How to vet a site before you buy a link: an 8-point checklist

Before you pay for a link, run eight checks on the site and on the page where the link will sit: relevance to your field, the link's placement and the article around it, indexing in Google, the site's outbound links, history and technical footprint, authority metrics that have not been inflated, traffic and trend if it is an existing site, and finally the anchor and the vendor's terms. A high DR number on its own says almost nothing: it is the easiest metric to inflate, and it is not a Google metric at all. This checklist is based on the questions we answer on every quality backlink order, and it is just as useful if you work with a different vendor.

Most people who buy a link check one thing: the DR number. That is exactly what cheap link sellers count on. They know you will look at the number, get excited and pay, without even opening another tab. In reality, that number does not answer the only question that matters: will the link pass ranking power to you, or will it just sit there? If you are still deciding whether and when buying is worth it, read our guide to buying backlinks safely first. Here we focus on the narrower question: how to check a specific link before you pay for it.

Why you check the site and the page, not just the number

A backlink is a vote. When a site links to you, it tells Google "I recommend this site." The question is how much that vote is worth. A vote from a relevant site, with real content and a clean profile, is worth a lot. A vote from a site Google barely knows, one that links out to a thousand other sites for a fee, is worth nothing, and sometimes less than nothing.

The trouble is that the bad sites are well disguised. They have a nice DR number, a "write for us" page and a friendly seller who talks about "editorial placement." A methodical check is the only way to see what is under the disguise, and a few minutes of checking before you pay save months of frustration afterward.

Two ways to buy, two different checks

Before the checklist, it is important to understand exactly what you are buying, because that determines what you can check and when:

• A placement on an existing site: a guest post, or a link added to an existing article on a site that is already up and running. This kind of site has a history you can check, such as traffic, trend, audience and outbound links, so it is important to get the exact site address before you pay and check it yourself.
• A site built to order: a vendor builds a dedicated niche site for your field and publishes an article with your link on it. This is the model we work with. A site like this has no audience history and no list to check in advance, because it does not exist yet, so the check shifts to the terms and the result: a site that matches your field, a defined range of authority metrics, an original article, a dofollow link, a report with the address of every link after delivery, and what happens if a link drops.

The differences between a guest post and a link added to an existing article are covered in our guide to niche edits vs. guest posts (in Hebrew). Most of the checks here apply to both models, and for each check we note what changes.

Check 1: relevance to your field

Google does not just count links, it understands context. A link from a site that covers your field, or a closely related one, is worth much more than a link from a random site. If you are a dental clinic in Tel Aviv, a link from a health site, a lifestyle magazine or a local news site makes sense. A link from a foreign-language crypto blog that suddenly publishes an article about orthodontics screams "they paid me."

On an existing site, check what it actually ranks for: tools like Ahrefs and Semrush have a report that shows which keywords bring the site its traffic. A site whose traffic all comes from recipes and loans will not give real authority to a dental clinic. On a site built to order, make sure the site really covers your field, and is not a general site that publishes anything and everything.

In sensitive fields such as law, insurance, real estate and health, which Google calls YMYL (Your Money or Your Life), the relevance and trustworthiness of the source matter even more. A good way to find relevant sources is to start with your competitors: a competitor backlink analysis (in Hebrew) reveals which sites in your field they draw authority from, and those are almost always sites worth checking for you too.

Check 2: where the link sits and the article around it

A link inside the body of the article, in a paragraph about your topic, is worth much more than a link in the footer, the sidebar or a "partners" list that appears on every page of the site. Google's spam policies even list links widely distributed in the footers and templates of many sites as an example of link spam. The differences are explained in our guide to contextual vs. sitewide links (in Hebrew).

The article itself matters just as much. Look for an original, in-depth article written around your topic, not a short, thin piece whose only job is to wrap around a link. An article that answers real questions about the topic reads better to Google and to AI-based answer engines alike. Warning signs: poor machine translation, generic content you could paste onto any site, and five commercial links to unrelated businesses in the same paragraph. A detailed checklist for the article itself is in our guide to checking a guest post before you buy a link (in Hebrew).

Check 3: indexing in Google

A link from a page Google has not indexed passes no power at all, so this is a check you must not skip. Type site:domain.com into Google: a healthy site returns indexed pages, and its home page appears first in a search for the brand name. If almost no pages come back, or the site does not show up even for its own name, something is fundamentally wrong.

After publication, check the article itself too: search for its exact address, or for a unique sentence from it in quotation marks. An article that is still not indexed after a few weeks is a link that does not work. With a vendor that builds sites to order, ask in advance whether they push the articles for indexing and confirm they were indexed, or just publish and hope.

Check 4: outbound links, or who the neighbors are

A site is defined not only by who links to it, but also by who it links to. If the site links out to casinos, gambling, quick loans, gray-market pharma or adult content, you are about to move into a bad neighborhood. Google looks at outbound links too, and a site that links to anyone who asks, in any field, gets flagged as a link seller.

How do you check this in practice? Scroll to the bottom of the pages and look for suspicious links that repeat across the site. Open a few random articles and count how many outbound links each one has. A legitimate article links out to one or two sites, in context. An article that links to five unrelated businesses in the same paragraph is a bulletin board.

• Outbound links to problem niches: gambling, casinos, loans, pharma, adult content. If they are there, you are better off walking away.
• Many commercial links in every article: five or more commercial links in one paragraph point to a page that has been sold.
• An aggressive "write for us" page: a site whose whole purpose is to bring in paid articles, with hundreds of articles that have no topical connection to each other.
• Sitewide footer links: the same commercial link at the bottom of every page on the site is an almost certain sign of link selling.

Check 5: history and technical footprint

Look up the domain in the Wayback Machine. If two years ago the domain held a site in another language or in a completely different field, you are looking at an expired domain brought back to life as a link machine. The domain keeps its old authority, but the content and the audience that built it no longer exist.

Check the footprint too: when dozens of sites that link to the same business share the same server, the same design template, the same footer and the same author names, it is easy to tell they are one network. The site's own anchor report shows how others link to it: if most of the anchors are exact-match commercial phrases from random fields, such as הלוואה מיידית ("instant loan") and קזינו אונליין ("online casino"), the site itself was built as part of a link scheme.

Check 6: authority metrics, DR and DA without illusions

Ahrefs' DR (Domain Rating) and Moz's DA (Domain Authority) are third-party estimates of how strong a site's link profile is. They are not Google metrics, Google does not use them, and they are based almost entirely on the number and quality of the links pointing to the site. And since you can build authority with links, you can also fake it with links.

Inflation is done in two main ways: buying an expired domain and rebuilding it, or pumping in thousands of cheap links from automated systems to push the number up within a few weeks. To catch it, look at the referring domains graph over time. A sharp jump, say from 50 domains to several thousand within two months, with no event to explain it, is a classic signature of inflation. Check who the referring domains are, too: dozens of empty sites with random names do not create real authority, even if the tool counts them. A full explanation of the metrics, and of what they do not measure, is in our guide to DR and DA metrics (in Hebrew).

Check 7: traffic and trend, for an existing site

When you buy a placement on a site that is already running, and especially when the seller presents the site's audience as part of what you are paying for, organic traffic is the fastest credibility check. A site Google sends visitors to is a site Google trusts. Open it in Ahrefs, Semrush or Ubersuggest and look at the organic traffic estimate.

Look for a sensible ratio between authority and traffic. For example, an existing site with DR 55 that brings in a few dozen visitors a month is a red flag: an established site with real authority brings traffic. Then open the traffic graph for the last two years. A line that climbs or holds steady is a good sign. A flat line at zero points to a site Google ignores, and a cliff, a sharp drop in a single day, usually points to a Google penalty or a loss of indexing.

On a site built to order, this check is less relevant, because the site has no audience history, and it is meant to provide authority and relevance, not traffic. That is exactly why, if someone presents a new site to you as a source of thousands of visitors, you should ask to see the data yourself.

Real audience vs. fake traffic

Some sites fake their traffic too. The first check is geography: if you are an Israeli business buying a link from a Hebrew site, but most of its traffic comes from countries that have nothing to do with the content, something does not add up. The second check is signs of life: a site with a real audience usually has a presence beyond Google, such as an active social media page, real comments, writers with real names and faces, and sometimes even searches for the brand name itself.

Check 8: the anchor and the vendor's terms

Ask who sets the anchor text, and how. A vendor who insists on the same commercial phrase in every link is building you a suspicious profile. A natural profile mixes the brand name, the site address, generic phrases and partial-match phrases, with only a few exact-match anchors, as our anchor text guide explains.

Then check the terms themselves:

• A report for every link: the link's address, the site, the date and the anchor, so you can open and check each one yourself.
• The link type: dofollow or nofollow, and whether it carries a sponsored tag.
• What happens if a link drops: whether the vendor replaces it, and if so, on what terms.
• A realistic price: a pack of thousands of links for a few dollars is automated spam. An original article on a relevant site costs money, and a price that is too low means something in the process is missing.

More questions worth asking before you choose a vendor are in our guide on how to choose a link vendor (in Hebrew).

A five-minute checklist before you pay

• Relevance: the site covers your field or a closely related one.
• Placement: the link is inside the body of an original article, not in the footer or the sidebar.
• Indexing: site:domain.com returns pages, and the article itself gets indexed.
• Neighbors: no outbound links to gambling or pharma, and no piles of commercial links in every article.
• History and footprint: the Wayback Machine does not reveal a recycled domain, and there is no network pattern.
• Authority metrics: no unexplained jump in referring domains.
• Traffic (on an existing site): a sensible ratio between authority and traffic, no cliff in the graph, and visitors from the right country.
• Anchor and terms: a natural anchor, a report for every link and a clear policy for a link that drops.

Frequently asked questions

What is the most important check before buying a backlink?

No single check is enough, but three filter out most problems: relevance to your field, the link's placement inside an original article, and indexing in Google. A link that fails any one of them will pass almost no value, even if its authority metrics are impressive. On an existing site, the gap between DR and traffic is the fastest way to spot an inflated domain.

Is a link from an existing site with high DR but low traffic worth buying?

In most cases, no. On an established site, a big gap between a high DR and low traffic usually points to a domain inflated with artificial links, or to a site that has been penalized. A link from it will pass very little power, and sometimes it will connect you with a bad neighbor. A site with a modest DR, relevant content and a clean profile is the better choice.

How can you tell if a site's traffic is real?

Check the breakdown by country and the signs of life around the site. If you are an Israeli business and most of the site's traffic comes from unrelated countries, the traffic is probably artificial. A site with a real audience also shows comments, a social media presence, named writers and searches for its brand name. A complete absence of all of these points to a content machine, not a living site.

How do you tell if a site is spammy?

Look at its outbound links, its indexing and its history. A site that links to gambling, loans or pharma, or that crams five commercial links into every article, is a bad neighbor. A site:domain.com search should return indexed pages, and a check in the Wayback Machine will show whether it is an expired domain brought back to life.

Is a footer or sidebar link worth anything?

Very little, and sometimes it even does harm. A link that repeats on every page of the site looks like an ad, not a recommendation, and Google lists widely distributed links in footers and templates as an example of link spam. The real value is in a single link inside the body of a relevant article.

How do you vet a link from a site that has not been built yet?

When the vendor builds the site to order, there is nothing to check in advance, so you check the terms and the result: what field the site will be built in, what the authority metric range is, whether the article is original, whether the link is dofollow, whether you get a report with the address of every link, and what happens if a link drops. After delivery, go over every link in the report against the checklist: relevance, placement, indexing and footprint.

Is it dangerous if linking sites share an IP address?

Not on its own. Thousands of legitimate sites sit on the same server, and Google knows it. The problem is a pattern: when many sites that link to the same business share a server, a template, a footer and an owner, a network is easy to spot. The real weight of a link comes from the site, the content and the relevance, and technical diversity only keeps the profile from looking like it was all pulled from one place.

What to do next

If you are vetting a vendor, run these eight checks on every link, before you pay and after. And if you would rather not check each site one by one, here is how it works at VeloLinx: every link is an original article on a niche site built to order for your field, in the DR/DA 40 to 90 range, dofollow, with a report listing the link's address, the site, the date and the anchor, and a free replacement if a link drops. You can start with a single backlink at ₪89 + VAT and check it yourself against this list, or see all the packs on our buy backlinks page.