2 years ago, I was sharing with the SEO community my secret sauce that helped me to rank in the most competitive niche, it was the traffic authority metric, my proprietary metric.
The concept of traffic authority metric was simple but really effective. However, it wasn’t perfect! The metric created in 2020 was looking only at the traffic, but not at a site’s domain authority. It was a big problem because we could face many false positives.
So you had to look for the domain authority first, then look at the traffic authority for your domain. You needed to do this manually (until today!).
Good news… This is now part of the past! I have built the traffic authority checker tool, which uses a unique algorithm to gauge the traffic and domain authority of any domain name! And the best is that it’s free for everyone.
Built with ❤️ by Israel Gaudette
How do the Algorithms work?
The traffic authority checker tool gets all its data from the Semrush database (using Semrush API).
I extract the following data from Semrush:
- Organic traffic
- Organic keywords
- Authority score (the domain authority metric by Semrush)
- Backlinks data
And then, I use all this information in a unique algorithm to generate the final metric that you see when using the traffic authority checker tool.
The Semrush authority score was not perfect but overall, it was still a good alternative to the DR metric (Ahrefs).
So what I did; I’ve hired a mathematician and developed an algorithm to improve the AS score, using my proprietary traffic authority metric, and the backlinks data.
When you use the tool, you will see two gauges:
– Traffic Authority: In this gauge, you will see how the domain is performing according to its traffic authority.
The gauge will show you 4 strength indicators:
1. Weak → Under TA20
2. Good → Between TA20 and TA50
3. Great → Between TA50 and TA75
4. Excellent → Anything above TA75 is considered an excellent site.
– Domain Authority: In this gauge, you will see the strength of the domain, based on multiple factors combined, using the authority score, traffic authority %, and backlinks data.
Why use the Traffic Authority Checker Tool?
This tool has been built first for my own purpose because I needed a way to measure the real authority of a domain, based on the region where I wanted to rank. There was simply no metric that was doing what I wanted, which was, to tell me if the domain has authority in the country I wanted to rank.
If I want to rank in the USA, I want to get backlinks from a website that ranks well in this specific country, not a country that ranks in India, or in the UK, etc…
That’s why I developed the traffic authority metric 2 years ago, to tell me the traffic authority a specific site had in my country target. This has made a huge difference in my ranking afterward.
And concerning the popular metric DR by Ahrefs that everyone uses… It is so easy to manipulate! It can be so inaccurate. Simply just not reliable enough for my taste.
How many times you have checked a domain with a high DR but with a very low amount of traffic? Probably a lot of times.
There are a lot of people that buy expired domains, or domains from the auctions just for the purpose to build what we call a “link farm”, a website that has just one objective, selling links.
Some look legit visually, but they have all the same problem, they have a low traffic authority score.
Why? Because they dilute their authority so much in publishing so many articles, most of their articles don’t rank at all. So their organic vs keywords ratio is very poor.
I’m offering a link-building service and believe me, I see this all the time. Most sites that accept guest posts have a really weak traffic authority score. That’s why I started offering the TA addon on my link’s packages which guarantees only guest post links from sites with a good++ traffic authority score.
So how can you use the traffic authority checker tool to improve your link-building performance?
That’s simple! Build links only from sites with a good traffic authority score in your targeted country!
What I personally do is the following:
Money pages (All your money-driven pages, your most important content): I choose sites with a traffic authority score that is > Good and a domain authority that is >50.
Supporting pages (All your informative pages, or the pages that are “less” important): For these pages, I care a bit less with authority score, as long the site has a domain authority that is > 25. I tend to try to avoid sites with a weak traffic metric score though, I only use them when forced.
In addition to the traffic and domain authority score, I provide you also for free some backlinks data, which can be helpful to see at a glance which type of links the website is building. A great way to detect abuse of comment links (UGC links) or to spot abnormal dofollow/nofollow ratio.
Adopting the traffic authority metric could change a lot of things for your business, do not hesitate and give it a try now!
Built with ❤️ by Israel Gaudette
UPDATE 2022-08-16: 2 New Features Added
It’s been about one month since I released the tool to the public and I’ve received nothing but great feedback!
I decided today to release 2 new features that I hope will help you to filter your websites faster!
1. The Link Juice Meter
The link juice is a new meter that measures the strength of a domain based on its backlinks profile. I suggest you combine it with the Traffic Authority meter. For best results, make sure that both meters are showing good results.
2. The Red Flags Detector
As you all know, metrics are great for gauging the potential strength of a domain name… But they cannot help to figure out what’s the real site quality.
As an example, a site could rank for a lot of spammy keywords and show a great traffic authority score. The same approach is for a site with a spammy backlinks profile.. They may show a great link juice score but would be a terrible target for your links!
The red flags module has been created exactly to help you spotting these bad sites quickly. There are actually 3 red flags available;
- Weak backlinks profile: This one checks the number of referring domains and compares it with the current traffic of the site. If the number of referring domains is too high for the website’s traffic, then the red flag will be shown.
- Write for us page detected: Despite this isn’t necessarily a problem in most cases, this can be a red flag. I suggest you check the page and make sure the site owner doesn’t spam the word “guest post” everywhere or mention direct pricing on the page.
- Comment links spam: And finally, the last red flag will be shown if the site has too many UGC links. This can help you to spot fast the low-quality sites that spam their backlinks profile with comment links.
I plan to add more red flags in the future.
Note: You have been a lot asking for a bulk update feature… Actually, it’s not possible because I don’t have any database and it’s currently impossible for me to prevent abuses. The tool already cost me nearly 500$/month in API credits and I don’t charge it to anyone. If I integrate a bulk feature, I’m afraid the cost won’t be manageable.
So I’ve thought about this and decided to start the discussion with a development agency, to build a small SAAS and charge a small fee (like 10$ or 20$/month) to unblock some premium features. But don’t worry, the actual version will stay free, as long there is no bot that decides to abuse it.
The main idea behind this tool was to contribute to the SEO community and help others. Not making money. So do not worry, the current version will stay free 🙂
