Quality Control: How to Avoid Bad Guest Post Placements
The red flags you need to know, how Linkfabrikken screens quality, and how to judge for yourself whether a placement is worth the money.
What makes a placement bad?
A bad placement is one that either harms your brand or your SEO — or both. In the worst case, a link from a low-quality site can trigger a manual action from Google, which can cost you months of lost rankings and lost customers.
There's a difference between a website that simply doesn't provide much value and a website that can actively harm you. The former is a waste of money; the latter is a risk you should never take.
Low value (a waste of money)
Site with very low organic traffic (under 100/month)
Content that's irrelevant to your niche
New domain with a short history (under 1 year)
Site with low DR but not necessarily spammy
Active risk (can harm your SEO)
PBN site (Private Blog Network)
Site with 90%+ outgoing sponsored links
Manipulated traffic via bots
Site with a Google penalty or manual action
12 red flags you need to know
Learn to spot the warning signs that characterise websites you should steer well clear of. Even one of these signs should prompt you to investigate further — and several signs together are a clear stop signal.
The website exclusively features sponsored content — no editorial articles at all
The domain was registered less than 12 months ago and already has hundreds of outgoing links
Organic traffic is close to zero according to Ahrefs or SEMrush, despite a high DR
The content spans wildly different niches with no coherence — from home loans to dog food
The design and user experience are clearly low quality, with a generic template look and no branding
No "About us" page, contact details, or author profiles
Articles are published in large batches (20+ articles in a single day) — a sign of automated content
Outgoing links point to gambling, adult content, or pharmacy sites
DR/DA is disproportionately high compared to actual traffic and content quality
The website has no social media presence and no engagement
Prices are extremely low compared to the market for comparable metrics
The website advertises "dofollow" links as its main selling point — a sign of a link farm
The most important red flag
If a website has high domain authority (DR 50+) but almost no organic traffic, it's almost always a sign of either manipulated metrics or a Google penalty. This combination should always trigger extra research.
How to check the quality yourself
Even though Linkfabrikken screens every website before it's approved, it's always good to do your own due diligence. Here are the steps you can follow:
Check organic traffic: Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Ubersuggest to verify the site has genuine organic traffic. Look for a stable traffic trend over the past 6-12 months.
Assess content quality: Read 3-5 articles on the site. Are they well written, informative, and relevant? Or are they clearly AI-generated without editing?
Analyse the link profile: Check the ratio between inbound and outbound links. A healthy site has many inbound links and a moderate amount of outbound ones.
Examine the publishing pattern: Are articles published steadily over time, or do they come in large batches? Steady publishing suggests a genuine media outlet.
Search for the site on Google: Type "site:domain.com" into Google. If Google has indexed very few pages, or none rank at all, that's a bad sign.
What Linkfabrikken does to screen quality
Every website on Linkfabrikken undergoes a thorough quality review before being approved. We regularly reject websites that don't meet our standards — no matter how high their domain authority is.
✓ Manual review of organic traffic via Ahrefs with a minimum traffic threshold
✓ Domain history check — domains with a spammy past are rejected
✓ Assessment of editorial integrity — the ratio of organic to sponsored content
✓ Link profile check — sites with unnatural link patterns are rejected
✓ Content quality — spot checks of articles for originality and depth
✓ Tier classification based on DR, traffic, and niche relevance
✓ Ongoing re-evaluation — sites can be downgraded or removed if quality drops
34% of applications are rejected
6 months between re-evaluations
3-tier quality classification
Our guarantee
If a link is removed within the first 12 months, we offer either a replacement placement or a refund. That's how we stand behind the quality of the websites on our platform.
Key takeaways: protect your investment
Link building is an investment, and like any investment, you should protect it. Saving DKK 500 on a cheap placement that could potentially harm your SEO is never a good deal.
Always choose quality over quantity — one good link beats ten bad ones
Spend time understanding the red flags that characterise low-quality sites
Trust Linkfabrikken's screening, but feel free to do your own research too
Be sceptical of offers that seem too good to be true
Remember that the cheapest link is rarely the most effective one