Every team that builds links judges the same publishers again and again. One colleague checked a domain for a client last quarter and found it too thin. Another proposes it this month for a different client, because nobody wrote the first conclusion down in a place where the second person would look.
The work is done twice, and the second answer is not always the same as the first.
One record per publisher
The fix is one database with one record per publisher, shared across all clients. What you learn about a domain is stored with the domain, not with the client you happened to be working on. The next time it comes up, the judgement is already there.
That same record is what makes the duplicate check possible. You can only see that a domain was already used for a client when every placement points to the same publisher record.
What comes from data
Part of the judgement is measurable and should not be typed in by hand:
- Authority metrics and traffic. These come from Ahrefs, so they are the same for everyone and stay up to date.
- Country. Whether the traffic comes from the market you are building for.
- Outbound links. How freely the site links out.
- Indexation. Whether placements on the domain are actually indexed.
- AI citation data. Whether the domain is used as a source in AI answers, described in what AI citation data tells you about a publisher.
The database also keeps a score per publisher, and the publisher metrics are one of the things the quality gates check on every placement.
What stays a human call
Topic relevance is not in that list on purpose. Whether a site fits a client is a judgement that numbers do not make well: a strong domain about the wrong subject is a weak link. So relevance stays with a person, and the metrics do the part they are good at.
Beyond the publishers you already know
Your own database only holds the publishers you have worked with. For a new market or a new niche, that is not enough. The Marketplace opens up the publishers from the ECHION network: you filter on source, category and metrics and add a placement to your pipeline. Ordering from the Marketplace yourself is part of Self-serve.
A placement that starts in the Marketplace is not a shortcut. It goes through the same pipeline, the same gates and the same manager approval as any other.
How it looks in ECHION
The Publisher Database lists every publisher with its market, metrics, outbound links, indexation and score. The Marketplace, shown below, is the search across the network, with filters for the common metrics.
Both are modules of the platform. Site owners who want to be listed can read for publishers.
More in the knowledge base, or see how the platform puts this into practice.