Backlink providers: red flags when you serve many towns
Chains and multi-branch firms get pitched constantly. This is the list we would hold against any offer, ours included.
Why branch businesses are an easy target
A firm with twenty town pages looks like a firm with twenty problems, so a salesperson only needs to say "we cover every location" and the owner hears relief. Question that sentence first. Always.
Some backlink providers sell a flat package per town, delivered in bulk and described in a spreadsheet that nobody can verify, while others sell a mass backlink run that lands the same anchor text everywhere. Both hide the facts you need. Which site? What price?
Ask one thing of every supplier: show me the sites. Not a sample or a category, but the actual sites, with the price of each link beside it, delivered as a list you can open and check yourself. Honest sellers can send that in an afternoon. The rest change the subject.
Red flags, in the order we would check them
- The offer is a bundle with a number of links per town but no list of the sites.
- You cannot see price, authority or traffic for a single donor before you pay.
- Every town gets the same anchor text with only the place name swapped.
- Delivery is promised in a few hours for dozens of links at once.
- The report is a screenshot, not a list of live URLs you can open.
- A ranking position is named as the outcome, or a date by which it will happen.
- Links are described as part of a private network, with no named sites.
- Payment is requested before anyone has asked which pages you want to promote.
- The provider will not say how the article text is produced.
What a clean offer looks like
None of this is exotic. It is what you should be able to see before a single dollar moves.
A row for each link
Domain Rating, organic traffic, referring domains, niche, language and price are visible per donor. That is the standard we hold ourselves to, with prices from $1 to about $500.
A basket you can reread
You add, remove and compare before paying. If a provider has no equivalent step, you are buying blind.
A clear idea of the article
Automatic from your URL and keyword, your own instructions, or your finished text. Nothing mysterious about who writes what.
Live URLs you can open
Each order has a status and ends as a placement you can visit, permanent and dofollow, usually about 24 hours after payment.
Even a clean offer carries no guarantee. Google's SpamBrain and its manual reviewers look at links meant to manipulate rankings, so keep the volume modest and the pages worth visiting.
Questions about vetting a supplier
Is a cheap package always a bad sign?
Not by itself. A $1 link on a modest site can be perfectly reasonable. The bad sign is a low price attached to hidden sites. Price should come with a row you can read and a page you can open.
Should I let a provider choose my target pages?
No. You know which town pages are ready and which are thin. Pick targets yourself using the town ranking tree and give the provider one URL per placement.
Can I check what a provider delivered?
Yes. Open each live URL, confirm the link is there and dofollow, and compare against Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz for rough authority. Their numbers differ from ours, which is normal.
What about tiered link schemes?
Treat them with suspicion. We explain why in the note on tiers and pyramids for branch sites.