratio, I usually skip it.

Once you find a good guest post, you can achieve the following results. I have 4–5 websites that have seen similar growth, and the cost was $10 per website for a single guest post.

In 2024, I spent around $5,000 on SEO-related operations. Of course, there were both successes and failures—and the failures were painful. Some websites were completely wiped out, with traffic dropping to zero...

you missed the OBLs, type of traffic, the difficulty of keywords these websites are ranking for,
many link farms from scammers ranking plenty of websites for easy worthless keywords will meet your criteria,

you have to check the websites manually and make sure it's genuine ones, with decent first-user content, ranking for some competitive keywords,
as well as the placement of the page/post/link and how far it's considered from the home/main pages, how long it has been ranking, etc...
and lastly, most importantly, if it's linking to other random websites from all/most of its pages/articles

This is informative! Thanks for sharing this, and oh the seller is also missing something, from their datasheet it was SS (Spam score) lol just saying it was also important for us.