Gone are the days when PageRank was the ultimate metric for determining search engine success. Today, Majestic Trust Flow is the go-to metric for determining how your webpage performs on search engines. It analyses the trustworthiness of the website, whereas, Citation Flow predicts just how influential your website is from the number of backlinks that point to your domain.
Majestic is a popular SEO and link analysis tool that allows one to determine the trustworthiness of their website. It offers a score out of 100 for the quality of backlinks of each webpage. If you receive a Trust Flow score of 10, it does not mean that you have 10 trustworthy backlinks or 10 backlinks. Instead, it only offers a look into the quality of your outreach. The Trust Flow and Citation Flow form the Majestic Flow Metrics algorithm. Machine logic is used to determine the Trust Flow score. Hence, the exact criteria are difficult to determine.
How Does Majestic Trust Flow Work?
Majestic Trust Flow provides a score based on the weighted number of clicks from the seed set of trusted sites for a given domain or URL. Many trusted “seed sites” are given Majestic scores to develop the scoring system. It is a manual review of some of the most trusted sites such as Facebook, Google, and BBC. The data collected from the review is used by the logarithmic scale to establish the score of these seed sites. Websites and URLs that are closely linked to these seed sites tend to have a much higher Trust Flow score in comparison to those that have fewer links with such sites.
The reasoning behind the logarithmic scale is similar to a professional reference for jobs. The more positive references one has from experts in the field the more likely it would be for them to get hired. Thus, the more trusted backlinks the website has the higher its Trust Flow score.
Trust Flow Vs Citation Flow
Trust Flow and Citation Flow appear alongside one another. Trust Flow primarily focuses on the quality and trustworthiness of a website, whereas, Citation Flow determines the influence the website has or its popularity due to the referring domains. A website that has a higher Trust Flow score when compared to the Citation Flow score is one that has quality backlinks. SEO professionals and digital marketers can rely on these Majestic metrics to improve their websites.
Understanding the difference between Trust Flow and Citation Flow is necessary to master each metric. The metrics enable you to understand the types of backlinks acquired and measure their strength to determine the backlink authority of a website. Trust Flow deals with the quality of links, while Citation Flow deals with the number of links.
Trust Flow Vs Topical Trust Flow
To fully understand Trust Flow, one also had to learn more about Topical Trust Flow. It is another metric developed by Majestic to show the ranking potential and strength of a webpage based on the website’s relevancy. Therefore, Topical Trust Flow is specific to the niche or industry that the website caters to. Websites can receive multiple scores for different topics. Majestic defines the Topical Trust Flow score as a score that reveals where the website is positioned in comparison to the top websites in more than 800 categories.
Importance of Majestic Trust Flow
Majestic Trust Flow is essential for making informed decisions when it comes to link building. Different metrics are used by each SEO tool to measure the quality and quantity of backlinks that a website receives and its ranking potential for relative keywords. However, Majestic Trust Flow is a metric that both SEO professionals and digital marketers can use to determine where a website stands online. It has become to go-to metric for SEO and digital marketing purposes.
How Can You Check Your Trust Flow Score?
Checking the Trust Flow score of your website is incredibly easy. All one has to do is head over to the Majestic website in their internet browser and select “Tools”. Then, they need to click the “Site Explore Preview” from the menu and enter their website URL and click the search button. It will allow Majestic to generate the Trust Flow and Citation Flow of the domain. The combination of Trust Flow and Citation Flow can help one derive the Trust Ratio.
What Makes A Good Trust Flow Score?
Generally, a website that has a Trust Flow score of less than 15 is considered to be untrustworthy. However, the score should be taken with a grain of salt. An important metric that one cannot overlook is the number of keywords that the website ranks for and the amount of traffic those keywords can generate. You should keep in mind that how Google ranks a website is the best indicator. However, Trust Flow can help provide an idea about which website will perform well on search engines. A Trust Flow score of 20 to 40 is good enough. But, if you can achieve a score of 60 to 80, it would be the best.
When Majestic launched Trust Flow and Citation Flow, it also introduced the concept of TF/CF ratio which measures the number of links a website has from trustworthy websites and compares it to the overall quantity of links. A TF/CF ratio of 1 to 2 is good. If the website has a TF score of 20 and a CF score of 75, it would be considered a spam website despite the high metrics. On the other hand, a website that has a TF score of 17 and a CF score of 24 would be viewed as more trustworthy and will not trigger a penalty if it links to your website.
How Can You Increase Trust Flow?
Now that you know more about Majestic Trust Flow, you must be wondering how to increase your score. However, it is important that you understand that improving your Trust Flow score does not result in a higher search rank. The following tips will help you increase your Trust Flow score.
- Aim for quality links rather than quantity links.
- Target links from websites related to the niche. Monitor both Topical Trust Flow and overall Trust Flow.
- Focus on getting links from .edu and .gov sites.
- Obtain links from websites that have a high Trust Flow score. It is possible through guest blogging. However, you must use this approach sparingly as excessive guest posting would cause a Google penalty.
How Can You Use Trust Flow and Citation Flow To Work On SEO?
The following applications allow you to make the most of Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
- Competitive Analysis: Learn more about the link building strategy adopted by your competitors.
- Keeping Tabs on SEO: Find out how the company you have hired for SEO performing.
- Link Outreach: Evaluate which websites to reach out to for a link.
Competitive Analysis
Utilize Majestic to find out which links competitors have acquired. It will provide you with an idea about whether the competitor has done something that you can replicate or if you should adopt a different approach to drive links and traffic. It is important that you avoid using a method that will get your website penalized. The following will tell you if you are using spam methods.
- View the backlinks that go to your competitor websites.
- There is a great difference between Trust Flow and Citation Flow. If the Citation Flow score is three times the Trust Flow score, it would mean that the links are generating little traffic and Google would be able to tell that the competitor is up to something manipulative.
Link Outreach
When it comes to finding new opportunities to improve your Trust Flow score, you need to focus on link outreach. Here is how you can get more links.
- Find a website that links to another site and offer a better article to get them to link to yours.
- Determine if the blog has enough authority for you to put in the effort.
- Look for a website that is related to your industry and try to establish a relationship with them.
Keep Tabs on SEO
Not every company or individual that you hire for your SEO efforts is honest. You might be paying someone to help you establish an online presence and write blogs for your business. However, they might be engaging in spam. This is where Majestic comes to the rescue. It will enable you to take a look at the backlink profile of your website. If you find out that something does not seem right, it will provide you with a reason to fire the SEO Company to avoid damaging your online presence and find another company that can help you achieve the results that you are looking for.
Takeaway
Majestic Trust Flow is an important metric that you can use to monitor and improve the strength and relevancy of your backlink profile. However, you must understand that it is a third-party SEO tool metric at the end of the day. Hence, you must take things with a grain of salt. Achieving a higher metric does not always correlate to a higher ranking. But, the metric provides a great place to start your SEO efforts.
