Leading Transport Management System Software - Domain Authority Doubled in 9 Months
How a focused link-building and content programme doubled domain authority for a leading transport management system (TMS) platform, and turned organic search into real sales pipeline.
The numbers, in 9 months.
The platform had a strong product in a crowded category. Established TMS vendors carried backlink authority scores between 35 and 47 and owned the search results. This site started 2026 with a Domain Authority of 7 and a backlink authority score of 15.
Our January 2026 technical audit set the baseline: a Site Health score of 65%, an AI visibility score of 84%, 126 linking root domains and 39 toxic or low-quality domains dragging the link profile down. Buyers searching for transport management software were finding everyone else first.
The solution
We treated authority as the first problem to solve. Content and technical work would only pay off once search engines trusted the domain, so the programme ran in four parts.
Clean the link profile
We audited every referring domain and disavowed 39 toxic or low-quality domains in January 2026, so new links would build on a clean base.
Earn editorial placements
We secured 11 guest-post placements in one quarter (10 sponsored, 1 earned) across enterprise technology, retail, trade and logistics publications. Each article covered a real operations problem, from returns and peak season to route optimisation, freight contracts and supply chain risk.
Publish consistently
We published 16 blogs between 2 July and 18 September 2026, the longest sustained publishing run of the programme. Two of them now anchor a new topic cluster around transport management systems.
Track technical health and AI visibility
We tracked Site Health and AI visibility against the January baseline, and lined up the technical fixes for the next phase, starting with mobile performance.
The result
Domain Authority doubled from 7 to 14 between January and September 2026. That gain came from off-page link building alone, before a single technical or on-page fix had shipped. Backlink authority rose from 15 to 22, and referring domains grew from 126 to 180.
The authority turned into pipeline. In July to September 2026, organic search generated 74 leads. Thirteen became sales meetings, ten of those became sales-qualified leads, and all ten are still in active conversation.
- Site Health up from 65% to 71% since January 2026
- AI visibility score up from 84% to 92%
- Referring domains up from 126 to 180
- Organic search up 391% compared with Q2 2025
Authority came first and pipeline followed. Domain Authority doubled before any technical fix went live, so the next phase has room to grow: a TMS topic cluster with a pillar page, comparison content and FAQ schema, a second round of 11 higher-authority placements, and cleaned-up software directory listings.