What is a donor
The site on which a link to your resource is placed. Donor quality affects the weight of the link.
Donor quality
A good donor has:
- Growing organic traffic
- Topical relevance to your site
- No filters or penalties
- A low number of outgoing SEO links
How to evaluate donors
- Check DR (Ahrefs) or DA (Moz) — but don't take them as absolute
- Look at organic traffic via SEMrush or Similarweb
- Make sure the site is not over‑optimized
- Assess whether the donor links to spammy resources
What to avoid
- Buying links from donors with low traffic but high DR
- Using donors from a different niche
- Placing links on pages with thousands of other outgoing links (directories, unmoderated forums)
Even a perfect donor will not help if the link is nofollow or sits in a footer/sidebar on every page — Google often devalues such links.
FAQ
What is more important: donor DR or topical relevance?
For Google, topical relevance is often more important than abstract DR. A link from a site in a similar niche carries more weight than from a high‑authority but unrelated portal.
Can the same donor link to multiple pages of my site?
Yes, but Google may count only the first link or distribute the equity. Place links from different pages of the donor if natural.
How to check if a donor is under a penalty?
See if the site is indexed (site:donor.com). Check for manual actions in GSC (if accessible). Look for sharp traffic drops in SEMrush.
Should I get links from donors with many outgoing links?
The more outgoing links on a page, the less equity each passes. If there are hundreds, the link is nearly useless.
Which is better: one strong donor or many medium ones?
Diversity is usually better. One very strong donor can be useful, but a natural backlink profile includes links from different sites of varying authority levels.