Backlink audit — classify the graph before you buy more

It is supposed to decide what the live graph is made of before you spend again. Editorial hosts you would still want. Junk you should stop buying. Mentions that were never links. Destinations that 404. A rare case where disavow is a tool rather than a ritual. That is a classification job. It is not a monthly PDF with a red pie chart and an hourly rate. We will not invent an audit SKU so procurement has a cell to fill.

Most “audits” sold in the wild are a tool export plus fear. Third-party toxic scores are not a Google verdict. Ahrefs and Semrush are useful for seeing referring domains. They are not Search Console and they are not clients. We use them as report metrics after we place a link. We do not treat their labels as a work order. DataForSEO is the scan we run on hosts we might pitch next, not a historical guilt machine for every URL that ever mentioned you.

The useful output is a short decision list: stop this class, ignore that class, replace nothing, add editorial here, enquire on a gold desk there. If the decision is “we need new placements on real hosts,” English guest posts are $125 to $450. DR40+ at $250 (QJE1WN) is the band most buyers pick. Dual path stays open: order that row or send the mix on the quote form set to Mix / not sure yet. If the decision is cleanup theatre, we will say no.

Open the host. Editorial looks like a publication: readers, an archive that is not only “write for us,” outbound citations that exist because a sentence needed a source. Junk looks like a storefront: fifty slots this month, footer farms, expired-domain magazines, casino-CBD-crypto outbound in the same week, leftover Domain Rating on a dead theme. How to vet a guest-post site is the inspection habit. Apply it to what you already have, not only to what you might buy.

Classify by class, not by badge. A DR70 recipe blog pointing at a sportsbook is still a bad object. A DR30 industry journal that already covers your category is often the row you keep. Moz Domain Authority is not a pass mark. Traffic estimates disagree with each other and with Google — use them as a smell test, then open the page. If you would not show the host in a meeting, it is junk even when the export painted it green.

Unlinked mentions and directory rows are not editorial backlinks. Log them as what they are. Brand mentions vs backlinks and citations vs backlinks are the artefact pages. Relabelling a name-check as a referring domain is how audits lie. We will not do that on a report, including a white-label PDF. White-label wraps placements we made. It does not invent a cleaner history.

Rarely. Google’s own help still treats disavow as last resort: spam you do not control, that you cannot get taken down, usually near a manual action or a clear hack. It is not a monthly hygiene ritual. A healthy site does not need it because a dashboard painted rows red. The longer refusal — and the table of when to file — lives on toxic backlinks and disavow. Read that before you upload anything.

Actually toxic: a documented network, a hacked blast, a Search Console manual action that names unnatural links. Scary score: a tool that called a university directory toxic, last decade’s blogroll, or a competitor smear Google already devalues. Competitor negative SEO is real as a tactic and overstated as a crisis. Do not disavow a thousand random comments because a Slack thread said you were under attack. Open Search Console first.

We do not sell a disavow package and we do not sell an audit-plus-disavow bundle. If you file, keep it tight. Domains you can defend as spam, not a kitchen-sink list. Uploading a huge file because a vendor was dramatic is how you accidentally flag something harmless. We will argue with you. We still will not charge an hourly cleanup rate for the argument. There is no such rate on pricing.

Because cleanup as a standalone business is how agencies invoice fear. We place editorial URLs on hosts that pass QC. We will not run a mill that promises to “lift a penalty” on a clock. We will not invent a recovery percentage. We will not claim a disavow works in fourteen days. We will not claim ChatGPT or AI Overviews care about your disavow file. Those claims are how theatre gets sold.

If you have a manual action, work the Search Console help docs. Stop buying the class of inventory that triggered it. Fix the destination page if it is thin. Then, and only then, talk about new hosts that look like publishing. English guest posts on those hosts stay $125 / $175 / $250 / $275 / $450. Typical TAT about two weeks, 20-day maximum, replacement if the live link drops. That is not a penalty product. It is the same fulfilment card as everyone else uses.

Founded 2022, Building 1, 658 Church Street, Richmond VIC 3121. Teams in Singapore and the Philippines. 10,000+ placements, 15+ languages, 100% manual. About 500 owned sites, disclosed when used, not a hidden network. Capacity is not a reason to take a cleanup RFP we should refuse. If that loses the work, good. Someone else can invoice the pie chart.

Stop the live orders that look like the junk you just classified. An audit on Tuesday and a marketplace cart on Wednesday is how you look unserious to a classifier and to us. Then decide whether the money page deserves any new href. Links on thin content waste money — link building vs content marketing. Ship the page. Link it internally. You own that graph; we do not sell an internal-linking retainer. See internal link building.

New editorial URLs, if the page is ready, come from guest posts or from niche edits from $99 when a relevant indexed article already exists. Do not brief “recovery links.” That phrase is how people buy a second farm. Same QC as any other order: traffic, outbound, topical fit, DataForSEO. How to buy backlinks safely is the procurement companion. Casino recovery is still the iGaming desk from $180, quote-only — not leftover English GP. Adult, CBD, and crypto stay Enquire Now.

A farm-heavy profile does not get healthier because you match a competitor’s junk. Competitor backlinks is the gap page: copy the host class, not the farm. PBN vs guest posts is the network page. We will not recreate a private blog network you found in their export, and we will not sell one to “dilute” yours. Dilution maths is a slide. Stopping the bleed is an operation.

The audit is the pause. The purchase is a separate decision. If the graph is already mixed and publishing-shaped, a steady desk can make sense — including the monthly package at $1,500 (SKU 2R60XR), which is scoped capacity across a month, not a 50-link quota and not a week-one dump. Link velocity is the ramp. How many backlinks to rank is the gap count. Neither is a reason to skip classification.

If the graph is a farm, buying more of the same class is the wrong next click. Buying a different class on a finished money page can be the right one. Dual path stays visible on this page because many briefs finish the classification and then need a packaged English guest post. Order DR40+ at $250 when you already know that band. Quote Mix / not sure yet when the next step might be niche edits, iGaming, digital PR, or a gold desk.

Digital PR is quoted and is not a penalty product. Wikipedia is Enquire Now and still needs independent sources. Directories are Enquire Now. International guest posts start at $175 when the destination is actually in another language. None of those become “audit add-ons.” We will not glue them onto a cleanup invoice so the story looks complete.

It will contain classes, examples, and a next action. Keep / ignore / stop buying / consider disavow / fix destination / buy editorial. It will name Search Console as the source of truth for manual actions and for the link export Google has seen. It will treat third-party toxic scores as a maybe-look list. It will not contain a ranking promise, a ChatGPT claim, or a made-up recovery rate.

It will not contain a public catalogue of every referring domain we might later pitch. Named future hosts are not a pre-sale asset. It will not contain an hourly rate. It will not contain a disavow file we are proud of for its length. It will not contain competitor-named URLs as a shopping list. If you want us to use a gap export, send it as input — see competitor backlinks — and expect us to mark the farm rows as ignore.

Lost URLs and unlinked mentions belong in their own bucket, not in “toxic.” Reclaim a 404 you own. Ask once about a real mention, or log it. Link reclamation and unlinked mentions are those jobs. Do not mix them into a disavow spreadsheet. Do not pay anyone to reclaim a farm you are about to flag.

Send the destination URLs that are actually ready, the vertical, the languages, and what you already stopped buying. Attach the Search Console export if you want a second pair of eyes on classes — not if you want us to file a kitchen-sink disavow. Say whether you have a manual action. Say whether you still have a marketplace cart open. If you do, pick one. We will not help you do both.

If the next honest job is a packaged English guest post, order it. DR40+ at $250 is the usual row. Content included. DataForSEO before approval. Live URL, DR, traffic, and anchor on the report. Replacement if the link drops. Create an account at clients.worldwidebacklinks.com. If the next job is mixed — inserts from $99, iGaming from $180, digital PR, Wikipedia — use the quote form. A strategist replies within 24 hours. Phone 1 800 751 994.

Stay on guest posts or pricing if the classification is done and you already know the band. Read toxic backlinks and disavow if the question is still “should we file.” Read Google link spam updates if you need the policy pointer. This page stays a classify-then-buy essay. We are not a penalty-cleanup mill. We will not invent an audit hourly rate. Quote the mix, or order the packaged English guest post when the page is ready.