Trust Flow and Citation Flow are two indicators from 0 to 100 that the Majestic SEO tool calculates for every website: Citation Flow measures raw popularity (total number of links, strength), Trust Flow the quality of links coming from reliable sites. In SEO, the trust flow citation flow pair is used to assess a site before buying a backlink on it.
Trust Flow, Citation Flow and ratio: reading a site on Majestic
- Citation Flow (CF)
- The volume of inbound links and referring domains pointing to a site, with no judgement on their origin.
- Trust Flow (TF)
- The authority passed on by links that trace back to trusted seed sites, a kind of domain authority specific to Majestic's backlink checker.
- TF/CF ratio
- Close to 1, the link profile is healthy for link building; a low trust flow against a high citation flow signals low quality links that Google ignores.
What is Majestic Trust Flow?
Trust Flow is a quality indicator that Majestic assigns to every URL, every subdomain and every root domain in its index. Its calculation starts from a list of reference sites, hand-picked by Majestic's teams for their reliability: major media outlets, universities, institutions, serious editorial directories. These starting sites, the seed sites, act as the benchmark for the whole calculation, and the Link Hunter blog on link building often comes back to their role. The fewer clicks a site sits from these sources, the higher its Trust Flow. A direct link from a reference site carries a lot of weight; a link received from a site that itself received a link from a reliable source carries less, and so on.
The score runs from 0 to 100 and follows a logarithmic scale: going from 10 to 20 takes far less effort than going from 50 to 60. A high trust flow, above 40 or 50, is reserved for national media, government sites or heavily cited brands. The vast majority of blogs and SME websites sit between 5 and 30.
A low trust flow does not condemn a site, however. A young site in a narrow niche can show a TF of 8 with perfectly clean links: it simply has not yet been cited by sources close to the trusted core. The score describes a distance, not a penalty.
How Majestic measures Citation Flow
Citation Flow measures the quantity and raw strength of the links pointing to a site, without looking at where they come from. Majestic in a sense adds up the "pressure" of inbound links: their total number, the number of referring domains, and the strength of the pages that send them. A site that receives thousands of links from pages that are themselves heavily linked gets a high Citation Flow, whether those pages are reliable or not.
The citation flow score therefore reacts quickly to volume. An automated link campaign, a network of blog comments or thousands of footer links are enough to push it up. This is precisely why Majestic paired it with Trust Flow: on its own, a high citation flow says nothing about the value of the sources.
In the interface, Site Explorer displays both metrics at the top of each report, followed by the number of referring domains, the list of link sources and the dominant topics. The Bulk Backlink Checker accepts a list of domains and returns their TF and CF side by side: a digital marketing agency uses it to assess a hundred candidate sites in one go. This batch check saves valuable time, but every tool of this kind only sorts: it does not replace visiting the site.
Conversely, a low citation flow on an old, active site often reveals a lack of reputation: few sites talk about it, few pages cite it. For a publisher selling links, this is a drawback, because the strength passed on by a backlink also depends on the strength received by the page that carries it.
Trust Flow and Citation Flow: what is the difference in practice?
The difference between Trust Flow and Citation Flow lies in the question asked: Citation Flow asks "how many links, and how strong?", Trust Flow asks "do these links come from trusted sites?". The two metrics share the same 0 to 100 scale and the same index, which makes it possible to compare them directly on a chart.
| Criterion | Citation Flow | Trust Flow |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Quantity and strength of links | Proximity to reference sites |
| Reaction to a wave of links | Rises quickly | Moves little if the sources are weak |
| Ease of manipulation | High | Lower, though not zero |
| Use in link building | Gauging raw reputation | Gauging the quality of the quality links received |
A site can thus show CF 45 and TF 12: lots of links, little trust. Another will show CF 20 and TF 18: fewer links, but almost all from solid sources. For placing a backlink, the second is generally the better choice, because Google also weights the quality of sources rather than their number.
The TF/CF ratio for spotting a dubious link profile
The ratio between Trust Flow and Citation Flow is calculated by dividing the first by the second. A result close to 1, for example TF 22 for CF 25, indicates a balanced link profile: trust follows volume. Between 0.5 and 0.8, the profile remains common for a commercial site that has acquired links of varying quality.
Below 0.5, caution is called for. A Citation Flow of 40 for a Trust Flow of 5 most often betrays a mass of low quality links: automated directories, content farms, comments, forum profiles. Such a backlink profile can also reflect a former network of sites or an expired domain bought back for its residual strength.
A Trust Flow higher than the Citation Flow is rarer and rather a good sign: the site receives few links, but from sources very close to the trusted core. It is found on the sites of associations, laboratories or small institutions cited by public bodies. The ratio remains a first-pass filter, never a verdict: it helps decide which sites deserve a closer analysis before choosing a site for a backlink, and which to rule out straight away. A strong imbalance between the two scores is a warning indicator, nothing more.
Topical Trust Flow: trust sorted by theme
Topical Trust Flow breaks a site's Trust Flow down into thematic categories, inherited from a directory-style taxonomy ("Recreation/Food", "Business/Marketing", "Home/Gardening"...). Majestic assigns a theme to each reference site, then propagates thematic trust by following the links. A site thus gets a TTF per theme, the first theme displayed being the one that carries the most weight.
For a link building campaign, this reading matters as much as the overall score. A cooking site whose first theme is "Recreation/Food" is consistent with its content; if it shows "Gambling" or "Adult" at the top, its past deserves a closer look: previous owner, off-topic purchased links, hacked pages. A backlink on such a site would send Google a muddled thematic signal.
Topical trust flow also helps spot disguised general-interest sites. A blog that presents itself as specialising in finance but whose dominant themes are "Shopping", "Health" and "Arts" probably publishes paid articles on every subject. Its value for a thematic link in finance is low, even with a decent TF.
Fresh Index and Historic Index: two readings of the same site
Majestic offers two indexes, and the scores change from one to the other. The Fresh Index only keeps links seen during the crawls of the last few months: it describes a site's current profile. The Historic Index keeps years of data, including links that disappeared long ago.
Comparing the two is an underused angle. A site showing TF 35 in the Historic Index and TF 9 in the Fresh Index has lost most of its trusted links: an expired domain relaunched, a site left abandoned, a redesign that broke the URLs. Conversely, a Fresh Index close to the Historic Index describes a stable site that keeps its sources.
To assess a site where you want to publish an article, the Fresh Index is the reference: it reflects the links that still pass something on today. The Historic Index serves as background investigation, to understand where a site comes from and spot a past that the Fresh Index no longer shows.
What these scores do not measure
Trust Flow and Citation Flow are proprietary Majestic metrics, calculated on its own index: Google does not use them and does not know them. They are approximations, useful because they rely on a massive crawl of the web, but they replace neither the internal PageRank of search engines nor their anti-spam filters.
They can be manipulated. A few links from high-TF sites are enough to inflate a small site's Trust Flow, and some domain sellers know it. They also ignore organic traffic, the actual indexing of pages and editorial quality, all criteria that Google looks at closely. A TF 30 site whose pages are no longer indexed brings nothing. An authority score, whatever the tool, remains a complement to judgement, not a substitute.
Other tools offer their own scores (Domain Authority at Moz, Domain Rating at Ahrefs, Authority Score at Semrush), built on other indexes and other formulas. None of them is "the right one": cross-checking two sources limits blind spots. For your own site, Search Console remains the only direct view of the links that Google has actually discovered.
How to raise a Trust Flow without inflating it
Raising a Trust Flow durably comes down to obtaining links from sites that are themselves close to the trusted sources. Good practice comes down to a few steps:
- target thematic websites whose Topical Trust Flow matches your sector;
- favour links in the body of an article, surrounded by text on the same subject;
- obtain citations from media, professional associations or public bodies, even if only a few;
- look after press relations and partnerships, which produce links coming from high-trust sites;
- space out acquisitions and vary anchors, to keep a natural link profile.
Links from social media, forums or comments raise Citation Flow while barely touching Trust Flow. They are not useless for visibility, but they do not serve this goal. Pace matters too: a sudden wave of links draws attention, hence the value of a steady link acquisition pace rather than a campaign concentrated over a few days.
Before contacting a publisher, a backlink checker such as Majestic's shows in a few seconds its TF, its CF, its dominant themes and its referring domains. Once the link is published, it still has to be monitored over time: presence, attribute, indexing, as set out in the checks on a backlink after purchase.
Reading the scores of two gardening sites
Take two gardening sites offered at the same price for an article with a link. The first shows TF 22 and CF 25, with "Home/Gardening" as its first theme: a healthy profile, links from sources in the same field, a ratio close to 1. The second shows TF 8 and CF 38, with "Business" as its first theme: lots of links, little trust, and a theme that does not match the content.
The first site is the right choice, even though its Citation Flow is lower. The second deserves a check in the Historic Index: such a gap often comes from a previous use of the domain or from massive link purchases. Both sites must then pass the other filters: traffic, indexing, care taken over articles and consistency with the client's SEO strategy.
Minimum Trust Flow, recalculation and access to Majestic metrics
What minimum Trust Flow should you aim for with a backlink?
There is no universal Trust Flow threshold. In a narrow niche, a TF of 10 consistent with the theme may be enough; in a competitive sector such as finance or insurance, it is better to aim for 20 and above, with a TF/CF ratio above 0.5.
Do Majestic scores change quickly?
Majestic scores are recalculated continuously as the crawl progresses. A sudden drop in Trust Flow often reflects the loss of a few strong links, a sudden rise in Citation Flow a wave of recent links.
Can you check Trust Flow for free?
Majestic shows a free preview of a domain's scores after registration, and browser extensions display the TF and CF of the page being visited. Detailed analyses, history and link exports require a paid subscription.