Google Premier Partner
Meta Business PartnerWhat is Citation Flow?
Citation Flow is a score from 0 to 100 from the link analysis company Majestic that estimates a website’s influence based on the number of links pointing to it. The score says nothing about the quality of those links, which Majestic covers with Trust Flow. It is not a Google metric.
Why is Citation Flow important?
- A quick indication: you see roughly how large the link profile is.
- Comparison: useful for putting competitors side by side.
- Only with context: without Trust Flow, the score says little about quality.
Examples of Citation Flow
- Citation Flow 45 and Trust Flow 40: many links, a large share of which look trustworthy.
- Citation Flow 50 and Trust Flow 8: many low-quality links, a reason to investigate further.
- A new site: both scores low because there are few links yet.
How do you use Citation Flow?
Always read Citation Flow together with Trust Flow and with the links themselves. Use the score to compare websites, not as a goal in itself: Google does not use this metric. When there is a big gap between the two scores, it is worth reviewing your link profile. You can read more under link building.