What Is Citation Flow (CF) in SEO?

Do you know what Citation Flow (CF) is and how it impacts your SEO efforts? CF is an important part of any successful and comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. It denotes the number of times a website or page has been cited by others on the web, which can help significantly improve visibility in search engine results pages. In this blog post, we’ll explore what citation flow really means, as well as why it matters for ranking higher in Google and Bing searches.

What is Citation Flow?

Citation flow is an essential metric to measure a site's overall link equity. It is ranked on a scale of 0-100. This helps search engines predict the domain or URL's authority. It is determined by checking the number of links pointing to a site or page. Technically, it is an authority metric to determine the number of links pointing to your site.

Some other metrics similar to citation flow include −

• Moz's DA to check domain authority

• Ahref's DR to determine domain rating

Note − The metrics above don't use the same method or factors as citation flow. Every company uses a different formula to calculate domain authority and ranking.

How to Prepare Your Site for a Good Citation Flow?

Generally, citation flow only does half the task for flow metrics. So, you need to focus on the citation and trust flow together. 

You should majorly aim to improve trust flow. This is because it is ranked based on the site's quality links. However, that doesn't make citation flow a redundant factor. It also carries crucial importance in search engine ranking.

The main aim of a good citation is to increase the number of links connecting to your site.

However, the overall flow metrics take both citation and trust flow factors. So, whenever a link is added to your site, you must check its quality. For instance, if your site is about coffee, the links you receive must be relevant to coffee. Otherwise, the link will be considered of low quality or unnecessary.

Your main goal is to maintain a good CF-to-TF ratio. The perfect CF: TF ratio is 1:1, but a 2:1 ratio is also considered OK. 

For example, if you have 100 links that are trustworthy and relevant, you will get a perfect 1:1 ratio. Similarly, if 50 out of 100 links are high quality or authoritative, you will have a 2:1 ratio or 50%.

Any value lower than the 2:1 ratio is bad for your website. This tells search engines that you have more bad links than good ones.

How to Check Citation Flow?

MajesticSEO owns the flow metrics, including the citation and trust flow metrics. You can visit the MajesticSEO's official website to check your site's citation flow, trust flow, and other crucial link intelligence statistics.

You can use the tool for free. However, the unregistered version comes with a limited usage policy. To increase your usage limit, you need to sign-up. 

Signing up for MajesticSEO will give you information about the following −

• Citation flow

• Topical trust flow

• A list of links connected to your site

• Detailed information on all the backlinks you got

• Link anchor texts 

Besides, you will have access to several metrics and intelligence (not limited to) −

• Referring IPs

• Referring subnets

• Link graph

• Related sites

• Verified domains

Drawbacks of Citation Flow

The flow metrics focus on both citation and trust flows. While citation flow tells the total number of links pointed to your site, trust flow determines the quality of those links. 

Citation links don't consider the links' quality. This is one of the decisional mistakes most SEO experts make when they rely only on the number of links connected to a website. 

Trust or quality is a significant determinant factor in ranking in search engines. If your links are unreliable, low-quality, and unnecessary, Google won't recognize them. Instead, it may penalize your site.

That's why you should check where the site is coming from besides gaining links. You should ensure the link comes from a trustworthy and authoritative domain. 

Assume you have two sites with the same citation flow, and one is getting more traffic. This is because google boosts the site's rank with links relevant to your content. 

So does Citation Flow doesn't Matter?

Of course, it matters, but not as much as trust flow. The number of links pointing to a site is considered a good sign. However, those links must have some relevance to your site. Otherwise, they are just unnecessary. 

Google is all about quality over quantity. You also need to pay focus on this principle. Otherwise, you will put your trust in these authority metrics too much. These metrics are not definitive and can be manipulative. As a result, you would end up wondering why your SEO efforts are not paying results.

Black hat SEO practices are another reason why search engines don't entirely consider citation flow as trustworthy. Building thousands of easy links from article directories and low-quality link sources is easy. This only raises your site's citation flow and DA, but not rank or traffic.

Regardless of how talented a black hat SEO expert is, Google will also catch it sooner or later. Consequently, the site will be heavily penalized and lost amongst the billions of sites that never make it to the SERP.

That's why you need trust flow. If citation flow is a 2D picture, trust flow adds another dimension, making it 3D. 

How to Boost Citation Flow in a Healthy Way?

For a healthier citation flow, you need to focus on high-quality backlinks. You can get high-quality backlinks in the following ways −

Develop Strategic Contents

Undoubtedly good quality content always wins the heart of search engines. However, what will you do when there is a wave of competition? This is where strategy comes into place. Do keyword research, and place them strategically within your content.

Make sure not to stuff your content with keywords. One keyword is enough to place in a 500 words blog. Write your content with keyword placement that sounds logical to the reader. Simply don't throw a keyword randomly within the content. Google's algorithm is way sophisticated to detect that.

Don't hyperlink keywords if it doesn't sound logical. For example, if your keyword is how to build a paper boat, placing it within the content will look illogical. Instead, you can use it in the headings. 

Do Guest Postings

Writing for highly authoritative sites is a great way to acquire good-quality links. Add visual elements, infographics, and other appealing materials to your posts. This will increase your chances of the site giving you a backlink.

Do Backlink Audits Regularly

Remove unnecessary and low-quality links from your backlinks list. This will considerably improve your citation-to-trust flow.

Do Internal Linking

Internal linking adds credibility to your site. It points all pages within your site to a single link. Plus, it helps visitors to find relevant content while they are on your site. This encourages them to spend more time on your site.

Conclusion

By optimizing your CF score, you can engage new customers and easily stay one step ahead of your competition. With the right search engine optimization tools at your disposal, you can use Citation Flow to unlock even more potential from your online presence and ensure that your website is seen by as many potential customers as possible.