Teardown
Teardown of a typical dofollow backlink offer for review sites
Every review-site owner gets the same email. We took an invented one apart, line by line, and show what to ask before any money moves.
The pitch, as invented for this page
Here is a made-up message, written to resemble the real ones. "Hello! We have 300+ high DA blogs. Dofollow backlink, permanent, only $15, no footprint, 7-day delivery, send your URL today." Count the claims.
Six of them are unchecked. None names a site. The word "permanent" carries no definition, and "no footprint" is a promise nobody can verify from a sales email, so treat it as decoration.
Line by line
| The claim | What it might mean | Ask for |
|---|---|---|
| 300+ high DA blogs | A list you will never see, or a network of one owner | Three named sites before payment |
| Dofollow backlink | Maybe true today, maybe edited later | The exact page and a way to check the rel attribute |
| Permanent | Until the post is cleaned out | A written definition and what happens on removal |
| $15 flat | One price for any site, so the good ones are rare | The price per site, with traffic shown |
| No footprint | Nobody can prove it | Nothing; ignore the line |
| 7-day delivery | A queue | Delivery date and a live URL, not a screenshot |
What we would write back
A short reply works best. Three named sites, with live URLs, and the rel attribute you intend to use. Real sellers answer in a day. Others vanish.
If the answer arrives, open each site and read three posts as a visitor. Look for dates in the last quarter, comments or social shares that are not spam, and a topic near yours. Then compare the price with what the same Domain Rating and traffic cost on a marketplace, where $1 to about $500 per link is the visible range.
The four numbers that actually matter
Domain Rating
Ahrefs' score for a whole site. Useful for sorting, useless as a promise. A DR 60 blog about gardening does little for a router review.
Organic traffic
Real visitors from search suggest Google trusts the site enough to show it. Check the trend in Ahrefs or Semrush, not only the headline number.
Referring domains
A site with huge traffic and almost no outside links is unusual. Look at the ratio before you buy.
Niche and language
A pet blog linking to a laptop review reads as odd to a person and to a classifier. Match the topic.
Where a marketplace differs, and where it does not
A marketplace shows the donor before you pay. Good. On Rankerix each row lists Domain Rating, organic traffic, referring domains, niche, language and price, and the pool holds 50,000+ vetted domains. That removes the guesswork about who you are paying.
It does not remove the risk. A bought link is still a bought link, and Google's spam policies speak plainly about links meant to manipulate ranking. Read our disclosure list before you build a whole site on the tactic.
Delivery is simple. The article is written automatically with one clean link to your page, and it usually goes live about 24 hours after payment. Placements are permanent dofollow. Anything else a seller promises, check twice.
Red flags in any link offer
- No site names before payment.
- A single price for every domain.
- Payment only by a method you cannot dispute.
- Screenshots instead of live URLs.
- Promised positions or promised traffic.
- Pressure to order today.
Verdict
Judge the offer by what it lets you inspect
If you cannot open the donor site, read its articles and see its metrics before paying, the price is irrelevant. Use the decision tree to choose a page, then buy where you can see the row.
- Inspect first, pay second.
- Small orders beat bundles.
- Keep a log with dates.