What is links and authority in InstinctGTM?

Part 3 · Operate

Links and authority

Relevant sites that link to you, which channel earned each one, and what to chase next.

01What it is

Records every link the channels you already run produce, checks they are still there, and finds four more sources worth working. Relevance ranks above authority throughout.

02Why it exists

Four channels already produce links as a side effect nobody was recording. A directory listing, a community reply, a podcast appearance and a partner page all leave a live URL pointing at you, and without recording them you cannot say which channel earned the authority or what a link from each one costs in time.

The framing matters more than the mechanics here, because getting it wrong is expensive and slow to undo. Domain Rating is a third-party score, not a Google ranking factor. Optimising for the number leads people to buy links from irrelevant high-authority sites, which is the fastest route to a manual penalty and months of recovery.

What actually matters is relevant referring domains that send real traffic. A link from a niche community your buyers read is worth more than one from a general-interest site with a bigger score.

03How to use it

01Let the channels you already run record their links. Nothing to do.
02Run the sweep to find unlinked mentions, which convert better than anything cold.
03Work the deadline-bearing items on Today first. Speed decides those.
04Check the links occasionally and reclaim the ones that died.

04What good looks like

You give it: Somebody wrote about you by name and did not link.
You get: A three-sentence ask that quotes what they wrote and says exactly where the link would go.
Why: They already decided you were worth mentioning, which is the hard part. Asking for the link is a small favour from somebody who did you a bigger one.

Derived from the rules in the code

05What weak looks like, and what it costs

You give it: A draft that offers to share their post in return for a backlink.
You get: Refused before you see it.
Why: Offering anything in return for a link is against the guidelines that matter and is how sites collect a manual penalty. It is checked on the way out as well as being absent from every prompt.