How to vet and validate link prospects quickly

Executive overview

Large unfiltered prospect lists waste time if you pitch irrelevant or low-quality sites. A three-level vetting process narrows the list before any manual review begins.

Filter by SEO metrics first, then check page relevance, then validate the specific linkable point still appears on the page. Screaming Frog's custom search can replace eight hours of manual URL checks with a five-minute crawl.

Level 1: filter by SEO metrics

• Domain rating (DR) signals whether a site has followed links; useful as a rough cut, not a final signal
• DR is imperfect — it's a third-party metric and PageRank flows at the page level
• Website traffic indicates whether a site is in good standing with Google
• A DR90 site with zero traffic is a red flag
• Filters make sense when working with hundreds or thousands of prospects
• You'll remove more bad prospects than good ones — the time saving is worth it

Level 2: check page relevance

• Scan the titles of referring pages for topical fit
• Most pages will be clearly relevant or clearly irrelevant
• For borderline cases, check the domain name — a marketing agency site may still be relevant to an SEO page even if the specific page isn't
• Exclude pages in foreign languages if your content and outreach are in English

Level 3: validate the linkable point

• Confirm each prospect page still mentions the specific stat, phrase, or claim you're pitching around
• If a page no longer mentions your linkable point, a personalised pitch referencing it will look wrong
• Manually visiting URLs takes ~30 seconds each — 1,000 pages equals over 8 hours

Using Screaming Frog for bulk validation

• Use Screaming Frog's custom search to check all URLs at once
• Setup: Configuration → Custom → Search → name the search, set condition to "contains", enter your term, select "page text"
• Run all prospect URLs in list mode
• The custom search tab shows every URL that matches — and every one that doesn't
• In a real example: 779 of 875 crawled URLs matched; 96 failed — identified in under 5 minutes

When bulk validation doesn't work

• Complex linkable points with variable context can't be validated by a simple text match
• Example: a page containing "use LSI keywords" may be debunking them, not recommending them
• These cases require manual review
• Consider hiring dedicated vetters for this — covered in the team-building module

Finding the right contact

• After vetting pages, identify the right person to email
• This is part of vetting — the wrong contact reduces response rates
• Relevant titles to consider: author, editor, generic site email
• Data on which contact type performs best is covered in the next lesson