Citation Flow

Definition

Citation Flow (CF) is a Majestic proprietary metric (scale 0–100) that reflects the number of sites linking to a URL or domain. It is a quantity metric — pages with many inbound links have high Citation Flow regardless of the quality of those links. By contrast, Trust Flow measures quality based on proximity to trusted seed sites. Citation Flow and Trust Flow are always considered together: **High TF + High CF**: many high-quality links — strong, trustworthy authority. **High CF + Low TF**: many links but from low-quality or spammy sources — a red flag for link spam. **Low CF + High TF**: few links but from very trusted sources — clean small-profile domain. **Low TF + Low CF**: minimal link presence. The TF/CF ratio (also expressed as the "Trust Ratio") is a quick signal: scores close to 1 indicate a natural, balanced profile; scores below 0.5 indicate the volume of links significantly exceeds their trustworthiness. Citation Flow is one input into Majestic\'s overall Topical Trust Flow metric, which additionally classifies a domain\'s links by topic category.

Why it matters for SEO

Citation Flow provides a quick link quantity signal that, when combined with Trust Flow, gives a fuller picture of a site\'s backlink profile than either metric alone. A domain with CF 40 and TF 35 has many trusted links; a domain with CF 40 and TF 5 has many links but they are predominantly from untrusted sources. This distinction matters for link prospecting (avoid building from high-CF/low-TF sites), competitive analysis (comparing total link volume vs quality across competitors), and identifying potentially toxic links in your own profile (high-CF domains linking to you with very low TF warrant investigation).

How DeepSEOAnalysis checks this

Citation Flow is a Majestic proprietary metric — it requires Majestic or a tool that licenses Majestic data. DeepSEOAnalysis does not provide Citation Flow or Trust Flow scores. For citation and trust flow analysis, use Majestic\'s Site Explorer directly.