Vetting buyers
Buy and sell backlinks: twelve buyer red flags to refuse on sight
Every order is a stranger asking to stand on your page. Most are fine. The few that are not tend to repeat the same tells, and they are easy to learn.
Twelve red flags in a brief
- The target page sells casino, adult content, payday loans or pharmacy goods.
- The anchor is an exact-match money phrase, and the buyer insists on it.
- The target URL redirects somewhere other than the page described.
- The brief asks you to remove a
nofolloworsponsoredattribute you would normally apply. - The deadline is today, and the message explains that it is urgent.
- The article text is a spun rewrite of another site's page.
- The linked site has no contact page, no author and no history in Wayback Machine.
- The buyer wants five links to different pages in one article.
- The brief names a competitor of another sponsor you already hold.
- The topic has nothing to do with anything you have ever published.
- The same brief arrives from two different accounts within an hour.
- The sender asks to pay outside the platform.
Why the anchor deserves your first look
Anchor text is where careless buyers expose themselves. A natural link reads like a citation, while an exact-match phrase such as a bare commercial keyword reads like a purchase order.
The brand name, the page title or a plain URL are all safe. They look like what an editor would write on a Tuesday afternoon.
If a brief demands the money phrase, answer once with an alternative, and if the buyer still refuses to budge, decline. That is the cheapest decision you will make all month, because a placement you regret can stay on your page for years.
What to reply, flag by flag
| Flag | Your reply | Walk away if |
|---|---|---|
| Money anchor | Offer a brand or title anchor | The buyer repeats the demand |
| Rush deadline | Quote your normal turnaround | They pressure you again |
| Redirecting target | Ask for the final URL | It does not match the brief |
| Odd niche | Quote double, or refuse | You would not read it yourself |
| Off-platform payment | Say all orders run through the marketplace | They push a second time |
Hypothetical: one inbox, three briefs
Here is an invented Monday. Three briefs arrive before lunch, and you have time for one conversation.
The first is a travel-insurance comparison page. Looks fine. It has a brand anchor and a draft that reads well. The second is a casino review with an exact-match anchor and a deadline of tomorrow. The third comes from a stranger who asks you to accept payment by a transfer outside the marketplace and promises a bonus of $50 for speed.
Approve the first, decline the second without discussion, and report the third through your account. The whole triage takes six minutes once your topic wall is written down, and the pricing method tells you what the first one is worth, while the clean-site guide covers the follow-up.
Editors turn down guest pitches every day. A two-line decline with no explanation is normal in publishing, and nobody sensible sends a second email about it.
Checking a buyer's page in ten minutes
Open the target URL in a private window. Read it as a stranger would.
Then run the domain through Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz, whichever you already pay for, and look at the anchor profile of the page you are about to support. A page whose backlinks are all identical money anchors is a page that has been abused before.
Check Wayback Machine for the domain's earlier lives, and search the brand name plus the word complaint. Ten minutes. It saves you months of cleaning up, because a site that has been burned by link schemes before tends to bring the same habits to your page. Keep notes. Repeat buyers earn faster approvals, and unfamiliar ones earn extra care, which is why a sheet with the date, the domain and your decision pays for itself within a quarter.
Our position
Refuse more than feels comfortable
A new seller who accepts every order trains the market to treat the site as a vending machine. One who refuses a third of briefs gets better ones. If you are ever unsure, the order stays pending and nothing goes live.
- Approval is yours on every placement
- Unsure means wait, not accept
- Keep your decline reasons in a sheet