Publisher Vetting Standards
The bar every host site must clear before it carries your link
Every domain we place on is reviewed by a person before it enters our inventory, and re-checked before each campaign. These are the standards that review applies. We publish them because the quality of a link campaign is decided almost entirely by the quality of the sites behind it, and clients deserve to know exactly what they are buying.
Traffic and Indexation
A publisher must demonstrate genuine organic search traffic — our working floor is roughly 1,000 organic visitors per month, verified in third-party tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush rather than self-reported analytics. The domain must be indexed, must rank for keywords of its own, and its traffic must come predominantly from search rather than paid or referral schemes.
Editorial Integrity
We look for evidence that the site is edited by people: a named editor or author bios, a submission or review process, consistent publishing history, and content written for readers rather than for search engines. Sites that publish anything for a fee, with no review, do not qualify.
Outbound Link Profile
We assess how many external links a site already sells or gives away. Domains with excessive outbound commercial links, sitewide footer links, or an obvious link-selling footprint are rejected. We also cap how frequently we return to any single publisher, so that our own placements never create that footprint.
Topical Relevance
A placement must make sense to a reader. We match publishers by topic and audience, not by availability, and we will decline an order rather than force a link onto an unrelated site.
Exclusions
We reject private blog networks, expired-domain rebuilds, link farms, auto-generated or spun content, sites with a history of manual actions, sites carrying malware or deceptive advertising, and any publisher that will not disclose how it handles sponsored content.
Client Approval
You receive the proposed site list with metrics before placement, and you may veto any domain for any reason at no cost. This approval step is standard on every order. If a site later falls below these standards, it is removed from our inventory and any affected placement is covered by our replacement guarantee.
Last updated: 22 August 2026. Adult Link Building reviews these policies at least annually and on any material change to how we operate.
Related Policies
These standards sit alongside our link quality policy, which sets out what we will and will not acquire, and our editorial and outreach guidelines, which govern the content itself. What happens when a vetted placement is later removed is covered in our replacement terms. To see the standards applied to your own campaign, request an audit.