Keywords and competitors
Guest post and sponsored link checker
Before you pay for a guest post or a sponsored link, check the site: how much search traffic it gets, how old it is, whether it advertises posts for sale, and how its existing articles label paid links. You get a plain verdict with the reasons behind it.
Free · No signup · 5 lookups a day
How it works
Enter the site that offered you a guest post or sponsored placement. Add one of its existing guest or sponsored articles if you have it.
We look up its estimated Google traffic and domain age, read its homepage, its "advertise" or "write for us" page and one article, and check every link in that article.
You get a verdict (worth considering, be careful, or avoid), the reasons for it, and what to put in the agreement if you go ahead.
What this guest post checker looks at
- Search traffic: an estimate of monthly visits from Google in the US, worked out from the keywords the site ranks for. A site that sells posts but gets almost no search visitors is selling links, not readers.
- Domain age: when the domain was registered, from the public registration record. Brand-new sites selling posts are often built for exactly that.
- "Write for us" and "advertise" pages: whether the homepage links to them, and whether the offer promises "dofollow" links, "permanent" links, guaranteed indexing or a domain authority score.
- How an existing article labels paid content: a "Sponsored" label near the top, a sponsored section in the address, and whether its links to other sites carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".
- Link patterns: how many followed links the article sends to other sites, and whether one company gets several links with keyword text instead of its name.
Each finding feeds a fixed set of rules, so the same facts always give the same verdict. No AI guesses which way to lean.
What Google's rules say about paid and guest links
Google's spam policies are clear on one point: a link given in exchange for money, a free product, a service or a swap should be marked rel="sponsored" (rel="nofollow" also works). Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit is listed as link spam, and so are guest posts and articles stuffed with keyword-rich links. A seller promising "dofollow links, no sponsored tag" is offering exactly that.
Guest posts themselves aren't against the rules. Writing a useful article for a site whose readers are your customers is ordinary marketing. The problem is paying for a site's rankings rather than its readers. Google's site reputation policy covers hosts that let third parties publish content mainly to borrow the host's ranking signals; when Google acts on a section like that, the posts in it stop ranking, and the money you paid doesn't come back.
So judge a placement by what you can measure: real readers who might click, mentions of your brand, and whether the host is cited where your buyers look. A correctly labelled sponsored link can still bring visitors. It won't, and shouldn't, bring ranking credit.
How to read the verdict
"Avoid" means at least one hard red flag: the offer sells followed or permanent links, the site has next to no search audience yet advertises posts, the homepage is blocked from Google, or the article is packed with outbound links. "Be careful" means nothing rules the site out, but something needs a second look, such as a young domain, a small audience, or sponsored posts whose links aren't marked. "Worth considering" means nothing in what we could check raised a flag.
The thresholds are rules of thumb for a first look, not numbers Google publishes. Traffic figures are estimates from rankings, not the site's own analytics, and they cover Google in the US only: a site popular in Germany can look small here. Read the reasons, not just the label.
What it can't check, and what to ask for
Only you can judge whether the site's readers match your buyers and whether it normally writes about your topic. Before you pay, read a handful of its guest or sponsored posts: do they have real, named authors? Would its own editors have published them? Is the section in the site's menus, or tucked away? Search Google for site:theirdomain.com plus the section's address to see whether those posts are still indexed. If Google has quietly stopped showing them, the section may already have been acted on.
If you go ahead, put it in writing: every link to you marked rel="sponsored", a clear label such as "Sponsored" above the headline, your brand name or plain address as the link text, an article written only for this site, and a refund or removal if the section is hit by a manual action. Then measure what matters with a UTM-tagged link: visits and sign-ups, not link equity.
Questions people ask
Are guest posts against Google's guidelines?
No. Writing for another site's readers is fine. Paying for links that pass ranking credit, or stuffing guest posts with keyword-rich links, is what Google's spam policies call link spam. Links in anything you paid for should be marked rel="sponsored".
Is a sponsored post with a nofollow or sponsored link worth paying for?
It can be, when the site has real readers who match your buyers: you're paying for visitors and visibility, like any ad. If the only point was the link's ranking value, it isn't, and a seller who offers to leave the label off is offering to break the rules on your behalf.
Where does the traffic number come from?
It's an estimate of monthly visits from Google in the US, worked out from the keywords the site ranks for and how many people search them. It's useful for comparing sites, not an exact count. Only the site's own analytics knows that.
Why did a big, well-known site get "be careful"?
Usually because the article we checked labels itself as sponsored but its links aren't marked, or because one company gets several followed links with keyword text. That's a risk for the placement however large the site is. Read the reasons; the verdict follows them.
Is this guest post checker free?
Yes, with no signup. It uses paid search data, so there's a limit of 5 checks a day.
Want it done for you?
Put the budget into pages you own
Romeo researches the searches your buyers make, writes the pages that answer them, links them together and keeps them up to date, with every change sent to you for approval. Rankings you earn on your own site don't disappear when someone else's section gets penalised.
