Purchased link management

Q: Why didn't I get an alert the first time a link was missing?

That's the false-alarm protection. A link becomes Lost only after three failed checks in a row, which filters out short outages. Meanwhile the list shows Verifying (1/3), (2/3) and so on.

Q: Which alerts do I get?

Link lost, Link changed (nofollow, anchor, noindex), a notice when a link is healthy again, Page de-indexed / indexing results and Link payment or expiry coming up, which also covers links that expired but are still live. When more than three links change at once, they are grouped into one message. Choose the channels in notification settings.

Q: What happens when I pause a link?

Pause tracking stops checks and payment reminders, keeps the history and frees a slot in your link limit. Resume tracking brings it back as Pending check.

Track the links you buy: daily checks for removal, nofollow, anchor and noindex changes, payment reminders, proof archive and a ready email to the seller.

When you pay for a footer link, a sponsored post or a guest article, you need to know it stays the way you agreed. Link management checks every purchased link automatically each day, tells you when something changes, keeps a proof archive and reminds you before payments and renewals are due.

It is built for site owners, SEO freelancers and agencies who buy links from publishers, brokers or link sellers. Open it from the sidebar under Project → Link management (open it).

How it works

For each link you enter the Source page (where the link lives), the Target URL (your page) and what you agreed on: Expected rel, Expected anchor and Link type. serp.ac then visits the source page once a day and checks:

HTTP status: whether the page loads at all, or returns an error such as 404.
Link found: whether there is still a link to your exact target URL (host and path; www, protocol and trailing slash don't matter).
Rel: dofollow, nofollow, sponsored or ugc. A page-wide nofollow robots tag also makes the link nofollow. If you expect dofollow and it isn't, that's an issue.
Anchor: whether the link text still matches your Expected anchor (not case-sensitive). Leave the field empty to skip this check.
Noindex: a noindex robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header on the page.
Canonical: whether the page's canonical tag points to a different URL.
robots.txt: whether the page is blocked for Googlebot.
Hidden link: whether the link is hidden with CSS or attributes (for example display:none).
Indexed: whether the source page itself is in Google's index. This is checked about every 14 days.

Link statuses

Status	Meaning
Pending check	Not checked yet, or tracking was just resumed.
Active	Found and everything matches.
Issue	Found, but something differs from what was agreed (nofollow, anchor, noindex, canonical, robots.txt, hidden).
Lost	Not found (or the page failed to load) in 3 consecutive checks.
Expired	The end date you entered has passed.
Paused	You paused tracking; the link isn't checked.

False-alarm protection: a single failed check doesn't mark a link lost. Pages go down for a few minutes, and sellers sometimes redeploy their site. After a failed check the link shows Verifying (1/3) and is checked again a few hours later. Only after three failures in a row does it become Lost and you get an alert.

Payments and renewals

Add a Price, Currency, Billing cycle (One-time, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly), Start date and optional End date, and serp.ac builds the payment schedule. Reminders go out 7 days, 3 days and 1 day before a payment is due, and again on the due date (or if it's overdue), each one only once. For one-time links with an end date, the reminder is about the expiry and renewal. If you tick Auto-renews, the end date moves forward with each paid period.

Step by step

Open Project → Link management and scroll to Add link (or click Add link at the top).
Enter the Source page (where the link lives). For footer and sidebar links, use the site's homepage. Check the Target URL (your page).
Optionally fill in the Expected anchor, then choose the Link type and Expected rel.
Enter the Price, Currency, Billing cycle, Start date and, if the deal is time-limited, the End date.
Pick a saved Seller / broker or type a new name. Add Tags (comma-separated) and Notes if you like.
Click Add link and check. The page is checked right away and the result is shown immediately.
Have many links already? Use Bulk import from CSV / Excel: click Download template, fill it in and upload it with Import (or paste the rows). Only source_url and target_url are required.
Click a link to open its details: the check results, Payments, Proof archive, Check history, Edit link, Pause tracking and Delete.

What the numbers mean

Tracked links: how many links you track, with your plan usage. Starter includes 50 links, Pro 500 and Agency 5,000; you can add +500 tracked links for $9 per month. Paused links don't count.
Issues / lost: links with an issue and lost links, checked daily.
Monthly link spend: the monthly equivalent of your active links (quarterly ÷ 3, yearly ÷ 12, one-time links spread over their duration).
Due in 30 days: payments coming up in the next 30 days.
Index column: Indexed or Not indexed for the source page.
Proof archive: when the link was last seen on the page, with the HTML around it. serp.ac keeps the last 30 checks per link.

Contact the seller

When a link has an issue or is lost, the link page shows Contact seller with a ready-to-send email. It lists what was agreed (target, rel, anchor, purchase date and price), what changed, and the evidence from the proof archive, and asks for a fix within 7 days or a refund. Edit it freely, then:

Copy it, or Open in email app, or
Send from serp.ac once the seller's email address is saved under Seller contact. Replies go to your email address and you receive a copy. You can send up to 5 emails per hour.

Tips

Always set Expected anchor when the anchor was part of the deal. It's the change sellers make most quietly.
Tag links by campaign or month (for example "campaign-nov") and use the search box to find them fast.
When the source page drops out of the index, the link loses most of its value. Use Send to indexer on the link page (it uses one URL of your indexer quota).
Mark payments with Mark as paid or Won't renew so reminders stop and the schedule stays correct.
Telegram alerts come with buttons to re-check a link, mark a payment as paid or skip a renewal without opening the app. See Notifications.

FAQ

How often are links checked?

Every link is checked once a day, plus right after you add it or change its URLs. Click Re-check in the list (or Re-check now on the link page) to check it immediately. Whether the source page is indexed is checked about every 14 days.

Why didn't I get an alert the first time a link was missing?

That's the false-alarm protection. A link becomes Lost only after three failed checks in a row, which filters out short outages. Meanwhile the list shows Verifying (1/3), (2/3) and so on.

Which alerts do I get?

Link lost, Link changed (nofollow, anchor, noindex), a notice when a link is healthy again, Page de-indexed / indexing results and Link payment or expiry coming up, which also covers links that expired but are still live. When more than three links change at once, they are grouped into one message. Choose the channels in notification settings.

What happens when I pause a link?

Pause tracking stops checks and payment reminders, keeps the history and frees a slot in your link limit. Resume tracking brings it back as Pending check.

Can I add links from the Chrome extension or the API?

Yes. The Chrome extension can add the link on the page you're viewing, and the REST API has an endpoint for adding purchased links. See API & MCP.

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