Red-flag list
Link building red flags to check before you pay
Nine signs, each with a question to ask. A vendor who passes all nine is not guaranteed to be good, but one who fails three has told you enough.
The nine signs
1. Guaranteed positions
Rankings depend on Google and on you. The right response to a guarantee is to walk away.
2. A site list that stays secret
If you cannot see where your link will sit before paying, you cannot check it afterwards either.
3. Price only by call
Not always bad, but ask for a written per-link price. We show ours per row.
4. Reports with no URLs
A graph is not evidence. A list of live pages is.
5. Metrics with no named source
Which tool, which date? Ahrefs, Moz and Majestic disagree, so a bare 'DA 60' says little.
6. Bulk volume language
Hundreds of links in a week can look like a pattern, and Google's SpamBrain looks for patterns.
7. Links that are not clearly dofollow or permanent
Ask for both in writing. Ours are permanent dofollow placements.
8. No approval step
You should be able to see the list before money moves. A basket does this.
9. Long lock-in
A contract longer than your confidence. Pay-as-you-go leaves you free to stop.
Do not confuse a red flag with a verdict. A freelancer might refuse to show a list because the sites are personal contacts, and that can be perfectly legitimate, just unauditable.
Weigh the flags against how much you are spending. At $100, an unaudited vendor is an experiment you can afford to lose, but at $5,000 the same behaviour is a procurement failure.
Where a flag is raised, write it into the scorecard as a 0 and let the numbers argue. That is easier than arguing with a salesperson.
What a clean answer looks like
Good answers are specific. Instead of a promise of authority, a clean answer gives a Domain Rating, a traffic figure and the name of the tool that produced them.
Instead of an assurance that links are safe, it explains what is checked: the niche, the language, the traffic. We list those fields on every row, and still say that Google's view of a link is out of our hands.
A clean answer admits limits. If a vendor never says what they cannot do, treat that silence as a flag too.
Flags inside your own team
Vendors are not the only source of risk. A brief that says get us to position one is itself a red flag, because it asks the supplier to promise something nobody controls.
Rewrite such briefs as inputs: a count of links, a budget ceiling, a list of target pages. That wording protects both sides.
Also watch for urgency. A purchase rushed through before month end is the usual moment when the checks above get skipped.
Putting the flags to work
Copy the nine signs into your RFP as pass or fail rows. Send them with the request, not after the vendor has already presented.
Then read the budget memo to match the spend with the level of scrutiny it deserves. A $100 pilot can tolerate a couple of amber flags, while a $1,000 campaign cannot.
Five questions to send before payment
- Which sites will carry my links, and with what metrics?
- What does one link cost, in writing?
- Are the links permanent and dofollow?
- What counts as delivered, and how soon?
- What do you refuse to do?
We list metrics and prices. We do not predict what Google will make of a link, and neither does anyone else.