What Is Citation Flow (CF) in Search Engine Optimization?
Citation flow (CF) is a statistic developed by Majestic, an SEO software business, that measures how authoritative a website is on a scale of 0 to 100.
Understanding the Flow of Citations
Assume you’re a scientist whose work has been published in a peer-reviewed publication.
Many other scientists agree with your findings and will reference them in future publications.
Isn’t it true that you’d be regarded as an expert?
This is exactly how citation flow functions.
Citation flow (CF) is a reinvention of Majestic’s ACRank.
This new metric expresses a score from 0 to 100 and aims to depict how authoritative a website might be according to how many sites are linking to it.
Furthermore, citation flow impacts how much link equity your site has and how much it may pass on.
Citation flow alone will not be adequate to identify a website’s authority; it will need to be combined with many other aspects of SEO to obtain a clear handle on your site’s reliability, knowledge, and authority.
Explaining Flow Metrics
Majestic compiles a profile of the quality and amount of backlinks pointing to every website on the internet.
Citation flow and trust flow are two well-known metrics.
These two measures may be used to provide a good sense of your site’s influence.
Backlinks (and the quality of backlinks) are a proven ranking element for search engines, therefore having a score of your site’s backlinks is beneficial.
Flow metrics are crucial data points that show how much link equity is transmitted down the connecting line from page A to page B to page C, and so on.
The flow of Citations vs. Flow of Trust
Simply said, citation flow refers to the amount (or quantity) of links you have, whereas trust flow (TF) refers to the quality.
Majestic will assign a score between 0 and 100 to each flow measure.
It’s worth noting that CF and TF aren’t ranking factors because they’re not part of Google’s algorithm.
Flow measurements are used to quantify SEO KPIs, but they aren’t KPIs in and of themselves.
Interaction of Metrics
Consider the comparison presented at the outset of this piece.
If other scientists cite and refer to a scientist’s work, they may considered an expert.
However, while many scientists may cite this work, they may not be legitimate scientists themselves.
This is where the concept of trust flow comes into play.
In this comparison, trust flow will assess the credibility and impact of the sources quoting the original scientist, as well as whether the original scientist is deserving of the recognition and acclaim she is receiving.
Take it a step further in terms of SEO: your site may have a high citation flow, suggesting that it referred to by a significant number of other websites.
This may appear to be a good thing at first, however, the bulk of the sites turn out to be robot sites, spammers, obscure blogs, and more.
Finally, this is symptomatic of a high citation flow and low trust flow and does nothing to demonstrate that your site is an authority and deserves to be rated.
A high citation flow and trust flow indicate that other high-authority sites, such as Forbes, Washington Post, and Reuters, regularly connect to your site.
This combination of flow metrics indicates that your site (or a page on your site) is reliable, and the individuals referring to it are knowledgeable.
What Is the Best Way to Check Citation Flow?
Because Majestic owns the flow metrics trademark, you can get citation flow, trust flow, and other link intelligence statistics on their website.
You may get backlink information for both your website and your competitors’ websites there.
Signing up for this tool will provide you with information on topical trust flow, a list of all referring websites connecting to your site, the context of these backlinks, link anchor text, and much more.
What Does a Good Citation Flow Look Like?
There is no “good” citation flow number to aim for since citation flow is only half of the flow metrics discourse.
Naturally, you want other websites to connect to yours,
but citation flow can only understood in the context of trust flow.
Ideally, every link you obtain should be a reliable one.
This would be an excellent example of a 1:1 citation-to-trust ratio.
The typical CF-to-TF ratio, on the other hand, is closer to 2:1, or 50%.
Any value lower than this indicates that the bulk of your links is of poor quality.
For example, if your citation flow is 30 and your trust flow is 15, you have a 2:1 ratio, which is considered typical.
Maintain a CF and TF that is above this line.
If your citation flow is 30 and your trust flow is 40, you have a 3:4 ratio (fewer links but greater trust per link).
which means your links are 25% more trustworthy than those on a site with a 1:1 CF-to-TF ratio.
What Are Some Ways to Boost Citation Flow?
Increasing the number of links going to your website won’t help you much by itself; rather, increasing the number of high-quality links would.
You may get high-quality backlinks in a variety of ways:
Invest in quality link-building services: If you don’t have the time, professionals can develop high-quality backlinks for your website regularly.
Create strategic material:
Content that both search-focused and link-worthy can help you gain more links and improve your keyword rankings.
Guest posting:
A tried-and-true strategy of link acquisition is writing for high-quality sites while referring back to yours.
Experiment with visual material: Infographics, movies, and other forms of visual information are appealing.
and high-authority websites are more likely to link to them;
Conduct backlink audits regularly:
You won’t be able to manage every site that connects to yours.
You should do an audit regularly so that you can disavow poor connections while preserving the high-quality ones;
Internal link:
Internal links help your site gain credibility.
Conclusion
Citation flow, like trust flow, isn’t anything to get too worked up over.
but it is something to be aware of.
You’re only receiving half of the story about the health of your site if you don’t couple your citation flow statistic with trust flow.
Nonetheless, Majestic should be a part of your SEO productivity and task scalability arsenal.
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