Two of the most actionable sections on the Dashboard are Needs Attention and Priority Cards. Together, they answer the two questions you should ask every time you log in: "What's broken or declining?" and "Where should I focus my effort?"
Needs Attention
The Needs Attention section surfaces websites and issues that require your immediate focus. Rather than forcing you to manually check every domain and project, LinkRocket monitors your portfolio and flags anything that looks like it needs a closer look.
What Triggers an Attention Alert
LinkRocket flags a website in the Needs Attention section when any of the following conditions are detected:
Trigger | What It Means |
|---|---|
Low health score | A Site Audit returned a poor overall health score, indicating significant technical SEO issues |
High spam score | The domain's backlink profile contains a concerning number of potentially spammy or toxic links |
Significant metric drops | Domain Rating, backlinks, referring domains, or estimated traffic dropped noticeably since the last analysis |
Stale data | The website hasn't been analyzed recently, so the data may be outdated and unreliable |
Each flagged item includes a brief description of why it was flagged, making it easy to understand the issue at a glance without having to investigate further before deciding if it's worth your time.
How to Act on Attention Alerts
When you see an item in the Needs Attention section:
Review the alert to understand what was flagged and why.
Click on the website or issue to navigate to the relevant detail view.
Take action based on what you find. This might mean running a fresh analysis, fixing technical issues identified in a site audit, or investigating a backlink profile for toxic links.
Tip: Treat the Needs Attention section like a to-do list. Make it a habit to clear or address every flagged item during your regular Dashboard check-in. Letting alerts accumulate defeats the purpose of the early warning system.
Common Attention Scenarios and Recommended Actions
"Low health score" alert on a website: Open the Site Audit for that domain and review the specific errors and warnings. Focus on high-impact issues first — crawlability errors, broken redirects, and indexation problems typically have the biggest effect on search performance.
"High spam score" alert: Run a backlink analysis on the flagged domain. Look for links from low-quality, irrelevant, or suspicious websites. Consider disavowing toxic backlinks through Google Search Console if the spam ratio is high.
"Significant metric drop" alert: Compare the current analysis to the previous one. Did the site lose referring domains? Did a major backlink disappear? Metric drops can also be caused by algorithm updates, so check whether the timing aligns with any known Google updates.
"Stale data" alert: Simply run a new analysis. This alert is a reminder that your data may no longer reflect reality. Regular refreshes keep your Dashboard accurate and your decisions well-informed.
Priority Cards
While the Needs Attention section focuses on problems, Priority Cards give you a broader view of how your entire portfolio is performing. They categorize your tracked websites into three groups:
Category | What It Means | Recommended Focus |
|---|---|---|
Top Performers | Your strongest websites — high authority, healthy metrics, and stable or growing performance | Maintain momentum. These sites are your portfolio's anchors. Protect their backlink profiles and continue building on their strengths. |
Growth Opportunities | Websites with solid foundations but room for improvement — moderate authority, decent but improvable metrics | Invest here for the best return. These sites are primed to respond well to additional link-building, content optimization, or technical fixes. |
At Risk | Websites showing signs of decline — dropping metrics, low authority, or unresolved issues | Prioritize investigation and remediation. Identify the root cause of decline before it worsens. |
How Priority Cards Are Determined
LinkRocket assigns each website to a category based on a combination of factors including Domain Rating, backlink growth trends, traffic estimates, site audit health scores, and spam scores. The classification updates automatically as you run new analyses and your data changes.
Using Priority Cards Strategically
Priority Cards aren't just informational — they're a planning tool. Here's how to use them:
For Top Performers: Don't neglect these sites just because they're doing well. Monitor them for any early signs of decline. Run periodic backlink analyses to ensure no high-value links have been lost, and keep their content fresh and updated.
For Growth Opportunities: These are your highest-ROI targets. Pick one or two Growth Opportunity sites each month and focus your link-building, content creation, and technical optimization efforts there. Small improvements on these sites often yield outsized results.
For At Risk sites: Investigate immediately. Check the Needs Attention section for specific alerts related to these domains. Run fresh site audits and backlink analyses to understand what's going wrong. Create a remediation plan and track progress over subsequent analyses.
Important: A website moving from "Growth Opportunities" to "At Risk" is a significant signal that shouldn't be ignored. Conversely, seeing a site graduate from "At Risk" to "Growth Opportunities" or "Top Performers" confirms that your optimization efforts are working.
Needs Attention vs. Priority Cards: How They Work Together
These two sections complement each other. Needs Attention tells you what's urgent — specific issues that need fixing now. Priority Cards tell you what's strategic — where to allocate your ongoing effort for the best results.
A practical daily workflow combines both:
Start with Needs Attention to handle any urgent issues or alerts.
Review Priority Cards to confirm your strategic focus is on the right websites.
Use Quick Actions to launch the appropriate tool for whatever you decide to work on.