alistapart.com traffic, backlinks, authority, and more

The site's traffic has grown by 25% year-over-year with over 8,910 monthly visits driven primarily by focused interest in editorial and practical writing for web professionals, accessibility and visual contrast topics, responsive design fundamentals and evolving CSS capabilities such as container queries. Traffic is concentrated in the Asia‑Pacific and North American markets, with approximately ~58.7% of visits coming from Asia‑Pacific (led by Australia and India), ~34.7% from North America (led by the US) and roughly ~3.8% from Europe, a distribution that aligns with the domain’s emphasis on web design and development education for English‑speaking and fast‑growing APAC audiences.

The domain alistapart.com was registered on May 7, 1998, through network solutions, llc. and uses Openhostingservice for DNS and security. At 27 years old, this age signals established credibility, a mature online presence, a proven track record and accumulated authority, which typically translates into stronger trust signals, better SEO performance and long-term brand recognition.

A List Apart's backlink profile is dominated by medium-authority (DA 60-69) sources such as conference sites and developer hubs, with notable links from developer resources (GitHub) and technology publications (Wikipedia, conference pages), and few if any DA 70+ or widely recognized high-authority domains in the top sample. This steady mix of mid-tier authorities, combined with a large number of referring domains and a Domain Authority in the mid-40s, helps underpin the site's topical relevance and contributes positively to its organic visibility and overall SEO strength.

The top-link sample shows a dofollow-to-nofollow distribution of approximately 60:40, meaning a majority of links are dofollow and capable of passing equity, with dofollow links from medium-authority sources helping to transfer ranking signals. Anchor text is largely branded and varied—Branded 70%, Naked URLs 20%, Keyword-rich 10%—a distribution that appears natural and healthy for a long-standing publication, though continued diversification with more contextual keyword-rich anchors could further enhance topical signals.

A List Apart demonstrates strong page authority driven by high-performing content and a moderate domain authority and trust profile, meaning individual articles are well positioned to outrank competitors but the site as a whole may struggle against higher-authority publishers without focused efforts to grow domain-level, trust-building backlinks and technical/brand signals to improve overall competitiveness.

The domain alistapart.com demonstrates a concentrated keyword portfolio centered on contributor-focused queries and branded terms, with high SERP positions for variations of "write for us" and strong brand query presence but modest overall search volumes (e.g., 880, 260, 110). The top keyword 'write for us' attracts daily searches in the dozens with a $3.52 CPC, indicating moderate market presence. The other keywords—brand searches like "a list apart" (260, 0% competition) and "listapart" (110, 0%), plus close variants "writing for us" (260, 6%) and "writing write for us" (480, 6%)—are low-competition terms that signal strong niche authority and contributor recruitment positioning rather than heavy commercial competition. Overall the domain's SEO profile points to healthy keyword portfolio and strong organic visibility.

alistapart.com competes in the web design, front-end development, and digital publishing space against established players like Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, A Book Apart, and newer alternatives such as Medium, Dev.to, and UX Collective. Compared to those established players, alistapart.com shows a modest but consistent traffic footprint (8,910 organic visits) and a strong editorial reputation that leverages a niche focus on standards-driven design and long-form technical essays to capture engaged professional readers, producing traffic patterns that favor steady organic readership over viral spikes.

With a Domain Authority score of 43, alistapart.com sits on par with peers in the web design and development publishing industry (the provided competitive set all report DA 43), meaning it competes evenly on authority metrics but differentiates on content depth rather than raw backlink volume or scale. By targeting practicing designers and developers with long-form, expert-driven content, offering technical depth and standards advocacy as key features, alistapart.com has driven strong organic visibility and sustained niche market penetration among professionals.