Atom.com Case Study: 290 Links, 289 Still Live

Atom.com is one of the largest brandable domain marketplaces in the world. The brief was narrow: build links, nothing else, to a standard that would survive on a domain already sitting at DR 86. Fifteen months later the program is still running.

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290 placements15 months, May 2025 to today DR 68.3Average referring domain rating 289 of 290Still live, checked 24 August 2026

What fifteen months of editorial link building actually produced.

A link-building-only scope, so these are link numbers: quality, durability, and the page-level authority they moved.

Step 1

Quality

The floor held for the whole program, not just the first quarter.

DR 68.3Average referring domain ratingOne placement fell below DR 50

10,000Median referring traffic a month27.6% of sites above 25,000

Step 2

Durability

The number nobody publishes, because it is the one you cannot argue with.

289 of 290Placements still liveChecked 24 August 2026

287Unique referring domainsThree domains reused, different articles

Step 3

Authority moved

Page-level rating on the two money pages, in the clean attributable window.

UR 17 to 21/domain-name-generatorJune to September 2025

UR 24 to 26/premium-domains-for-saleJune to September 2025

All figures from the monthly placement record or from Ahrefs on 24 August 2026. Atom reviewed and approved this case study before publication. All case studies

Link building only. No content, no technical work, no strategy retainer.

A narrow scope defines what this page can and cannot claim.

Client: Atom.com
Domain: atom.com
Sector: Brandable domain and naming marketplace
Scope: Editorial placements only
Period: May 2025 to today

Atom has its own marketing team, its own content operation and its own product roadmap. We were hired for one workstream, and this case study reports on that workstream.

An agency that takes a narrow scope and then claims credit for a client's whole growth curve is doing something we would flag in a competitor.

A marketplace where a handful of pages carry the business.

Free naming tools attract people who are naming something. Some of them buy a domain.

01HomepageCommercial

02Domain generatorTool

03Business namesTool

04Logo makerTool

05Premium domainsCommercial

06RegisterConversion

That model puts unusual weight on a small number of pages. Those pages needed authority, earned in a way that would not create a problem later on a domain with a fourteen-year history and tens of thousands of referring domains.

290 placements, and the shape of them.

Quality first, because durability follows from it.

290Placements in 15 months

287Unique referring domains

289 of 290Still live on 24 August 2026

4.6 wordsAverage anchor length

1026

Jun 2025Links placed each monthAug 2026

2013782501

80+70–7960–6950–59<50

All 290, by DR of the linking site

24566811626

100,000+25k–100k10k–25k3k–10kBelow 3,000

All 290, by monthly traffic of the linking site

Anchors

206 of 290in the 3 to 5 word band
8%branded
2%short exact-match commercial
4 timesthe most any single anchor repeats

Where the links actually landed.

Twelve of the twenty published rows, with the page each link points at.

Highest-rated placements

SiteDRTraffic a monthTarget page

cloudways.com92115,000Homepage

opencart.com9233,200Logo maker

flipsnack.com91184,000Homepage

thimpress.com896,000Homepage

woostify.com885,300Homepage

cyberpanel.net8540,000Premium domains

pixpa.com8439,000Homepage

d-themes.com846,900Domain generator

referralcandy.com8319,000Logo maker

larksuite.com82146,500Homepage

surveysparrow.com8181,000Domain generator

veed.io803,000,000Homepage

Twelve of the twenty rows published on this case study. Ask for the full list on a call.

Five checks before we pitch a site.

Every one is done by a person. Four of the five cannot be done by a tool.

Check 01Real organic traffic

Not a traffic number, a traffic source. A site pulling volume from unrelated queries is a site built to sell links.

Who reads the linking siteReal rows

Linking siteDomain ratingVisits a month

veed.ioDR 803,000,000

flipsnack.comDR 91184,000

larksuite.comDR 82146,500

cloudways.comDR 92115,000

surveysparrow.comDR 8181,000

Rows from the placement table above.

Ahrefs organic traffic, by country and by query. We open the top pages and read what they rank for.

One link in 290 dropped.

Which is the number that separates earned placements from bought ones.

99.7%Still live after fifteen months

1Placement below DR 50, across the whole program

3Domains reused, each with a different article

27.6%Of sites above 25,000 visits a month

Want a link program that survives an audit?We send the ledger every month, with the rating, the anchor and the page each link points at.

Want your own record to look like this?

Tell us the pages that need authority. You get a scoped range, the screening standard in writing, and the first ninety days.

Or email Rizwan