How to verify a backlink

Direct answer

A backlink check should establish whether the fetched donor HTML contains a link to the exact intended target. It should also record the final donor URL, anchor, rel values, and page directives. Presence alone does not prove that a search engine crawled or credited the link.

What to check

1. Fetch the donor page. Record its HTTP status and final URL after redirects. A link on a 404 page or an inaccessible page is different from a link on a stable public page.
2. Resolve and compare the destination. Relative hrefs need to be resolved against the donor page URL. Compare the resolved destination with the requested target, including host and path, instead of accepting a substring match.
3. Read context and limits. Record the visible anchor or image alternative, placement, and rel values such as nofollow, sponsored, or ugc. Inspect canonical and noindex signals on the donor page as separate evidence.

Example

Example: a donor at https://example.com/articles/post links with href="../product". Resolve it to https://example.com/product before comparing it to the target. A link to /product-old is a different destination.

What this does not establish

The current RankMeOff backlink worker inspects fetched HTML and does not execute JavaScript. A link inserted only after client rendering can be missed. No domain authority, spam score, ranking effect, or Google indexing outcome is measured.

Sources and next step

• Google: qualify outbound links
• Google: crawlable link practices

Read the RankMeOff measurement methodology or open the related tool page.