Backlink Placement Verifier & Client Report

Check whether a promised backlink is still present, uses the agreed anchor text, and has the required link attributes. Supply known source pages and expected targets; receive one evidence record per placement and a printable agency report. No proxy, paid API or AI key is required.

Quick start

{
  "placements": [
    {
      "sourceUrl": "https://example.com/",
      "targetUrl": "https://iana.org/domains/example",
      "expectedAnchor": "Learn more",
      "requireFollow": true
    }
  ],
  "maxRedirects": 3,
  "timeoutSecs": 15,
  "delayMillis": 250
}

The example checks the real link on example.com. Replace the row with your client placements. A changed demo anchor may correctly produce a mismatch.

Input	Meaning
placements	1–1000 objects; each requires sourceUrl and targetUrl.
expectedAnchor	Optional exact, case-sensitive text after collapsing whitespace. Omit to accept any anchor. Empty string requires an empty text anchor. Image alt text is not counted as anchor text.
requireFollow	Optional boolean, default false. When true, the same matching link must lack nofollow, sponsored and ugc; the page must also lack a robots/googlebot nofollow or none directive.
maxRedirects	0–5 per source page, default 3.
timeoutSecs	2–30 seconds per request including DNS, default 15.
delayMillis	100–5000 ms between requests, default 250.

Target matching is exact after standard URL parsing and fragment removal. Paths, case-sensitive paths, trailing slashes and query strings remain significant. Relative links respect the page's first HTML base URL. Redirects on the source page are followed; the target itself is not fetched or resolved through a redirect service.

Results and reports

• verified: at least one matching link satisfies all supplied placement requirements.
• missing: no matching link was found in a complete successful HTML response.
• mismatch: the link exists, but no single link satisfies all supplied requirements.
• unknown: a blocked, failed, non-HTML, truncated or otherwise unsupported response prevents a conclusive check.

matches contains up to 10 matching-link evidence entries with anchor text, rel tokens and requirement checks. matchCount counts all matches in the inspected HTML. Evidence text is bounded (500-character anchors and 10 rel tokens of 30 characters each); EVIDENCE_CAPPED indicates more matches exist. found, anchorMatches and followEligible can be null when not established. A verified placement may still have a PAGE_NOINDEX warning: this is link evidence, not a claim that a search engine indexes or values it.

The default dataset exports as JSON, CSV or Excel in Apify. Open Printable client report for REPORT HTML and Audit summary for SUMMARY JSON. Download the report and print it to PDF if needed. A partial report explicitly shows missing work. Use itemIndex to join back to your input; duplicate rows are checked and billed separately.

Schedule the same input in Apify for recurring checks. This Actor checks current placement requirements; it does not maintain cross-run history or send messages. Export snapshots or connect your own workflow to compare runs and notify clients.

Pricing

Launch price: $3 per 1,000 completed placement checks (placement-checked, $0.003 each), plus the Apify start event ($0.00005 at the default 256 MB) and platform usage. Start-event count increases above 1 GB. Confirm the current Pricing tab before running. For 100 checks, mapping events total $0.30 plus the start event and platform usage. Reports and issue lists have no extra event fee.

Successful HTTP observations are charged even when the result is missing, mismatched, blocked (403/429), non-HTML or otherwise unknown. DNS, TLS, request timeout and unsafe-target errors with a populated error field have no custom check fee. The start fee and platform usage still apply. The Actor stops before work that cannot fit its event budget. Do not enable automatic dataset-item billing alongside placement-checked.

Boundaries and privacy

Only publicly reachable HTTP(S) on standard ports is supported. Credentials in URLs, private/reserved network destinations and unsafe redirect targets are rejected. DNS answers are checked and the selected public address is pinned to the connection. Do not supply URLs containing secrets or personal query parameters.

This is static HTTP HTML inspection with a 2 MB body cap. It does not execute JavaScript, inspect rendered visibility/CSS, cross into iframes, discover backlinks, check domain authority, interpret robots.txt, verify Google indexing, or certify ranking impact. Only UTF-8/ASCII and identity-encoded HTML is parsed. Site geography, access rules and personalization can change the result. It does not retry blocked requests.

Data remains in your Apify run storage; no external analytics/database is used. Storage retention and access follow your Apify account settings. Runs use limited permissions. Interrupted runs may have a report snapshot up to 24 rows behind the dataset; the dataset is authoritative. Normal completion, graceful abort and spending-limit stops refresh the report. Inspect interrupted paid runs before resurrection: dataset writes and charges are not a cross-service transaction.

Support

Include a run ID, sanitized input and expected result in an Actor issue. Never share API tokens. Source-specific failures should be reviewed before telling a client that a placement was removed.