Evaluate the page in context
Read the page as a potential customer would. Does the link support a claim, identify a product, or help someone continue their research? A link is easier to justify when it performs one of those jobs.
We would not rank opportunities solely by the authority score in an export. A metric describes part of a tool's view of a site; it cannot tell you why your business belongs in an article.
Questions worth asking
- Does the article cover a problem your product solves?
- Is the surrounding content coherent and maintained?
- Can the writer make an independent decision about inclusion?
- Is the linked page useful for the promise made by the anchor text?
- Is any paid relationship disclosed and the link qualified appropriately?
These questions do not produce a secret ranking formula. They help you avoid spending time on placements with no defensible reader benefit.
An example of a better choice
Imagine a specialist guide for freelance designers and a general website offering unrelated paid links. If your product is a client approval tool, the design guide has a plausible reason to cover it. The other site needs a contrived reason.
That is an editorial judgment, not a prediction of how many positions a particular link will move you.
Judge the campaign, not one metric
Review relevant coverage, interested referral visitors, and purchases. Monitor search performance over time, while recording other changes that could affect it.
A link with a nofollow attribute may still send useful visitors. An unqualified link is not automatically valuable. Attribute checks describe how a link is marked; they do not settle the business case for a placement.