Tools/Link Exchange Evaluator

Is this link exchange worth it?

Paste your sites and theirs. We look up Ahrefs DR, fetch each homepage, and score every pair against the rules you set. The plan can recommend a reciprocal homepage link, a guest post, a niche edit, a resource-page listing, or a cross-link across two properties so the same two domains are not pointing at each other.

Ahrefs DR, in bulkEvery rule is optionalTopical overlap from the pages themselves

My websites0/10

Partner websites0/10

One domain per line (or comma separated), up to 10 per side.

DR gapReject the pair if the partner is more than this many DR points below you.

10pts

Minimum partner DR

5DR

Minimum partner age

6mo

Outbound domain capCounts unique external domains on the homepage, excluding social and CDN hosts. Resource directories with 100+ partner domains will still fail this check.

100domains

Topical overlapHow related the two sites actually are — from titles, keywords and copy, not whether they are both “AI products”. A text-only estimate below the threshold is caution, not a rejection. Turn this off if niche fit does not matter.

Require HTTPSBlock gambling, adult and pharmaFlag partners that share an IPRequire matching content language

Generate a link-building planOptional. Picks a tactic per pair (reciprocal, guest post, niche edit, or resource page), suggests a cross-link when both sides have 2+ sites, and drafts anchors plus outreach. 10 runs/day anonymous, 50 when signed in.

How the evaluation works

DR gap

Ahrefs DR is logarithmic, so a 10-point gap is a large difference in link value. A DR 40 site that swaps with a DR 15 site usually gives more than it gets. The slider sets how much weaker a partner may be before we reject the pair. Stronger partners are welcome, but we flag them because they may decline a straight reciprocal.

Outbound domains

A homepage pointing to 100+ unique external domains dilutes equity and often marks a link farm or paid directory. We count unique outbound domains (social and CDN hosts excluded) and the share of those links that are nofollow — a partner whose reciprocal links are all nofollow is giving you nothing.

Domain age

Very new domains are more likely to expire, pivot, or get penalized. Age is the earlier of the registry date (RDAP) and the first Wayback Machine snapshot.

Shared IP

Several prospective partners on one IP is a classic private-blog-network footprint. It is a caution, not a rejection, because shared hosting looks the same.

Topical overlap

This is whether the two sites cover related subjects — a coffee blog and a café directory score high; a coffee blog and an AI coding tool score low. Overlap is read from titles, keywords and homepage copy. Switch the rule off if you only care about DR and quality flags.

Reciprocal vs guest post vs cross-link

A homepage A↔B reciprocal is the weakest option. If either site publishes articles, a guest post or a niche edit (a link in an existing post) is usually cleaner. If you both have two or more sites, cross-link — your site 1 → their site 1, their site 2 → your site 2 — so Google does not see a neat reciprocal between the same two domains.

FAQ

The official Ahrefs free Domain Rating endpoint, shared with our DR Checker. The free tier returns DR only — not backlink counts or traffic.