Discovery

The discovery system finds websites that accept guest posts in your niche using AI-powered search across multiple engines.

How It Works

flowchart TD
    A[Enter Keyword] --> B[Generate Query Patterns]
    B --> C1[Exa Neural Search]
    B --> C2[DuckDuckGo Search]
    C1 --> D[Merge & Deduplicate Results]
    C2 --> D
    D --> E[Scrape Full Pages]
    E --> F[Extract Contact Emails]
    F --> G[Score Quality & Relevance]
    G --> H[Return Ranked Results]
    H --> I[Save to Campaign]

    style A fill:#e3f2fd
    style G fill:#e8f5e8
    style I fill:#fff3e0

Search Engines

Exa Neural Search

Exa uses semantic understanding to find pages that mean what you're looking for, not just pages that contain the keywords.

• Strength: High-relevance results, understands context.
• Limitation: Requires EXA_API_KEY environment variable.
• Best for: Niche-specific discovery, finding high-quality sites.

DuckDuckGo Search

DuckDuckGo provides broad coverage with traditional keyword matching.

• Strength: No API key required, broad coverage.
• Limitation: Less semantic understanding.
• Best for: Broad discovery, supplementing Exa results.

Query Patterns

The system automatically generates multiple search queries from your keyword:

Pattern	Example (keyword: "AI marketing")
{keyword} write for us	"AI marketing write for us"
{keyword} guest post	"AI marketing guest post"
{keyword} contribute	"AI marketing contribute"
{keyword} submit article	"AI marketing submit article"
{keyword} become a contributor	"AI marketing become a contributor"
{keyword} guest contributor guidelines	"AI marketing guest contributor guidelines"

Deep Discovery

Deep discovery goes beyond search results by:

1. Scraping full pages — not just snippets, but the complete HTML.
2. Extracting contact emails — parses mailto: links, contact pages, and author bios.
3. Detecting guest post guidelines — identifies pages with "write for us" or submission instructions.
4. Scoring quality — assigns a 0-1 quality score based on relevance, authority signals, and content quality.
5. Scoring confidence — assigns a 0-1 confidence score for guest-post likelihood.

API: POST /api/v1/backlink-outreach/discover/deep

{
  "keyword": "AI marketing",
  "campaign_id": "uuid-of-campaign",
  "max_results": 20,
  "save_to_campaign": true
}

Automatic saving

When save_to_campaign is true, discovered leads are automatically saved to the specified campaign. The response includes saved_to_campaign and save_failed counts.

Result Scoring

Each result is scored on two dimensions:

Quality Score (0-1)

How relevant and authoritative is the site for your keyword?

Factor	Weight
Keyword relevance in title/URL	High
Domain authority signals	Medium
Content freshness	Low
Site structure (blog section)	Medium

Confidence Score (0-1)

How likely is the site to accept guest posts?

Factor	Weight
"Write for us" page found	Very High
Guest post guidelines detected	High
Contact email found	High
Previous guest posts on site	Medium
Blog section exists	Low

Reviewing Results

After discovery, review each result:

Badge	Meaning
Email found	A contact email was extracted from the page.
Has guidelines	A guest post guidelines page was detected.
High quality	Quality score > 0.7.
High confidence	Confidence score > 0.7.

Prioritize leads

Focus on leads with both "Email found" and "Has guidelines" badges — these have the highest conversion potential.

Saving to Campaign

Results can be saved to a campaign in two ways:

1. Automatic: Set save_to_campaign: true in the deep discovery request.
2. Manual: Select results in the UI and click Save to Campaign.

Duplicate leads (same website_url in the same campaign) are automatically skipped.

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Next: Email Composer — AI-powered email generation and personalization.