a single source, nothing corroborates it

Check a paid placement is a real website

Three practitioners looked at the same purchased links and applied the same test: does this site have an about page, a named author, contact details, a mailing list and social accounts. A homepage link with a keyword-rich anchor is itself the tell, because a writer citing you genuinely would point at the relevant page. Check the spam score distribution alongside the backlinks and walk away if the mix is odd.

The method

1. 01

   Check a proposed placement for the ordinary furniture of a real site before you pay: an about page, a named author, contact details, a mailing list and social accounts.

2. 02

   Look at a candidate site's spam score distribution alongside its backlinks, and walk away if the mix is odd even when the design passes.

3. 03

   Treat a link into a homepage with a keyword-rich anchor as a sold link, because a writer citing you genuinely would point at the relevant page.

What it returned

• $425

  Brian Dean found the content on the $425 site well written and the design decent but noted all five of those markers missing, and judged the link would struggle to survive a manual review.

• $225

  Cyrus Shepard rated the $225 placement possibly safe with toxic overtones depending on the anchor, thought the asking price was fair, and still said it may not move rankings and he would decline if shown the site in advance.

• $150

  Joshua Hardwick used exactly this tell on the $150 site, noting its other posts linked to homepages with keyword anchors and that its own organic traffic had been falling for one to two years.

Sources

• The Hoth Review: Spending $1,000 on Guest Posts | Detailed.comBrian Dean · detailed.com · Link #3: A DA 40+ 1,000 Word Guest Post ($425) · 2018-12-19