CASE STUDY - Manifest Law: DR 26 to DR 62 in 16 Months
Case study · Link building & digital PR · Jun 2025 to Sep 2026
How Mad Mango Marketing built off-site authority for a technology-enabled immigration law firm, from a 2 to 4 link-a-month starter plan to a full outreach program with six data studies.
Results at a glance
+36: Domain Rating points, DR 26 to DR 62
7.9x: Referring domains, 496 to 3,924
1,571: Media pickups from six immigration data studies
194: New DR 70+ referring domains
What is DR? Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score for the strength of a website's backlink profile compared with the other sites in its database.
Domain Rating, 1st of each month, with weekly readings for Jun 2, 2025 and Sep 28, 2026.
Referring domains grew 7.9x
496: Live referring domains, Jun 2025
3,924: Live referring domains, Sep 2026
194: New referring domains rated DR 70 or higher, first seen during the engagement
All live referring domains, 1st of each month. Ahrefs counts every source, not only our placements.
Study markers: 1. H-1B wages; 2. H-1B reliance; 3. International students; 4. Family green cards; 5. Seasonal labor; 6. K-1 fiancé visas.
Six data studies. 1,571 pickups.
6: Immigration data studies run for Manifest Law
1,571: Media pickups, each URL counted once
467: Unique news outlets, 31 of them DR 80 or higher
Each study turns public government data, such as USCIS records, into a ranked city or state story that we pitch to newsrooms nationwide.
Where the studies ran
National outlets, big-city dailies and public radio carried Manifest Law data and credited the firm by name.
DR 94: Yahoo, plus MSN and AOL
DR 93: The Guardian
DR 92: USA Today
DR 88: San Francisco Chronicle
DR 86: Cleveland.com, Detroit Free Press
DR 84: AL.com, The Tennessean
DR 82: HousingWire
DR 79: Democrat and Chronicle
DR 78: Idaho Statesman
DR 77: Fresno Bee, Vermont Public
DR 76: WLRN
DR 75: FOX 13 Seattle
DR 73: WPDE, WABI-TV, InsideNoVa
DR 71: WSHU Public Radio
NPR: Maine Public, NHPR, Connecticut Public
1,571: Pickups across 467 outlets
Links we built with other organizations
Hand-built placements, separate from the data-study pickups.
H-1B news coverage
Realtor.com (DR 91): News article on how the $100K H-1B fee could hit housing demand. Nicole Gunara quoted.
MarketWatch (DR 91): Q&A on H-1B job-status worries after the $100K fee. Nicole Gunara quoted.
Deel (DR 80): How the wage-weighted H-1B lottery works. Nicole Gunara explains.
O-1 & extraordinary ability
Tech Ladies (DR 64): O-1 visas and the EB-1A green card for women in tech.
Relocate.me (DR 56): Guide to the U.S. O-1 visa: requirements and how to apply.
Digital Reference (DR 50): Using professional references in O-1 and EB-1 petitions.
Immigration & global talent
Day Translations (DR 75): Guide to the U.S. Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.
Vestbee (DR 60): How immigration policy shapes where startups grow. Cites a Manifest Law H-1B study.
Go Elite (DR 37): H-1B visa guide for international students.
The six studies
Cities With the Highest Wages for H-1B Visas
Which Cities & Industries Rely Most on H-1B Visa Employees
The U.S. States Losing the Most International Students
U.S. Cities Approving the Most Family Green Cards
U.S. Cities and States Most Reliant on Seasonal Foreign Labor
The Changing Landscape of Immigrant Fiancé Visas in the U.S.
Key keywords climbed Google
#26 → #6: "eb2 niw lawyer"
#3 → #1: "o-1 visa lawyer"
#42 → #4: "tn visa lawyers"
#31 → #2: "eb2 lawyer"
Best Google US position for selected keywords, Jun 1, 2025 vs Sep 30, 2026 (Ahrefs). Total page-one keywords (all countries) rose from 7,597 to 10,342 over the same period.
DR 92: Business Insider (Africa edition), "O-1 visa"
DR 89: San Francisco Chronicle, H-1B story with data analyzed by Manifest Law
DR 82: Deel, H-1B wage-weighted lottery
Each site's current Ahrefs Domain Rating.
112 placements in 16 months
Live placements per month, including brand mentions and radio interviews. Data-study pickups are counted separately.
Live placements per month
Jun 2025: 4
Jul 2025: 3
Aug 2025: 3
Sep 2025: 14
Oct 2025: 7
Nov 2025: 8
Dec 2025: 8
Jan 2026: 6
Feb 2026: 8
Mar 2026: 7
Apr 2026: 8
May 2026: 7
Jun 2026: 7
Jul 2026: 7
Aug 2026: 7
Sep 2026: 8
Total: 112
A true partnership.
Manifest Law's team did a great deal of work behind these results. The firm creates its own guides and data-driven analysis, such as its review of USCIS data on EB-2 NIW approval rates, and its guides already ranked for hundreds of keywords each before we started. Its team reviewed and checked the numbers in every data study before publishing it on manifestlaw.com. Attorney Ana Gabriela Urizar gave interviews to the San Francisco Chronicle and KXDJ radio. Mad Mango's link building, outreach and data-study PR drove the authority growth, built on that strong foundation.
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