Citation Flow is a link metric from Majestic that scores a URL or domain from 0 to 100 according to how much link influence flows to it. It reflects the quantity and strength of links without judging their trustworthiness, which is what its companion metric, Trust Flow, is for. The two are normally read together. Google does not use either.
What it measures
Citation Flow estimates how influential a URL might be based on how many sites link to it and how influential those sites are in turn. A site with many links from well-linked pages scores higher. Because it does not consider trust, link spam can raise it as easily as genuine links.
The Trust Flow to Citation Flow ratio
SEOs compare the two to spot imbalances. A high Citation Flow with a much lower Trust Flow suggests a site with plenty of links but few from trusted sources, a common profile for link farms and networks. When both scores are similar, the links are more likely to be a mix of numerous and reputable sources.
Majestic does not publish an official threshold for a healthy ratio. Treat any rule of thumb as a starting point for manual review.
Practical uses
Citation Flow is useful for quick comparisons and for filtering prospect lists inside Majestic. It is less useful on its own than paired with Trust Flow and a look at the linking sites.
Example
An imbalanced profile
Reviewing a competitor that ranks unexpectedly well, an illustrative analytics firm, Metricsorrel, finds the competitor's domain has a high Citation Flow and a low Trust Flow. Its backlinks are mostly from unrelated blogs with similar footers. The team decides not to copy the competitor's approach.
Common mistakes
Chasing Citation Flow on its own
It can be inflated by low-quality links. Pair it with Trust Flow and manual review.
Questions
That is common, since many normal links come from sites outside Majestic's trusted neighborhoods. A very large gap is worth investigating.
