Backlink monitoring handbook

About this handbook

backlinkmonitoring.org is a handbook for people who place links on websites they do not control: guest posts, sponsored articles, niche edits, directory citations and partner mentions. Once a link goes live, the publisher can edit, remove, redirect or block it at any time, and the buyer usually finds out months later, if at all.

The handbook explains what to check, why each check matters to Google, and what to do when a check fails. Start with the definition of backlink monitoring, then read the health-check checklist that a working link should pass. The site is published by IndexChex, and the IndexChex backlink monitor entry describes that tool in the same neutral terms used for the concepts.

Technical statements about crawling, robots rules and rel values follow Google Search Central documentation, which is cited on each page.

How to use it

Readers usually arrive with one of three questions, and each has a short path through the pages.

"Is this link still working?" Run through the six conditions on the health-check page in order. Presence comes first, because nothing else matters if the anchor is gone. The rel value comes next, then the three signals that decide whether Google can read and keep the page: robots.txt, noindex rules and the canonical. Indexation of the source page is the final check.

"A tool says my link is gone. Is it?" Separate completed results from checks that never finished. A firewall challenge or a timeout is not a removal. The outcome codes and the anti-bot page explain the difference, and the lost-backlinks page sets out how to confirm a loss by hand.

"How should I set up monitoring for links I paid for?" Record what was agreed for each placement (URL, anchor, rel value, duration), check it as soon as it goes live, then follow a schedule matched to the link's cost and age. The paid links and cadence pages cover this.

Every page states which Google document it relies on, so claims can be checked at the source rather than taken on trust.

Directory

Concepts

• What is backlink monitoring: the definition, what a monitor records and how it differs from a one-off audit.
• Backlink health checks: the six conditions a link should meet to be worth keeping.
• Backlink monitoring vs backlink databases: checking known links directly versus browsing a crawler's index.

Tools

• IndexChex backlink monitor: what the IndexChex monitor checks, how it is priced in credits and which cadences it offers.

Problems

• Lost backlinks: what counts as a lost link and how to tell a removal from a temporary error.
• Why a backlink goes missing: the common reasons a link disappears from a source page.
• Anti-bot blocking and link checks: why some source pages refuse automated checks and how to read that result.

Signals

• nofollow, sponsored and ugc on backlinks: the three rel values and what a change in them means.
• robots.txt and backlinks: how a disallow rule on the source site affects a link.
• noindex and X-Robots-Tag on source pages: meta and header rules that keep the linking page out of search.
• Canonical tags on source pages: when the linking page points its canonical somewhere else.
• Source page indexation: why a link on an unindexed page is weak evidence of value.

Practice

• Choosing a monitoring cadence: one-time, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly checks.
• Monitoring paid links: tracking placements you bought against what was agreed.
• Recovering a lost backlink: steps for getting a removed or altered link restored.

Reference

• Backlink check outcome codes: the result labels a monitor returns and what each means.
• Backlink monitoring FAQ: short answers to common questions.
• About, editorial policy and ownership: who publishes the handbook and how it is sourced.

Related sites

Definitions for terms such as robots.txt live in the network glossary. The full list of sibling sites is on the network page.