Ahrefs link checker red flags for ad buyers
Ad buyers are used to vetting placements, not publishers. These are the signs we check on a donor domain, and the ones you should check on any vendor, including us.
Paid search has brand-safety lists and placement reports. Links have no equivalent screen, so the work moves to you. Open the donor in Ahrefs or Semrush and spend two minutes on the signs below. The checks are quick, and a missed red flag costs far more than that.
None is a verdict alone. Two or three together usually are.
We hold ourselves to the same list. If a row on this marketplace trips three of these, do not buy it, and tell us through your account page. Related: the order walkthrough.
Fourteen red flags, grouped
- Organic traffic that fell off a cliff in one month and never recovered.
- Traffic mostly from countries you do not serve.
- Domain Rating far higher than its traffic could justify.
- Hundreds of outbound links per page to unrelated sites.
- Every article on the site about a different industry.
- A 'write for us' page that lists casino, loans and supplements together.
- Identical anchor text pointing at one page of yours.
- Link placed in the footer, sidebar or a tag page.
- Page not indexed when you search its exact title.
- Vendor asks you to pay by gift card or untraceable transfer.
- Vendor cannot show the domain's metrics before you pay.
- A promise to push you to position one, whatever the wording.
- Price that ignores traffic and niche entirely.
- No way to see an order's status after you pay.
A gentle decline is normal for many sites. A drop of more than half in a single month, around a known update date, deserves a second look. Check what Google released that month before you blame the site. Then compare with the donor's neighbours in the same niche.
How to run the two-minute check
Open the domain in Ahrefs Site Explorer, look at the organic traffic graph for 24 months and note any collapse. Then scan the top pages and the outgoing links. Semrush and Moz offer similar views.
Search the domain name plus a topic in Google. If its pages never appear, be wary. Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and Majestic each measure authority differently, so compare like with like.
On this marketplace each row already carries Domain Rating, organic traffic, referring domains, niche and language. Check it against the tool you trust. Disagreement is worth a look.
What a clean donor looks like
A good donor is boring. Its traffic graph wanders but does not fall off a ledge. Its articles stay on a small set of related topics. Outbound links are few and sit inside the text.
It has real readers in the country you sell in, and the page where you would appear is indexed. That is usually enough. Perfect rarely exists, and chasing it burns time.
Keep notes on the donors you reject, with the reason. After twenty entries you will have your own filter, shaped by your niche, and quicker than any generic list. Our budget split guide shows how many placements a first test needs.
Why Google's dated updates matter here
Penguin 4.0
Link spam handling became part of the core ranking system and worked in near real time.
Link spam update
Google announced SpamBrain was being used to neutralize spammy links, including paid ones that break its guidelines.
Core and spam updates
A large core update arrived together with new spam policies, among them scaled content abuse and site reputation abuse.