How do I tell if competitor's links are good?

[Chris661]

One strategy I have seen recommended over and over is to look at your competitor's back links and see if any could be relevant for your site and worth pursuing. My question is how do I evaluate a link and not end up pursuing some penalized site? I would guess checking for Google index is a good idea since some of the webmasters may not be aware they are penalized.

Is it DA and whether they are indexed alone? Many sites I have seen have DA in the teens but are legitimate in our industry. Should they not be considered due to low DA?

Also I see links from directories on many competitor sites. Seems a controversial subject, but assuming the directory is industry specific, is it OK?

Thanks in advance!

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Index status, Pagerank, DA, Moz Trust, Social Engagement, Alexa, etc. There are tons of possible variables but the standard for a "good" site would vary by industry. Honestly, you are better off manually looking through all of the links and determining whether a site is 1) indexed in google 2) not filled with spam 3) related to your website (that goes for directories and low DA sites as well)

Rule of thumb: if you think it might be a bad link, it probably is.