Check your agency’s link work by opening the pages it reports, following the links and asking how each was earned. Match that work to what you agreed to buy before you pay for more.
I start by opening the page. A lawyer has enough reading to do without spending a review call trying to find the work the bill covers.
Pick a reported link and follow it from the publisher’s page to your own. Check that your firm belongs in that passage, then get a plain account of how the link came about.
Open the page behind the report line
A backlink is a link from another site to yours. Choose a row marked as published. Open the full page address, find your firm’s mention and click it.
The report needs to give you that page address. A site name or score alone means another round of questions before you can even begin. Get the page list ahead of the call.
Read the words around your mention. Does the page describe your firm correctly? Does the link work? Does it take you to the page the report names?
If your mention has gone, mark that row for correction. A screenshot from last month shows what was there then. Check what is there today and ask what happened to the link.
You can write a short note beside the row: “Mention found; link opens the wrong page.” That gives the agency a clear problem to fix. At the next review, click it again.
Decide whether your firm belongs there
Read enough of the page to understand who it is for. Look for a legal topic, a local connection or a question your firm can help answer.
Suppose a page discusses an issue your firm handles and links to your explanation of it. Read both passages. Can you see why a reader would move from one to the other? That is the connection to discuss with the agency.
The words you click matter too. Google’s link best practices say they should be brief, descriptive and relevant to both pages. Google uses links to find pages and help judge their relevance.
If the link promises an explanation but opens your home page, ask why. A reader expecting an answer now has to search your site for it. Choose a page that answers the question the link raises.
A site score cannot show you that fit. Put the two pages beside each other before discussing the score.
Ask what was exchanged
Put this question to the agency: “What did you offer the publisher, and what did they agree to do?”
The answer needs to name the arrangement: a pitch, a contribution, a payment or an exchange. Paying an agency to contact publishers is a different expense from paying a publisher for a link. Get both costs explained.
Google’s link spam policy covers links made to manipulate rankings, including bought ranking links, excessive exchanges, automated links and low-quality directory links.
For paid ranking promises or an unclear exchange, I pause further work until the agency explains the arrangement in writing.
The same policy allows advertising and sponsorship links when marked with the right label.
“Sponsored” and “nofollow” are labels added to a link to tell Google about its relationship to the linked site. Google’s label guidance prefers “sponsored” for paid links and accepts “nofollow” too.
For a paid feature, get the agency to confirm which label is used. Then judge the proposed advertising by who will read it and what you are paying for. You can make that decision without reading code.
Read what the monthly total counts
Return to the total after checking the pages. Count newly earned links on their own. List repaired links separately, with a note saying what was fixed.
If an old mention was first found this month, record when it was found. Finding it does not mean the agency earned it this month.
A pitch awaiting a reply is unfinished work. It belongs in the update, with the next step, rather than in the count of published links.
Here is an example of a reporting line to agree: “For each finished link, list the publisher’s page, our linked page, the date and how it was earned.” Add a separate list for pitches still awaiting publication.
If the agreed target was missed, discuss the next attempt. Is the pitch changing? Does your site need a page worth citing? Name who will do that work and when you will hear back.
Keep these records when you change providers. If you are reviewing an SEO contract, include past reports in the handover terms. The contract clause that keeps law firms stuck covers what to check about leaving.
When Google’s list and the agency’s list differ
Search Console is Google’s reporting service for your website. Its Links report shows sites linking to you and pages receiving links.
Google’s Links report guidance says the list is a sample, may include removed links and does not show the “nofollow” label.
If a new link is missing there, open the publisher’s page. A visible, working link shows that it exists today. Its absence from Google’s sample alone is no reason to reject it.
The reverse matters too. If Google lists a link that has gone, mark it as gone in the agency’s record. Check whether the report and the bill still count it as new work. Use the page you can open today to settle that question.
Decide what the next bill should cover
A complete link list tells you what was done. Now look at the wider SEO results: the searches and pages being worked on, search results and inquiry counts.
If the agency credits a link for a change, ask what else changed in that period. Were pages rewritten too? Did the report start counting inquiries differently? Discuss those changes before accepting the link as the cause.
If the phone is still quiet, agree on a revised plan before another round. That might mean a different topic, a better page to link to or dropping an opportunity that no longer fits.
Write down the chosen action, who will do it and the next review date. Start the next call with that action and what came of it.
Questions law-firm owners ask
Do I need to check every link myself?
Start with a reported page and follow the checks above. If you find an error, ask the agency to check the rest for the same problem. Put the corrections in the report.
What should I request when no links were published this month?
Request the outreach record, the agreed target and the next step for each unfinished pitch. Decide whether those next steps justify another month of the same work.
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