Off-page SEO · Prospect Vetting
Guest Post & Link Placement Quality Vetting Scorecard
Inspect candidate publisher pages across 10 real technical and editorial checkpoints before outreach. Catch hidden noindex tags, sitewide nofollow policies, outbound link farms, and PBN footprints.
10 Checkpoints Inspected
- ✓ Meta & Header Indexability
- ✓ Self-Canonical Integrity
- ✓ Dofollow vs Nofollow Share
- ✓ Outbound Links / 1k Words
- ✓ Internal Link Ratio
- ✓ Guest-Post Footprint Scan
- ✓ Editorial Word Depth
- ✓ Niche Keyword Overlap
- ✓ Author & Schema Markup
- ✓ Freshness Timestamp
Look beyond surface metrics
Why on-page placement signals matter more than inflated authority scores
Link sellers routinely inflate domain-level metrics using redirected expired domains while publishing thin, unindexed articles packed with dozens of paid external links. Auditing the actual article template and outbound link behavior protects your budget and your backlink profile.
Verify Indexability & Canonicals
Confirm that candidate pages do not carry hidden noindex directives or canonical tags pointing away from the article.
Spot Link Farms & Toxic Co-Citations
Measure external links per 1,000 words, internal-to-external link ratios, and commercial spam footprints automatically.
Standardize Agency Vetting
Export a repeatable 10-point CSV matrix or Word audit report before approving guest posts, resource outreach, or link insertions.
Next steps after qualifying a prospect
Once a publisher passes vetting, check for broken outbound links on their resource pages with the Broken Link Opportunity Finder, draft your personalized pitch in the Outreach Email Builder, and verify the live link once published with the Backlink Verification Tool.
Questions and answers
Guest post & link placement vetting questions
How does the Guest Post & Link Placement Quality Checker evaluate a prospect?
It inspects 10 observable technical and editorial signals on the candidate page: (1) meta/header indexability, (2) self-referencing canonical alignment, (3) outbound dofollow vs nofollow/sponsored policy, (4) external link density per 1,000 words, (5) internal-to-external link ratio, (6) 'write for us' and high-risk commercial footprints, (7) body word count and heading depth, (8) topical relevance overlap with your keywords, (9) author attribution and schema markup, and (10) publication/update timestamps.
Does this tool invent Domain Rating (DR) or Domain Authority (DA) numbers?
No. Third-party authority metrics are proprietary to their vendors and are frequently gamed on expired-domain link farms. Instead, this tool inspects the actual HTML, HTTP headers, link density, and editorial signals on the page where your link will live.
Why should I enter a sample article URL rather than just a bare homepage?
Entering a representative article URL (or the exact niche-edit target URL) lets the analyzer check whether individual posts are indexable, whether external links inside articles are dofollow or forced nofollow, and whether articles have real internal links and author attribution.
What outbound link density is considered a red flag?
When an article contains more than 15–22 external links per 1,000 words across many unrelated domains—especially paired with zero internal links—it strongly resembles a paid link farm or PBN post.
Why does canonical tag alignment matter for link placements?
If a publisher page has a <link rel='canonical'> tag pointing to the site's homepage or another URL, search engines ignore the page itself and consolidate link signals elsewhere.
Can I compare multiple guest post prospects at once?
Yes. Enter up to 5 public URLs in batch mode to generate a side-by-side comparison table and downloadable CSV/DOCX vetting scorecard.
What if a publisher site blocks automated crawlers with a firewall?
Switch to the 'Inspect Pasted Publisher HTML' tab, copy the page source from your browser, and run the exact same 10-point audit offline.
What exports are included for agency or client sign-off?
You can download a side-by-side CSV prospect scorecard for spreadsheets or an editable Word (.docx) vetting audit detailing all 10 checkpoints per site.