Reach: understand and interpret this metric to assess a site’s audience

When you analyse a website, and more specifically when you want to assess the quality of a placement for a link-building campaign, several indicators come up again and again: estimated SEO traffic, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, number of referring domains, domain authority or Topical Trust Flow.

These metrics are extremely useful, but they share one limitation: they do not always tell you whether the site is actually visited by real users.

That is precisely where Reach becomes interesting.

MisterGoodLink has just added this metric to its placement analysis data, to provide an extra signal when assessing the sites listed on the platform.

Reach is an indicator that helps you gauge a site’s reach or popularity from data in Google’s Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).

Unlike a traffic estimate built from a site’s SEO rankings, the underlying signal comes from real Chrome users’ experiences and navigations that meet Google’s eligibility criteria.

It should not, however, be read as a visitor counter.

A Reach of 80 does not mean a site gets 80,000 visits a month, any more than a Reach of 40 means it gets half as much traffic.

So what is Reach? How is it calculated? What does CrUX tell us? And above all, how do you use this data to assess a site or choose a backlink?

In this article:

What is Reach?

The word reach can be translated as scope or popularity.

In the context that matters here, it is a metric that places a site’s popularity relative to the other sites being observed.

Reach is offered in particular by NicheObserver, a project led by Kevin Richard, who also created SEObserver. Introduced publicly in September 2026, Reach aims to make popularity data from CrUX easier to read and use when comparing sites. NicheObserver provides a Domain Reach in particular, expressed on a scale from 0 to 100.

Its purpose is not to give a precise monthly visitor count, but to answer a different question quickly:

How much weight does this site appear to have in the web traffic actually observed by Chrome?

To do that, NicheObserver draws on the public Chrome User Experience Report dataset, more commonly known as CrUX.

With CrUX, Google collects data from eligible Chrome users, notably to study the real experience of people browsing the web.

CrUX is best known in SEO through the Core Web Vitals and PageSpeed Insights.

But the dataset also contains a much less familiar signal: a popularity level for origins, based on the total number of navigations recorded for them.

That is the information that makes CrUX especially useful for analysing a site’s reach.

Reach is not a traffic estimate

This is probably the most important point to understand.

Reach does not indicate:

• the number of unique visitors;
• the number of sessions;
• the number of page views;
• monthly SEO traffic;
• a site’s revenue;
• or an exact position in a worldwide ranking.

Google does not publish the exact number of navigations recorded for each domain.

Instead, CrUX assigns each origin a popularity magnitude.

CrUX popularity magnitude	Interpretation
Top 1,000	Among the 1,000 most visited origins in the dataset
Top 5,000	Among the 5,000 most visited origins
Top 10,000	Among the 10,000 most visited origins
Top 50,000	Among the 50,000 most visited origins
Top 100,000	Among the 100,000 most visited origins
Top 500,000	Among the 500,000 most visited origins
Top 1 million	Among the million most visited origins
Top 5 million	Among the 5 million most visited origins
Top 10 million	Among the 10 million most visited origins
Top 50 million	Among the 50 million most visited origins
Top 100 million	Among the 100 million most visited origins

A magnitude of 10,000 therefore means the origin belongs to the 10,000 most visited origins according to this signal. These magnitudes follow a logarithmic scale. Presenting them as exclusive bands — Top 1K, 1K to 5K, 5K to 10K, and so on — is mainly a practical way to read and compare them. The highest documented magnitude can also change as the dataset grows.

Being in the Top 10,000 therefore does not mean being the 8,432nd most visited site in the world.

It means the origin belongs to that popularity magnitude.

How NicheObserver turns this data into Reach

CrUX buckets are useful for data analysts, but they are awkward when you want to compare several domains quickly.

NicheObserver therefore converts them into a more readable scale.

Direct Reach	Associated CrUX bucket
100	Top 1K
90	Top 5K
80	Top 10K
70	Top 50K
60	Top 100K
50	Top 500K
40	Top 1M
30	Top 5M
20	Top 10M
10	Top 50M

This mapping stops at the Top 50M: the Top 100 million tier documented by CrUX has no equivalent on the Reach scale above.

NicheObserver does, however, distinguish several pieces of information.

The reach_score is the direct anchor taken from the domain’s best origin.

The adjusted_reach_score is the main signal used for Domain Reach and can refine that value at domain level.

That is why you may see a score such as 83.25 rather than only multiples of ten.

Domain and origin: an important difference

To understand CrUX properly, you also need to understand the idea of an origin.

In everyday language, we usually think at domain level:

example.com

For CrUX, though, different parts of the same site can be different origins.

For example:

• https://example.com
• https://www.example.com
• https://app.example.com
• https://blog.example.com
• https://docs.example.com

can represent different surfaces.

Technically, an origin is defined by the combination of protocol, host and port.

NicheObserver then aggregates this information to provide a more practical view at domain level.

That approach can reveal something especially interesting.

A domain may look relatively quiet on its editorial side, while an application or service on a subdomain is extremely heavily used.

Conversely, a domain may still have strong historical recognition while the parts of the site that are actually active receive far fewer visits.

What exactly is CrUX?

CrUX stands for Chrome User Experience Report.

It is a public Google dataset containing real user-experience data from Chrome.

It is used in particular to measure sites’ real-world performance and their Core Web Vitals.

You will find data there related to, for example:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP);
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP);
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS);
• Time to First Byte (TTFB).

The distinctive feature of CrUX is that it does not rely solely on tests run artificially from a server.

It is based on real browsing experiences from eligible Chrome users.

That is generally known as field data.

Which users are included in CrUX?

CrUX does not, however, represent every internet user in the world.

Google applies several criteria before a user experience can contribute to the dataset.

Supported platforms include Chrome on desktop and Chrome on Android, among others.

Some sources do not contribute to the dataset, including:

• Chrome on iOS;
• Android WebViews;
• other Chromium browsers such as Microsoft Edge.

Google does not publish the exact share of Chrome users who meet all of the criteria.

It would therefore be wrong to treat CrUX as a complete picture of all internet traffic.

Do all sites appear in CrUX?

No.

That is one of the things that make the signal interesting.

For an origin to be represented in CrUX, it must in particular be:

1. publicly discoverable;
2. sufficiently popular.

Google states that a minimum number of visitors is required for a page or an origin to be included in the data.

The exact threshold is deliberately not disclosed, in particular so that the sample remains statistically robust while user data stays protected.

A domain’s presence in CrUX is therefore already information in itself:

Google has enough data from eligible Chrome users for this origin to be represented in the dataset.

Does a Reach of 0 mean the site has no traffic?

No.

This is a misreading to avoid at all costs.

On NicheObserver, a score of 0 essentially means that the resource was not observed in the snapshot in question.

Several reasons can explain that absence:

• not enough traffic to reach the CrUX threshold;
• an audience that mainly uses other browsers;
• recent changes to the site;
• an eligibility issue;
• a change of structure or origin;
• a recent site;
• insufficient data for the period in question.

You therefore need to distinguish:

“CrUX does not observe this site enough”

from:

“this site has no visitors”.

Those are two completely different statements.

How should you interpret a Reach score in practice?

It is better to treat Reach as a relative popularity scale.

The higher the score, the higher the category the domain belongs to in Chrome navigation data.

Reach 80 to 100: a very strong presence in CrUX

These are the highest categories in the dataset.

These scores generally correspond to services, media, tools, platforms or sites with a very large web presence.

For a link-building campaign, coming across such a domain is obviously noteworthy.

It does not, however, automatically mean the backlink will be excellent.

A site can be huge and still be completely unrelated to your topic.

Reach 60 to 70: a strong presence in CrUX data

The site already has a considerable presence in CrUX data.

For many markets, this level already corresponds to a particularly high presence in CrUX.

Reach 40 to 50: a significant presence in CrUX

This is a very interesting range for link building.

A Reach of 40 corresponds to the bucket around the Top 1 million, and a Reach of 50 to the bucket around the Top 500,000, in NicheObserver’s direct signal.

For a niche site, a specialist publication or an editorial blog, this can be a particularly relevant signal.

Reach 20 to 30: presence in the CrUX long tail

These domains belong to broader magnitudes, but they are still represented enough in CrUX to appear there.

For link building, they should not be discarded automatically.

A small site that is perfectly aligned with your topic can be worth far more than a large generalist domain with no connection to your activity.

Reach 10: presence detected in CrUX

The site belongs to the long tail of the dataset, but it still has enough eligible activity to be represented there.

That is already useful information.

Reach 0: not observed

This does not allow you to conclude that there is no traffic.

You will need to rely more on the other signals available.

Why Reach is especially useful in link building

When you buy a backlink, one question always comes back:

Does the site you are about to publish on actually have a real audience and real activity?

Traditional SEO metrics give part of the answer.

You can look at:

• its estimated SEO traffic;
• its Trust Flow;
• its Citation Flow;
• its number of referring domains;
• its backlink profile;
• its Google visibility;
• its history;
• the quality of its content;
• its publishing frequency.

Reach adds extra information of a different kind:

it helps you look for a trace of real usage in data coming from Chrome.

That is especially useful because two sites with relatively similar SEO metrics can have very different Reach profiles.

Reach and SEO traffic: two different pieces of information

Take two fictional sites.

Site A

• estimated SEO traffic: 50,000 visits/month;
• Trust Flow: 25;
• referring domains: 1,500;
• Reach: 0.

Site B

• estimated SEO traffic: 20,000 visits/month;
• Trust Flow: 20;
• referring domains: 900;
• Reach: 40.

At first glance, Site A looks stronger.

But the Reach figure introduces a new element into the analysis.

Site B has a large enough presence in Chrome experiences to appear in a relatively high category of the dataset.

For Site A, that confirmation is not available.

That does not automatically mean Site A is poor or that its traffic estimate is wrong.

It does, however, justify looking further.

That is precisely the value of Reach: to surface inconsistencies or confirm other indicators.

High Reach + high SEO traffic

This is generally the most reassuring scenario.

The different families of data tell a consistent story:

• strong organic visibility;
• substantial estimated SEO traffic;
• a strong presence in Chrome data.

That obviously does not remove the need to analyse the topic, the link profile or editorial quality.

But consistent signals are a positive sign.

High Reach + low SEO traffic

This is a particularly interesting case.

It can indicate that the site has an audience coming from sources other than Google:

• direct traffic;
• a well-known brand;
• a web application;
• a community;
• social networks;
• a newsletter;
• referral traffic;
• regular users.

A SaaS tool or a platform, for example, can receive a great many visits on app.example.com without having proportional SEO visibility.

For an SEO specialist used to looking only at organic traffic estimates, Reach can therefore reveal undervalued sites.

Low Reach + high SEO traffic

This situation deserves closer analysis.

It can be perfectly legitimate.

SEO estimates do not measure the same thing as CrUX and can be influenced by the keywords detected, their search volumes and the statistical models used by the various tools.

The user profile can also explain part of the difference.

But a very large gap between several sources is a good reason to examine the domain more closely.

Why Reach should not replace other SEO metrics

It would be tempting to use Reach as a new absolute score for ranking every site.

That would be a mistake.

No single metric can determine the quality of a backlink.

A site with a very high Reach can:

• be off topic;
• contain a great many sponsored links;
• have low editorial quality;
• publish on every imaginable subject;
• have a page that will quickly be buried in its architecture.

Conversely, a small, highly specialised site can be extremely interesting for an SEO campaign.

Reach should therefore be used as an extra qualification layer.

Reach, DR, DA, Trust Flow: what are the differences?

These indicators are not trying to measure the same thing.

Domain Rating / Domain Authority

They mainly try to represent the strength or authority of a domain from its link profile.

They are therefore closely tied to the backlink graph.

Trust Flow

Majestic’s Trust Flow tries to estimate how close a site is to a set of sites considered reliable in the link graph.

Estimated SEO traffic

It tries to approximate the visits a domain may receive thanks to its search-engine rankings.

Reach

Reach, for its part, is based on a signal from Chrome browsing experiences observed in CrUX.

These different families of indicators can therefore complement one another.

An interesting domain should ideally show several consistent signals rather than a spectacular score on a single tool.

Why it is worth looking at Reach history

A snapshot at a given moment is useful.

A trend over several months is even more so.

NicheObserver lets you follow Domain Reach history.

You can then distinguish several profiles.

Stable Reach

A regular presence over several months is generally a reassuring signal.

The site appears to have an audience consistent enough to stay in the same CrUX band.

Rising Reach

A gradual increase can point to a site or service that is growing.

For a backlink buyer, identifying a growing web property before it becomes especially expensive can be valuable.

Falling Reach

An isolated drop should not automatically trigger an alert.

Variations can come both from changes in visitor activity and from changes in CrUX coverage.

A persistent downward trend over many months, however, is worth crossing with:

• the evolution of SEO traffic;
• the keyword curve;
• publishing frequency;
• indexation;
• the backlink profile;
• any site migrations.

CrUX is updated regularly

Google makes CrUX available through several products.

The data accessible through some interfaces corresponds in particular to rolling periods, while the BigQuery dataset is published on a regular schedule.

NicheObserver, for its part, builds snapshots from CrUX data and indicates the period used.

It is therefore important always to look at the period of the data when two values are compared.

Can you know the number of visitors from Reach?

No.

And you should be wary of any simplistic conversion of this kind:

Reach 40 = X thousand monthly visitors.

The public data does not allow that level of precision.

Google does not publish the exact volumes associated with popularity buckets.

The signal indicates a relative position in large categories, not a precise numerical audience.

You can therefore say:

“this domain belongs to a much higher popularity category than this other domain”

but not:

“this domain receives exactly 243,000 visitors a month thanks to CrUX”.

Does Reach make it possible to detect fake sites?

Not directly.

No metric on its own can identify every artificial site or every site created solely to sell links.

Reach can, however, become an excellent verification signal.

Imagine a domain that shows:

• very high authority metrics;
• thousands of referring domains;
• a strong SEO estimate;
• but no CrUX presence over a long period.

That is not proof of manipulation.

But it is an inconsistency interesting enough to push the analysis further.

Conversely, a site that appears regularly in CrUX provides extra evidence that a sufficient volume of eligible Chrome experiences is in fact associated with its origin.

How to use Reach to choose backlinks

On MisterGoodLink, we recommend never choosing a placement from a single metric.

A sound analysis can follow several steps.

1. Check topical relevance

A link placed on a site consistent with your activity is generally preferable to a link obtained only for its metrics.

Look in particular at Topical Trust Flow, the site’s categories and its recent content.

2. Analyse SEO visibility

Examine estimated organic traffic and how it is evolving.

A site that genuinely has pages ranking on Google is generally more interesting than a domain whose metrics rest only on a backlink history.

3. Check Reach

Reach then adds a new layer of reading.

Ask yourself in particular:

• does the domain appear in CrUX?
• at what level?
• for how long?
• is its trend stable, positive or negative?

4. Examine the link profile

Analyse Trust Flow, Citation Flow, referring domains and the overall quality of the backlinks.

5. Examine the site manually

Metrics never replace an actual visit.

Look at:

• the quality of recent articles;
• publishing frequency;
• the authors;
• editorial consistency;
• the number of sponsored pieces;
• the categories;
• page indexation;
• how deep the articles sit in the architecture.

6. Compare the price with the potential

A site with slightly lower metrics but an excellent quality/price ratio can be a better opportunity than a prestigious domain sold at a much higher price.

Example analysis of three placements

Imagine three sites available for a campaign.

Criterion	Site A	Site B	Site C
Estimated SEO traffic	80,000	25,000	12,000
Trust Flow	30	24	18
Reach	0	40	30
Topic	Average	Excellent	Excellent
Price	500 €	180 €	90 €

If you look only at SEO traffic and Trust Flow, Site A seems to win the comparison easily.

Once you add Reach and topical relevance, the choice becomes less obvious.

Site B combines:

• good SEO visibility;
• a highly relevant topic;
• real presence detected in CrUX;
• a much more reasonable cost.

Site C can also be an excellent opportunity to diversify the campaign.

This is exactly the kind of decision where Reach comes into its own.

It does not make the choice for you, but it improves the quality of the analysis.

The limits of Reach you should know

Like all SEO and marketing data, Reach has limits.

It does not cover every internet user

CrUX is based on a specific population of eligible Chrome users.

It therefore does not represent all internet users.

It does not give unique visitors

A navigation and a unique visitor are two different things.

Reach should therefore not be presented as a unique-visitor measure.

It does not give a precise number of visits

Popularity buckets are deliberately broad.

Absence is not the same as zero traffic

A domain can receive visits while still failing to meet the criteria needed to appear in CrUX.

Subdomains can change the interpretation

A large share of a domain’s activity can take place on a specific origin.

A monthly change is not necessarily a proportional change in traffic

The site can move from one band to another for various reasons.

It is therefore better to look at trends over several months.

Reach or traffic: which should you look at first?

The right answer is: both.

Estimated SEO traffic answers the question:

What visibility does this site appear to have in search engines?

Reach is closer to:

What presence does this domain have in the Chrome navigations observed by CrUX?

The two data points can tell the same story.

But their divergences are sometimes even more interesting than their similarities.

Is Reach a new SEO metric?

Not in the strict sense.

CrUX was not created to measure sites’ SEO authority, and Reach is not a known Google ranking factor.

You should therefore never say:

“A site with a high Reach passes more PageRank.”

We have no way of knowing that.

Reach is first and foremost a metric for analysing audience and relative popularity.

Its value for SEO comes from the fact that it helps you qualify the site on which you are considering obtaining a link more carefully.

That is an important distinction.

What Reach changes in site analysis

For a long time, SEO specialists mainly assessed domains from two large families of data:

1. their backlinks;
2. their visibility in Google.

CrUX indirectly adds a third family that is especially useful:

3. observed presence in the navigations of real Chrome users.

It does not replace either of the first two.

It complements them.

And that independence is precisely what makes it valuable.

Should you only favour sites with a high Reach?

No.

That would even run against a natural, diversified link-building strategy.

A good link profile can include:

• large media sites;
• recognised sites in a niche;
• specialist blogs;
• regional sites;
• professional publications;
• more modest sites that are extremely relevant.

Reach should help you understand the site better, not automatically discard every domain below an arbitrary threshold.

A Reach of 20 or 30 on a highly specialised site can be far more interesting than a Reach of 70 on a domain with no connection to your sector.

So what is the right way to interpret Reach?

Keep five principles in mind.

1. A high Reach indicates a strong presence in Chrome data, but not a precise number of visitors.
2. A low Reach is not synonymous with a poor site.
3. A Reach of 0 means “not observed in the snapshot”, not “zero visitors”.
4. How Reach evolves over several months is often more informative than an isolated value.
5. In link building, Reach should always be crossed with topic, SEO traffic, link profile, site quality and price.

Conclusion: Reach, an extra signal for choosing backlinks more carefully

The main value of Reach is not to create yet another SEO score.

It is to provide a new perspective on a domain’s real activity.

By drawing on Google’s Chrome User Experience Report, it lets you observe a signal from real Chrome experiences and place sites in large popularity categories.

For link building, that information is especially useful.

It complements the indicators we already use: estimated organic traffic, Trust Flow, Citation Flow, referring domains, Topical Trust Flow and editorial quality.

A good backlink never comes down to a single number.

But the more independent, consistent signals we have, the more informed the decision can be.

Reach fits exactly that logic.

It does not replace traditional SEO metrics: it adds a new dimension to them.