Indexability
Also called Noindex, Canonical.
Whether search engines are allowed to keep the page your link is on — and whether it points at itself.
A link on a page carrying <code>noindex</code>, or canonicalised to a different URL, passes nothing. Both are one line in the head of the document, both are invisible to a reader, and both are the cheapest way for a page to look exactly like what was sold while being worth nothing.
This is not usually malice. A site migrating templates, a tag page that gets canonicalised to a category, a staging directive that ships to production — the effect on a paid link is identical whatever the cause.
It is also checkable in one fetch, which is why nobody buying a link should accept "it is live" as the whole answer.
How LinkBourse handles it
Every nightly reading records whether the page is indexable and whether its canonical points at itself. A link that stops being on an indexable page is not what was sold.
Check a page’s directives nowTerms it depends on
- Dofollow link
- A link that passes ranking signals, as opposed to one marked so that search engines ignore it for ranking.
- Anchor text
- The words the link is wrapped in — the part of a link a publisher can change without touching the URL.
- Escrow
- Money held by a third party from the moment a campaign is booked until the agreed work is confirmed delivered.