How to Read a Guest Post Site Benchmark — Guide

What each figure means

Every number on a listing comes from our own benchmark run against the same tools, on the same day. Here is what each one measures.

Figure	Source	What it tells you
Domain Authority (DA)	Moz	A 1–100 score for how likely the whole domain is to rank, based on Moz’s link index.
Page Authority (PA)	Moz	The same idea for the home page on its own.
Domain Rating (DR)	Ahrefs	A 0–100 score for the strength of the domain’s backlink profile in Ahrefs’ index.
Spam score	Moz	The share of penalty-linked features the domain shows, as a percentage.
Organic traffic	Semrush	Estimated monthly search visits from the United States.
Ranking keywords	Semrush	How many search terms the domain ranks for.
Referring domains	Moz	How many different websites link to the domain.
Backlinks	Moz	The total number of links pointing to the domain.
Home-page links	Semrush	Backlinks pointing at the home page specifically.
Registered / age	Domain registry (RDAP)	The date the domain was first registered, and how old that makes it.
Platform, indexed pages, AI crawlers	The domain itself	The CMS read from its markup, the page count in its XML sitemap, and its robots.txt rules for AI crawlers.

Reading DA and DR together

Moz and Ahrefs build separate link indexes and score them differently, so the same domain rarely gets the same number from both. We show both, plus the gap between them:

Gap	Label	How to read it
0–5 points	Aligned	Both tools see the link profile the same way.
6–12 points	Slight gap	A normal difference between two models.
13+ points	Wide gap	One tool credits links the other discounts. Don’t judge the site on the higher score alone.

A wide gap is not a fault in itself, but it is a reason to look at the traffic and keyword figures before relying on either authority score.

Reading the spam score

Moz compares every domain against features it has found on sites that were penalised or removed by Google, and reports how many it matches as a percentage. We use Moz’s own bands:

Spam score	Risk	What to do
1–30%	Low	Few warning signs. Proceed as normal.
31–60%	Medium	Read the site’s recent articles and outbound links before you commit.
61–100%	High	Many warning signs. Treat a placement here with real caution.

The spam score is a warning light, not a verdict. A site Moz has only just started tracking may show no spam score at all, and some legitimate sites score in the medium band.

How the benchmark score works

Each listing carries a single benchmark score from 0 to 100, built from four parts. Every part is scaled to 0–100 first, then weighted:

Part	How it is calculated	Weight
Authority	The average of Moz DA and Ahrefs DR, × 1.35, capped at 100	40%
Search reach	log₁₀(ranking keywords + 1) × 25, capped at 100	20%
Spam hygiene	100 minus the Moz spam score	20%
Domain age	Years since registration × 12.5, capped at 100 (8 years = full marks)	20%

If one part could not be measured for a site, it is left out and the other weights are scaled up to fill the gap. A missing figure never counts as zero.

The score is a quick way to sort a shortlist. It does not replace reading the individual figures, and it says nothing about a site’s editorial style or whether its audience matches yours.

Shortlisting a site in five minutes

Start with subject. Open the category your audience reads, not the one with the highest scores.
Rule out risk. Drop anything in the high spam band, and look closely at medium ones.
Compare DA and DR together. Prefer sites where the two agree, or check traffic before trusting a wide gap.
Check visibility. Semrush traffic and keywords show whether the authority is producing real search reach.
Open the site itself. Read three recent articles. Would you be happy to appear next to them?
Ask for the rate. Send us your shortlist and we reply with current prices and requirements.

Questions

Which figure matters most when choosing a guest post site?

No single one. Start with the spam score to rule out risky sites, then compare Moz DA and Ahrefs DR together, and use Semrush traffic and keywords to check that the authority is turning into real search visibility.

Why do Moz DA and Ahrefs DR show different numbers for the same site?

They are built by different companies from different link indexes, and each weighs links in its own way. A small difference is normal. A difference of more than twelve points means one tool is crediting links the other discounts, so read both before deciding.

Is the traffic figure the site’s real audience?

No. It is Semrush’s estimate of monthly organic search visits from the United States. It leaves out visitors from other countries and from social, email and direct traffic, so treat it as a signal of search visibility rather than a total audience count.

What does it mean when a field is missing from a listing?

It means the check did not return a value for that site. We leave the field off rather than filling in a zero or a guess, so everything you do see was actually measured.

Why is there no price on the listings?

Publishers change their rates often. A printed price would soon be wrong, so every listing says “Email for details” and we reply with the rate that applies that day.

How often are the figures updated?

All listings are checked in the same run, and every listing shows the date of that check. When the directory is refreshed, every listing is re-checked at once, so no two listings are ever compared across different dates.

How to Read a Listing and Choose Well