Glossary
What is Trust Flow?
Trust Flow (TF) is Majestic's 0 to 100 score for how closely a site is linked to a set of trusted seed sites. Its partner metric, Citation Flow (CF), measures link volume regardless of quality. A site with much higher CF than TF has many links from untrusted sources, a common sign of spam.
How it works
Majestic starts from a hand-picked set of trusted sites and follows links outward. Sites closely linked from trusted sites get higher Trust Flow; those many hops away get less. Citation Flow ignores trust and reflects how much link power points at a site. Majestic also offers Topical Trust Flow, which breaks TF down by subject categories.
Reading the ratio
| Pattern | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| TF close to CF | Links from trusted, relevant places |
| CF much higher than TF | Many low-quality links |
| Both low | Few links of any kind |
The ratio is a heuristic, not a verdict. New sites with few links can show odd ratios.
Compared with other metrics
TF and CF use Majestic's own index, separate from Ahrefs, Moz and Semrush. They're less common in founder conversations than DR or DA, but useful as a second opinion on whether a directory's links are trustworthy.
Example
A directory selling "DA 50 dofollow links" shows CF 45 and TF 8 in Majestic. Most of its links come from unrelated, low-quality sites. That's a warning sign of a link farm.
FAQ
What is a good Trust Flow?
Relative to your niche. The TF to CF ratio matters more than the raw number.
Does Google use Trust Flow?
No. It's Majestic's metric.
What is Topical Trust Flow?
Trust Flow broken down by topic, showing what subjects a site's trusted links come from.