How I vet a link insertion site: the 13 checks before I pitch

Stage 1: the domain filter

This stage decides whether a site is worth looking at closely. It takes a few minutes per site and cuts most of what sellers offer.

1. It covers something a SaaS buyer reads about

The site has to belong to a category my clients sell into: software, marketing, HR, design, e-commerce, finance and the rest. A general site that publishes travel tips on Monday, crypto on Tuesday and project management on Wednesday is out, however good its numbers look. Relevance is the reason a link from it makes sense to a reader, and to Google.

2. It has real organic traffic, and the trend is not falling

My floor is 1,000 organic visits a month in Ahrefs. The number alone is not enough. Where the tool shows a trend, I look at the last year. A site that dropped by half after a Google update is telling you something, even if it still clears the floor today.

3. DR 50 or above, as a floor, not a goal

I use Domain Rating to remove weak sites, not to pick strong ones. A DR 80 site with no readers in your category is a worse placement than a DR 55 site your buyers actually visit. Once a site clears DR 50, relevance and traffic decide.

4. It does not sell to everyone

Open the latest 20 posts. If you see casino, CBD and essay-writing links next to software articles, the site sells placements to anyone who pays. Google treats paid links that pass ranking value as link spam, so a site with that pattern is the kind I expect Google to trust less over time. I skip it, even when the SaaS article on it looks clean.

Stage 2: the seller check

Most sites that accept link insertions reach buyers through sellers and resellers, and the same site often appears in several seller lists at once. That tells you two useful things.

5. I ask three sellers about the same site

For every site that passes Stage 1, I message around three different sellers and ask the same three questions: the price, the turnaround time and the publisher's guidelines. The answers often differ, and sometimes one seller mentions a publisher rule the others left out. I go with the answer that is clearest, not only the cheapest.

6. A site in every list is a warning, not a bonus

If a site appears in almost every seller list I see, it is taking links from everyone those sellers serve. Its outbound link profile grows fast and in every direction. I do not rule it out automatically, but it has to pass Stage 3 more clearly than a site that is harder to get.

Stage 3: the page itself

A link insertion lives inside one existing article. If that article is invisible, the link is too.

7. The page is indexed and ranks for something

I check the URL in a keyword tool such as Ahrefs for the keywords it ranks for. A page with zero ranking keywords is usually either not indexed or not trusted. A site: search in Google on the exact URL is a quick extra signal, though Google itself says site: results are not a complete list of indexed pages.

8. The page gets organic visits of its own

Site-wide traffic hides dead pages. A site with 50,000 visits a month can have hundreds of articles that get none. I want the page itself to show estimated organic traffic, even if it is small.

9. The article already talks about what you sell

The test is simple: could your product answer a question the article is already asking? If the link needs a new paragraph to make sense, it is the wrong page. A project management tool fits a post about running remote teams. It does not fit a post about office chairs, however high the DR.

10. The page is not crowded with outbound links

I count the commercial links already on the page. When a paragraph has three brand links in it already, a fourth reads like an ad and passes little. If the page looks like a list of sponsors with some text around them, I move on.

11. The page has been updated, or still reads as current

An article about the best tools of 2021 that was never updated is losing traffic every month. Editors are also more willing to add a link to a page they are refreshing anyway. I look for a recent update date, or content that still reads as accurate today.

Stage 4: placement and the live check

12. The link goes where the sentence was already heading

First I check whether the anchor phrase already exists in the article. If it does, the link can sit on those words and nothing else changes. If it does not, I write one relevant sentence that fits the paragraph and carries the link. I send the editor an instruction in this format, so there is no guessing:

After: "the exact sentence already on the page"
Add: "the new sentence, with the anchor text"

Two rules I do not bend. I never put a client's anchor inside a sentence that belongs to another brand or another link. And I mix branded anchors with descriptive ones, so the profile does not repeat one commercial phrase until it looks bought.

13. I check the link once it is live

When the editor confirms, I open the page and inspect the link. It should be dofollow, in the body text, pointing at the right URL. If a publisher has marked it rel="sponsored" or nofollow, it is not what was agreed, and I raise it. Google's own guidance says paid links marked this way are fine for its policies, but they do not pass ranking value, which is the point of the purchase. The live URL then goes into the client's report so they can check it themselves.

The full link insertion vetting checklist

None of this removes the risk that comes with paid placements, and I say so on my link insertion service page. What it does is keep your links on pages that real people read, which is the only kind worth paying for.