Purchased link glossary: sixteen terms, each with a test
Vendor sheets use words loosely. Here is what each one should mean, and the smallest test that proves it for your batch.
LinksVerifier research team ·
A glossary is only useful if each entry ends in something you can run. So every term below carries a test case. Skip the ones you already trust.
Words matter here, because disputes with vendors usually start with one word meaning two things. When a sheet says "live", does it mean the page loads, the link is in the HTML, or Google has indexed the page? Those are three different tickets, and each needs its own evidence before you open a refund conversation or accept the batch as done. Define first, argue later.
Terms about the link itself
Term
What it should mean
Smallest test
Referring domain
One distinct domain that links to yours, however many pages carry the link
List with refdomains, then count unique hosts
Backlink
One link from one page to one page
Fetch the source page, search the HTML for your URL
Anchor text
The clickable words of the link
anchors, then read the live page
Dofollow
Marketing slang for a link with no rel restriction
View source, confirm no nofollow, sponsored or ugc
Nofollow
A rel value Google treats as a hint, not a command, since 2020
View source for rel="nofollow"
Sponsored
The rel value Google introduced in September 2019 for paid links
View source for rel="sponsored"
UGC
The rel value for user-generated content such as forum posts
View source for rel="ugc"
Redirect
The target URL answers with a 301 or 302 instead of a 200
curl -I on the source link and on your URL
Terms about where the link lives
Indexed means Google has stored the page. Not ranked. It does not mean the page ranks. To test it, search the exact URL in Google or inspect it in Search Console if you own the source. For a third-party page you cannot see Search Console, so a site: query is your only proof.
Canonical is the URL a page declares as its master copy. If the vendor's page names another URL as canonical, the link may be credited elsewhere. Read the link rel=canonical tag in the head. Two seconds.
Noindex is a robots meta tag that asks search engines to keep a page out of results. A link on a noindex page rarely does what you paid for. Check early. Search the HTML for noindex before anything else.
PBN stands for private blog network. Vendors rarely use the word, but shared hosting, identical templates and the same author bio across 30 domains tell you what you bought. Google's SpamBrain system and the December 2022 link spam update both target this pattern.
Terms about the delivery process
Placement date: the day the vendor says the link went up. Record it, because the monthly index lags it.
Replacement guarantee: the vendor swaps a dead link. Test by re-fetching 30 days later, not at delivery.
DR floor: the minimum domain rating the contract promised. Check with bulk_dr, one credit for up to 2,000 domains.
Link velocity: how many new links your domain gains per week. Plot it from your own logs, not from a vendor chart.
Anchor ratio: share of exact-match anchors among all anchors. Pull the full list with anchors, 2 credits.
Our own metric, defined
DR on this site is round(100 · log(ref_domains+1) / log(2·10^7)). It counts referring domains only, on a log scale. Ahrefs DR and Moz DA use other inputs, so a vendor quoting one of those is not quoting this.
How to use the glossary on a real sheet
Take the vendor sheet. Rewrite each column header using the terms above. Anything you cannot map to a test is a column to question. Fine print belongs in the contract, not the spreadsheet.
Then run the free checks first. The domain and overview actions cost nothing, so you can screen a whole sheet at no cost before spending a credit. Paid checks follow only for domains that survive the screen, as laid out in the mistakes and fixes list.
If a term in the sheet is missing from this page, send the sheet through the worked example as a template and see which assertion fails first.