Trust Flow and Citation Flow are important SEO features that show how authoritative and high-quality the links to your website are. Your website may have millions of backlinks, but not all of them are of the same value.
It is no longer just the number of backlinks that matters, they must also be of high quality and credibility. Search engines use criteria such as Trust Flow and Citation Flow to evaluate the credibility and impact of these links.
If you want to know what Trust Flow is and how it differs from Citation Flow, read this article so you can build better links and increase the authority of your website’s domain.
What is Trust Flow?
Trust Flow (TF) is a criterion from Majestic SEO that shows how trustworthy a website is. Rather than just the number of links, it focuses on the “quality” and “authority” of backlinks.
Understanding Trust Flow in simple terms
According to Majestic, the website has created a list of trusted and reputable websites called “Seed Websites,” such as Wikipedia, government websites, popular news websites, and specific directories, to measure Trust Flow.
If your website receives links from these reputable websites, its Trust Flow score will increase. However, if the links are from unreliable websites, your score will decrease.
In fact, the more links your website has from these reputable websites, the higher your Trust Flow score will be. This means that trust flows from reputable websites to your website.
In general, the Trust Flow criterion is measured from 0 to 100:
- Above 50 is excellent
- Between 11 and 49 is average
- Below 20 is poor
The difference between quality and quantity of backlinks
Unlike metrics that only count the number of links, Trust Flow focuses on the quality and authority of links. Links that come from reputable websites, such as educational (.edu), government (.gov), or major news websites, have a higher Trust Flow score. However, poor quality or spammy links can lower this score and damage your website’s authority.
This means that the Internet is like a network where authority is transferred from reputable websites to other ones. Each link is like a channel of trust, and its quality affects the authority of your website. This helps with SEO and branding
The importance of Trust Flow over Citation Flow
Achieving high Trust Flow is harder than Citation Flow, and therefore more valuable. Websites with high trust scores often focus on producing good content and strong links, rather than just getting lots of links. Therefore, SEOs are better off focusing more on the quality of links than just the quantity.
It is worth noting that Trust Flow is calculated for both each page (URL) and the entire domain. In fact, a domain score is calculated from the sum of the TFs of the different pages on that website.
This criterion also takes into account “Link Equity,” meaning that backlinks from reputable websites or pages have a greater impact on increasing your Trust Flow score than links from weaker pages.
What is Citation Flow?
Citation Flow (CF) is a criterion developed by Majestic to measure the “influence” of a website.
It is calculated based on the number and quality of links you receive from other websites and helps you understand how likely your website is to rank high in search results.
The Citation Flow score is calculated from 0 to 100, and the higher the number, the stronger and more influential the website. This number is calculated based on the number of backlinks.
Nonetheless, links that come from reputable and strong websites have more influence than many low-quality links. Consequently, CF does not just look at the number of links, but also their value.
The impact of link quality on Citation Flow score
Citation Follow does not just count the number of links, it also considers their strength. For example, a link from a website that has a high CF is worth more than a weak link. For this reason, to increase Citation Flow, it is better to get links from reputable websites, rather than just going for a large number of links.
In general, Citation Flow is about the number and quality of backlinks and how much authority these links can convey to your website. Note that this criterion has nothing to do with the content of the websites that link to it, Citation Flow only focuses on the impact of the links.
The importance of backlinks in Trust Flow and Citation Flow criteria
Backlinks are still one of the most crucial factors for ranking in search engines.
These links tell search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. But the key point is that not all backlinks are of equal value. For instance, a link from a well-known website like the BBC is more valuable than a low-quality link in an anonymous comment.
To determine the quality of backlinks, criteria like Trust Flow and Citation Flow have been designed. These tools help you not only count the number of links, but also measure their quality.
The main strength of these tools is that they make backlink analysis faster and more accurate. Instead of spending a lot of time checking each link individually, you can understand the overall status of the links at a glance at the TF/CF score.
If these scores are low, it means the website needs better backlinks. If the scores are unbalanced, it may mean low-quality or spammy links.
Is Trust Flow the same as Domain Authority or Domain Rating?
In the field of SEO, there are several popular tools that check the authority of websites. For example, Trust Flow and Citation Flow from Majestic, Domain Authority from Moz, and Domain Rating from Ahrefs.
These tools give websites a score between 0 and 100, with the higher the number, the more authoritative the website. These scores depend more on the number and quality of links given to the website.
It is better to know that these scores are not official Google criteria and do not directly affect the website’s ranking in Google. These are just guesses and models that these companies have created to understand Google’s performance.
Therefore, trust rate is not the same as domain authority or domain rank, and they are closely related.
Each tool has its own approach:
- Trust Flow measures the quality and reliability of backlinks and shows the website’s influence on specific topics with the Topical Trust Flow criterion.
- Citation Flow focuses on the number and strength of links and complements Trust Flow.
- Domain Authority predicts how likely a website is to rank in search results.
- Domain Rank measures the strength of a website’s backlinks in terms of quantity and quality.
You should not just look at one criterion to know how authoritative a website is. Each tool has its own approach and perspective. Majestic mostly looks at the number and quality of links, Maze predicts website rank, and Achref looks at the strength of external links.
The best way is to look at all of these criteria together to get a more complete picture of the website. This will help you gain better understanding of the website’s strengths and weaknesses and create a better SEO strategy.
How to improve a website’s Trust Flow score
Improving a website’s Trust Flow score is a gradual process and requires proper and systematic planning, such as:
Creating quality (linkable) content
Create content that is high-quality and useful. Educational content, complete guides, real-world examples, and infographics will get authoritative websites to link to you. These links show that your website is trustworthy.
Releasing guest Post on Relevant and Authoritative websites
Post on relevant and authoritative websites. This method helps you get strong backlinks and improves your Trust Flow. Before posting, make sure the authority of that website is above 20. Also, the links should be “Flow”.
Working with Influencers
Connect with bloggers, influencers, and journalists in your field. Share your good content with them and ask them to link to your website. This will help build authentic, natural links to your website.
Internal, systematic Link building
Link important pages within your website. This will distribute the website’s authority better among the pages and make all pages stronger. This way, no page will be left orphaned, or without links.
Regularly checking backlinks and removing spam links
Always check your website’s backlinks and remove or disavow low-quality, spammy, or suspicious links. Links with a Trust Flow of less than 20 should be removed to keep your website’s ranking high.
In general, Trust Flow is a measure of how trustworthy your website is and is related to Google’s E-E-A-T principles, specifically “Trustworthiness.”
Simple guide to increasing Citation Flow score
To improve your Citation Flow score, you need to increase the number of links from authoritative and influential websites to your website.
Targeted Methods to Get High-Quality Backlinks
To get high-quality backlinks that will increase your website’s Citation Flow, consider the following tips:
- Focus on authoritative websites: Try to get backlinks from websites that have a high Citation Flow score. These authoritative websites can also give your website more credibility. To do this, you can publish guest posts on trusted and authoritative websites.
- Link Diversity: Using Citation Flow score, you can find good websites to link to that you may not have seen before. Try to get links from different and diverse websites.
- Relevant Links: Do not accept any link just because the source website has a high ranking. Links should be relevant to your website’s topic to improve the user experience.
- Clean up destructive links: Regularly review your backlink profile and remove low-quality or spammy links. You can use tools like Search Console to do this. Removing these links will help improve your website’s ranking and SEO.
- Improve internal links: Link pages on your website together, especially those with higher Citation Flow scores. This helps spread link authority throughout the website and boosts your website’s SEO. Just make sure your internal links are relevant and helpful to the user.
How to measure Trust Flow and Citation Flow in SEO
Trust Flow and Citation Flow are measured only by Majestic SEO, as these criteria are specific to this company.
To see these scores, simply go to the Majestic website and enter your website address. This tool will check your website’s backlinks and show you the Trust Flow and Citation Flow scores.
You can also see more information such as Topical Trust Flow and a detailed link source report.
The best tools to check Trust Flow and Citation Flow of websites
There is also a free browser extension that you can install to see these scores when searching websites.
For more detailed checks, Majestic has tools like Bulk Backlink Checker, which allows you to check multiple websites at once, and Flow Metrics History to see how these scores have changed over time.
If you have the paid version, you can check backlinks in more detail with the Site Explorer tool. Also, if you need more analysis, you can use the Majestic API to get the data and use it in your own tools.
Checking the Trust Flow to Citation Flow ratio
To analyze your website’s backlinks and trustworthiness, you should pay attention to the TF and CF ratio:
- If this ratio is around 0.5 to 1 (TF and CF are close), it means that your website’s links have the right quality and quantity and are in good condition.
- If Trust Flow is low and Citation Flow is high, it means that there are a lot of low-quality or spam links that may harm your website and even get you penalized by Google.
- If Trust Flow is high and Citation Flow is low, it means that you have a myriad of authoritative and high-quality links, which is good.
- Majestic also has a scatter graph that visually displays the status of your website’s backlinks and helps you better comprehend the health of your website’s links.
Conclusion
The Trust Flow and Citation Flow parameters are tools from Majestic SEO that show the quality and quantity of backlinks to a website.
Trust Flow focuses on the authority of links, while Citation Flow focuses on their number and impact. These two criteria help to better understand the strength and authority of a website in the eyes of search engines.
The scores for these criteria are calculated logarithmically; that is, as the numbers go up, it becomes harder to get a higher score. It is important to maintain a balance between the two to prevent spammy links and reduce the risk of Google penalties.
