Nine services, ordered by how fast they report

Pool the referring domains of the four URLs currently outranking your target page. De-duplicate, subtract yours. What is left is the gap — a finite, named list of publications that link to your competitors and not to you.

In most SaaS categories that number is 40 to 120. It sets the monthly volume, the timeline and the price, in that order. A proposal that quotes a link count without it has picked the number from its own capacity.

Free, delivered as a spreadsheet, yours to keep either way.

Reports

Week 2

Input

Target URL, keyword, read-only Search Console

Output

Ranked list: likelihood, effort, route per domain

Refreshed

Quarterly

Cost

Free, no contract

Getting you listed accurately and high in "best tools for", "top alternatives to", integration directories and category round-ups. The pages your buyer opens right before shortlisting.

We sequence this first, deliberately. It produces referral demo requests within weeks, independently of any ranking effect — which means there is something real to report at month two while everything else is still warming up.

Half the work is inclusion. Half is correcting listings that describe your product as it was two years ago, which is unglamorous and frequently the fastest win available.

Reports

Weeks 3–8, in demo requests

Audit scope

60–200 round-ups per category

Market rate

Paid inclusion typically $350–$750

Disclosure

Every paid placement labelled in your sheet

Measured on

Referral demos, reported separately from rank

Manual outreach to a named editor at a publication with a verifiable readership in your category. One pitch, one angle, written to their beat. We draft, you approve before submission, and the link sits inside the argument rather than in a bio line.

Candidates run the checks before any email goes out. About 65% fail and go into the rejection log with a reason code, which you see monthly — including the months it makes us look slow.

Reports

First placements live month 2

Output

6–24 verified placements per month by tier

Lead time

21–40 days, pitch to live URL

Threshold

≥1,000 verified organic sessions; topical overlap scored

Market rate

Guest placements average $220–$609 industry-wide

Placement inside an article that already ranks and already receives traffic. The host page carries existing authority, so insertions register faster than new content.

We buy only where the surrounding paragraph makes the link genuinely useful to a reader, and we cap the workstream at roughly a third of monthly volume. A profile built mainly of insertions is a visible pattern once there are more than twenty of them.

Reports

Weeks 2–4

Output

Blended into your monthly number, ≤35%

Pre-check

Host page must already rank and receive traffic

Market rate

Insertions average ≈$141 industry-wide

Why the cap

Because the distribution is what gets noticed

The one workstream that earns links outreach cannot buy. We mine your product telemetry, or run a panel of 300+ qualified respondents, and publish the number your category argues about without evidence.

Be clear about the shape: this looks like the worst line item at ninety days and the best at month twelve. Higher cost up front, then eight to fourteen months of accrual with no further spend. Companies that review quarterly cut it just before it works.

Reports

Coverage weeks 6–9; majority of links months 3–14

Cadence

One story per quarter on Runway SEO and Overdrive

Lead time

5–7 weeks from data access to launch

Includes

Analysis or survey design, report, press kit, pitch list

Skip it if

No usable data and no panel budget

Benchmarks, calculators, free micro-tools. Built against measured demand — we find what your category already cites, count the citations, and build the version that is missing. If nothing comparable earns links, we say so and move the budget.

Worth stating plainly: below about $3,000 a month, one good asset beats twelve months of thin outreach. We will tell you that on the first call rather than sell you the wrong tier.

Reports

Slow — majority of links months 6–14

Cadence

One per quarter on Overdrive

Includes

Concept, build, copy, structure, launch outreach

Ownership

Yours, on your domain, permanently

Skip it if

Three competitors already rank for the same asset

If you arrive carrying previous agency work, we classify it before adding to it. Every referring domain categorised, footprints clustered by host, template and outbound pattern, anchor distribution mapped.

Output is a removal list, a disavow file and a rebalancing plan. On roughly one engagement in five the honest recommendation is to acquire nothing in quarter one and clean up instead. That delays everything by a quarter and it is the correct sequence — acquisition on a damaged profile buys a defended position, not a better one.

Reports

Weeks 2–4

Deliverable

Removal list, disavow file, rebalancing plan

Duration

2–4 weeks audit; a quarter if remediation is needed

Included in

Every tier, before acquisition starts

Standalone

Available as a one-off, no retainer

Every placement ships with a record: live URL, anchor, the paragraph it sits in, do-follow status, the referring page's own organic traffic, and the date it was first indexed. Written to your shared sheet the day it goes live.

Not the same as reporting. A monthly summary is something you have to believe. A verification record is something you can spot-check on a Tuesday.

Nothing is billed before its record exists and the index check passes at day 30.

Fields

URL · anchor · paragraph · rel · page traffic · index date

Written

Publication day, not month end

Format

Live shared sheet, always open

Also includes

The rejection log with reason codes

Billing gate

Not billable until live, indexed and verified

Every URL we deliver gets recrawled weekly for a year. Removed, switched to no-follow, de-indexed or 404ing gets flagged within seven days and replaced at no cost.

Links decay predictably. A supplier who does not address it has moved a known cost onto you quietly. One carve-out, and it is fair: if you delete or migrate the page we linked to, that one is yours.

Anchor modelling runs alongside — the twelve-month distribution agreed at kickoff, reported against monthly, so the profile does not drift into something nobody chose.

Frequency

Weekly automated recrawl

Window

12 months from publication

Triggers

Removal · no-follow flip · de-index · 404 · publisher offline

Remedy

Replacement placement, no charge

Anchor target

Branded 35–45%, exact-match 2–5%