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, right now. It sits at the top of every report. It answers one question quickly: how healthy are this site’s outbound links, and the site itself, right now? It is not a prediction of search rankings, and it does not claim to measure PageRank or any search engine’s opinion.
This page is the method. For each part of the score there is a page of its own, and all of them start from the LinkSignal hub.
How it is worked out
Every site starts at 100. Each kind of problem takes off a fixed number of points each time it is found, up to a limit for that kind, so one very large problem cannot hide everything else. A link is only ever counted once: a finding belongs to exactly one priority, so it is charged in exactly one row.
| What | Why it costs points | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Hidden, cloaked or script-injected links | The usual sign of a hacked site. | 6 points each, up to 30 |
| Links to domains that aren’t registered or have expired | Anyone can register the domain and take your visitors and credit. | 5 points each, up to 20 |
| Links to parked pages | The site you linked to is gone and visitors land on an advert. | 4 points each, up to 12 |
| Out of context links | Risky destinations that don’t fit the page they are on. | 2 points each, up to 12 |
| Links that need review | Flagged as risky or unsafe and not covered by the rows above. | 1 point each, up to 8 |
| Broken links | Dead ends for visitors. | 0.5 points each, up to 8 |
| Your own domain | A lapsed domain takes your site down. | 15 points if it has expired, 5 if it expires within 60 days |
| Your security certificate | An expired certificate shows visitors a warning page. | 10 points if it has expired, 5 if it expires within 21 days |
| HTTPS on your site | Visitors on the plain address are not protected. | 10 points if the secure version does not load, 3 if http:// does not send visitors on to https:// |
| Linked domains expiring within 30 days | Fine today, a takeover risk if they are not renewed. | 0.5 points each, up to 5 |
Every row in the table is also in your report, under How this is worked out, with how many were found and how many points each cost. Select a row to open the links behind it, or About to open the page that explains it.
What the bands mean
| Score | Band |
|---|---|
| 90 to 100 | Strong |
| 75 to 89 | Good |
| 50 to 74 | Needs attention |
| 0 to 49 | At risk |
Two worked examples
A site with one parked link and two broken links loses 4 points for the parked link and 0.5 for each broken one. That is 5 points in all, so its LinkSignal is 95, which is Strong.
A site with two hidden links and one link to an unregistered domain loses 6 points for each hidden link and 5 for the unregistered one. That is 17 points, so its LinkSignal is 83, which is Good. The hidden links cost the most because they are the usual sign of a hacked site.
What the score does not do
- It does not guess. A score is made only from what was found and checked. Where something was not recorded, such as your own domain and certificate on a check that did not read them, it is left out and the report says so.
- It does not depend on your priority order. Reordering your priorities changes what you see first, never the score.
- It does not hide a partial scan. A scan that stopped at its limit is scored on what it read, and is labelled Provisional with how many pages that was.
- It does not reward a short list. A rescan is compared with the scan it repeats, and a score from a scan that did not read the whole site is marked as not comparable on the Sites page.
- It does not borrow from anyone. No search engine, authority score or third-party service is used in any row.
On a rescan and on the Sites page
On a rescan the score is shown with how it moved since the original scan. On the Sites page it is the line in LinkSignal over time, with a point for each check. A hollow point is a check that stopped early, a green point is a re-check, and a smaller point is a check that did not record your own domain, certificate and HTTPS, so those are not in its score.
Questions
Why did my score change when I changed nothing?
It should not. If it did, open the report and compare the rows: something that was found or checked is different, and the row that moved says which. See rescan and compare.
Why does a clean score not mean the site is safe for good?
It says nothing was found in what was checked. Domains you link to can lapse and sites can change hands without anything changing on your pages, so a clean score is true today. Monitoring keeps checking.
Why do broken links cost so little?
A broken link is a dead end for visitors, but it is rarely a sign of a hack or a takeover. A link to an unregistered domain costs ten times as much because anyone can register it.
Can I compare my score with another site’s?
Only loosely. The score counts problems, not the share of links that have them, so a large site with a few problems can score the same as a small one. Use it to watch your own site over time.
Is LinkSignal the same as a search engine’s score for my site?
No. It is not connected to any search engine or third-party score, and it does not try to match one. It is worked out only from what Link Signals finds and checks, by the published rules on this page.
Run a scan and your external LinkSignal is at the top of the report.
