A site’s external LinkSignal is a score out of 100 for its outbound (external) links and for the link-related health of the site itself. It starts at 100 and loses points for each kind of problem a scan records, so a higher score means fewer things to fix. The LinkSignal overview has a page for every part of it.
How the score is made
Each kind of problem has its own row with a set cost and a limit, so one large problem cannot hide the rest, and a link is counted once, under the first row it matches. The exact rules are published at how the score is worked out.
| Row | Page |
|---|---|
| Hidden, cloaked and script-injected links | Read more |
| Out of context links | Read more |
| Links that need review | Read more |
| Broken links | Read more |
| Unregistered or expired domains | Read more |
| Parked pages | Read more |
| Linked domains expiring within 30 days | Read more |
| Your own domain | Read more |
| Your security certificate | Read more |
| HTTPS on your site | Read more |
| Ranking credit going to flagged links (shown beside the score, not part of it) | Read more |
The bands
A score falls into one of four bands: Strong, Good, Needs attention and At risk. A scan that stopped early gives a provisional score for the pages it read, and says so.
What it is not
LinkSignal is Link Signals’ own metric, worked out only from what this tool finds and checks. It is not connected to any search engine or third-party score, and it says how much there is to fix, not how a site ranks. It counts only what was recorded, so server errors, unreachable links and HSTS are not scored, and the limits in accuracy and limits apply.
Questions
Is LinkSignal connected to a search engine’s score?
No. It is built only from this tool’s own findings and rules, and it is not PageRank or any other third-party authority or trust score.
Does changing my priority order change the score?
No. The score always uses the default order, so the same scan gives the same score to everyone looking at it.
Run a scan and find where these show up on your own site.
