How do you find good guest posting sites?

1. Competitor backlinks

Run the three or four sites that outrank you through Ahrefs or Semrush. Export their referring domains and look for guest post patterns: author bylines from outside the company, contributor pages, articles that link once to a commercial site. These sites already publish in your niche, which is the strongest starting signal you can get.

2. Search operators

Search combinations such as:

• "write for us" + [your niche]
• "contributor guidelines" + [your industry]
• "guest post by" + [a competitor's name]
• intitle:"guest post" + [topic]

Expect a lot of noise. Many results are sites built to sell links.

3. The publications your buyers read

Ask customers what they read. Look at the trade titles, newsletters and blogs your sales team sees mentioned. These are often the most valuable placements and the hardest to find with tools.

4. A vetted catalogue

A managed catalogue saves the sourcing work, as long as you can see the metrics and the vetting criteria for each site.

1. Read the last twenty posts. Are they mostly about one subject area? Would your article sit naturally among them?
2. Check organic traffic in Ahrefs or Semrush. Look at the twelve-month trend, not one month. A sharp drop often follows an algorithm update.
3. Compare traffic to DA or DR. A high score with very little traffic suggests the score was built, not earned.
4. Look at what it ranks for. If the site ranks for terms in your industry, it has relevance search engines recognise.
5. Check outbound links. If most recent posts link to casinos, loans, supplements and VPNs, the site is selling to everyone.
6. Look for editorial signs. Named editors, consistent publishing, articles that were obviously edited.
7. Search the site name with "guest post" or "link insertion". If it appears on many public link marketplaces at very low prices, be cautious.

• A "write for us" page that lists prices for dofollow links in every category.
• A sudden traffic spike followed by a collapse.
• Posts published in a hidden subfolder with no links from the rest of the site.
• Article quality that drops sharply on posts with outbound commercial links.
• A contact email that only ever replies with a price list.
• The domain changed owner recently and its subject changed with it.

Score each surviving site from 1 to 3 on four things: relevance, organic traffic, editorial quality and audience fit (would a reader plausibly become a customer?). Sort by the total.

A mid-traffic site squarely in your niche usually beats a high-traffic general site where your article sits between a recipe and a crypto tip. Then check price and turnaround, and start with the top of the list.

Hypothetical. Say you run a UK-based HR software company.

You mine three competitors and find 140 referring domains with contributor-style articles. You cut directories, forums and dead sites, leaving 60. Reading the last twenty posts on each removes 25 that cover everything. Traffic checks remove another 15 with high DR and almost no visitors. Outbound link checks remove 8 more.

You are left with 12: HR and people-ops blogs, two regional business titles, a payroll publication and a few SaaS sites. You score them, start with the top six, and plan one original article for each, linking to your payroll and onboarding pages.

The portal is that shortlist, done in advance. Every publisher in the catalogue has been checked for topical fit, real traffic and editorial quality, and every row shows DA, DR, turnaround and price. You filter by niche and pick the sites that fit your pages.

Our 9,000+ placements, earned articles and newswire releases combined, span 1,800+ publisher domains. By authority they break down as DA 90+ 18%, DA 70–89 34%, DA 50–69 31% and DA 30–49 17%. That breadth lets you choose by relevance first and authority second, instead of taking whatever is available. If you want help choosing, send us your niche and target pages and we will shortlist the sites worth being on.