LINK BUILDING · SEO GLOSSARY
Topical Trust Flow
A Majestic SEO metric measuring the quality and trustworthiness of a site\'s link profile relative to a specific topic category — calculated by measuring proximity to "seed" topically relevant trusted sites in the web graph, rather than raw link count.
Definition
Topical Trust Flow is a proprietary metric from Majestic SEO that measures how much trust a site has within a specific topical category, based on the distance in the link graph from Majestic\'s "seed" set of trusted, topically relevant sites. Majestic categorises websites into approximately 800 topic categories (Health, Finance, Technology, Sports, etc.) and for each site, calculates which categories its links come from and how close those linking sites are to the trusted seed sites in those categories. A site that receives many links from trusted health-category sites has high Health Topical Trust Flow. The metric reflects not just link count but topical context — a health website with high Health Trust Flow has a credible link profile from within its topic area. Topical Trust Flow enables more nuanced link quality assessment than generic domain-level metrics: a site may have high overall Trust Flow but low trust within a specific topic if its links come primarily from general directories rather than topically relevant sources; conversely, a niche topic expert site may have modest overall Trust Flow but very high Topical Trust Flow within its specific category because all its links come from relevant topic sources.
Why it matters for SEO
Topical Trust Flow is useful for link prospecting and link quality assessment within a specific topic niche. When evaluating whether a link from a specific site will benefit your rankings for topically relevant queries, a site\'s Topical Trust Flow in the relevant category is more informative than generic domain authority. A link from a site with high Topical Trust Flow in your topic category provides stronger relevance signals than a link from a high-DA general directory with no topical category strength in your area.
How DeepSEOAnalysis checks this
Topical Trust Flow is a Majestic-specific metric not directly measured by DeepSEOAnalysis. The audit checks on-page topical signals (structured data types, content keywords, internal linking patterns) that affect how Google (not Majestic) understands the page\'s topical focus. For Topical Trust Flow specifically, access Majestic\'s link database. The audit\'s outbound link quality check looks at the topical relevance of outbound link destinations — an analogous (if not identical) signal to what Topical Trust Flow measures for inbound links.
GLOSSARY
Related terms
link metrics
Trust Flow
Majestic\'s proprietary metric measuring the quality of links pointing to a page or domain — based on proximity to a seed set of trusted websites. A high Trust Flow indicates links from sources Majestic considers highly trustworthy.
Read definition →link metrics
Citation Flow
Majestic\'s proprietary metric measuring the volume of links pointing to a URL or domain — a quantity measure of link popularity, paired with Trust Flow (quality) to assess the overall character of a link profile.
Read definition →links
Link Building
The practice of acquiring inbound backlinks from other websites to increase a page\'s PageRank and improve its ranking potential for target queries.
Read definition →links
Topical Authority
A site\'s perceived depth of expertise in a subject area, built by covering a topic comprehensively rather than by accumulating generic backlinks.
Read definition →link building
Link Neighbourhood
The broader context of sites that link to the same pages you link to — or that are linked to by the same sites that link to you — used by Google to assess whether your link profile is associated with high-quality editorial sources or low-quality link spam networks.
Read definition →See how your site scores on Topical Trust Flow.
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