How We Vet 1,000 Publishers a Month and Reject 91% of Them

Roughly 1,000 candidate domains hit our queue monthly — applications, broker lists, and proactive scouting. Human-verified intake: 91 screened out on first pass, about 90 pass automated screening into human review, and roughly 82 of those get declined there. Around 9 sites a month are accepted. That 9-per-1,000 rate is the single most-discussed metric in our quarterly planning: it seems too strict, and every time we loosen it, delivery quality measurably slides.

The eleven criteria aren't exotic. Thresholds are. 2,500+ monthly organic visitors (verified across two tools, not screenshots), 6-month upward or stable trend, indexed content published within 60 days, and outbound-to-buyer-niche concentration below 18% — that last one quietly ends most candidacies.

Stage one, metrics: traffic verification alone removes 40% of applications (proxy traffic, expired domains revived as content mills, 'screenshot authority'). Stage two, editorial: our team reads three recent articles from each pass-through. AI-slurry destroyed with the title; template-skeleton posts; markups of other publications' content without adding value — another 20-odd percent gone. Stage three, the killer: outbound neighborhood audit. Sites happily link out to essay services, CBD, crypto casinos, and resume mills at high anchor density get removed regardless of traffic numbers, because being in that neighborhood is exactly what your link will be judged by.

The human-part nobody can automate: editorial contact. We email the site owner or editor a real introduction. Responses reveal whether you're dealing with a publication or a shell. Sites that answer with only a rate card get one more chance through our publisher-relationship layer; broker-sites almost always fail that check in under a minute.

Intake is half the system. Every listed domain gets quarterly re-verification — traffic re-checked, outbound patterns re-audited, indexed status spot-checked — because inventory decays faster than most vendors will tell you. A good site sold twice can quietly turn into a rate-card listing in four months; roughly 4–8% of our listed inventory exits each quarter for exactly that reason, and buyers of those placements get proactive notification plus replacement offers.

This is the part of the marketplace nobody sees, and the reason our buyers' 12-month link survival sits above 96% while many marketplace norms hover nearer 60. Sellers often ask how to pass more of our intake. The honest answer: run a genuinely edited site with a real audience, and stop selling sixteen links a day.