Glossary
Link insertion marketplace terms a bootstrapped SaaS founder meets
Sellers speak in shorthand and charge by it. These are the terms that matter when every dollar is already spoken for.
SupeSEO redaktionella team ·
How to use this list
Read the entries once, then keep the tab open while you browse. A link insertion marketplace shows many columns, and each column hides a decision about money. Then reread it after one purchase.
We define words as this site uses them. Other sellers may use the same words loosely, so always check what a row actually says.
The terms are grouped by where you meet them: on the link itself, on the numbers, in the table of pairs and in the buying flow. Read one group at a time, and the list will not feel like a wall.
Terms about the link itself
Donor
The site that carries the link to you. On the shelf each donor shows Domain Rating, traffic, referring domains, niche, language and price.
Target URL
The page on your site that receives the link. For a SaaS it is rarely the homepage; a feature or a how-to page tends to deserve the first spend.
Dofollow
A link that does not carry a rel attribute asking Google to ignore it. Placements here are permanent and dofollow, which is not the same as a guarantee Google counts them.
Anchor text
The clickable words of the link. Mix branded, plain URL and descriptive anchors; ten identical keyword anchors look odd to a reader and to a system.
Terms about numbers on the row
Domain Rating (DR)
Ahrefs' 0 to 100 score of a site's backlink strength. It is a third-party estimate, not a Google metric, and it is easy to over-read at the low end.
Organic traffic
Estimated visits from search to the donor. A site with traffic that is falling deserves a second look, because the page you pay for may fade with it.
Referring domains
How many separate sites link to a donor. Ten links from one site count once; this number is a better health check than raw backlink totals.
Niche
The topic area of the donor. Closer to your product usually means a more believable link and a few readers who might care.
Words that sound alike and are not
| Pair | The difference |
|---|---|
| Placement vs link insertion | A placement is a new article with your link. An insertion adds your link to an existing page. |
| Basket vs order | The basket costs nothing. An order exists once you pay and the placement is queued. |
| Balance vs invoice | Balance is the money you top up. An invoice or proforma is paperwork for your accountant. |
| Nofollow vs sponsored | Both ask Google to treat a link with caution. Neither is what you see on a dofollow row. |
Terms about the buying flow
Basket, balance and order sound small. They are where money leaves your account, so treat them carefully.
The basket is free. It holds rows you might buy, and your balance is topped up in the dashboard, and paying the basket queues placements that then show in your ordered links with a status. Invoices and proforma invoices are available when you need paperwork for tax season.
Google also appears in this glossary indirectly: Search Console is where you check whether a page is indexed and which queries it shows for, and it is a free check that every founder should run before and after any purchase.
Keep the basket and the balance in separate columns of your ledger. A free basket that sits for a week is not spending, and a balance you top up is not yet a placement.
Terms about the words of a placement
On a link insertion marketplace the words a seller picks decide what you think you are buying. These four describe how the article behind your link gets written.
Content mode
The way the article for your order is produced. Automatic uses a target URL and keyword, your own prompt uses your instructions, and a finished article is one you supply.
Automatic article
Written for you from a target URL and keyword, with one clean link to your page. It costs the least of your time and gives you the least say over the wording.
Own prompt
Instructions you give for the article. Useful when your product needs a particular angle, and the wording stays closer to your own view.
Finished article
A piece you wrote yourself and place on the donor. The most control over wording, and the most work before the basket.
Words that should make you slow down
Some words in a listing are sales lines wearing a technical coat. They sound precise and tell you little, so slow down when you meet them.
A useful test is to ask what the word would need to prove. If the answer is nothing you can check, the word is decoration.
Guaranteed, exact or risk-free
Any seller who puts guaranteed next to a ranking, a position or a traffic number is describing a wish. Links feed into rankings alongside many other signals, and nobody outside the search engine can see the whole mix.
Exact is the quieter cousin. A promise of a precise traffic gain or a fixed position should be read the same way as a guarantee: as a sales line, not a fact about the world.
Authority, said loosely
Authority, trust and power get stretched across sellers until they mean nothing. A Domain Rating is one model, a traffic estimate is another, and neither one equals the trust a search engine places in a page.
When a row claims high authority with no metrics beside it, ask for the metrics. A missing number is information too, and it should count against the row.
Relevance is the word you can test
Relevance is the one term you can check yourself. Open the donor, read the article, and ask whether a reader of that page would be helped by your page. The answer lives in the article, not in the row's description.
Keep a note of the rows where the answer was no. Those notes teach you more about your own product than any list of definitions, including this one.
Glossary questions people ask first
Is DR the same as Google's authority measure?
No. Domain Rating comes from Ahrefs and is their own model of backlink strength. Google does not publish a score under that name, so a DR of 60 says nothing official about how Google will treat a page.
Does a dofollow link guarantee a ranking?
No. Dofollow only means the link carries no instruction to ignore it. Whether a search engine counts it, and how much, sits outside any seller's control.
Which term matters most on a $100 budget?
Referring domains and relevance, usually. Ten links from one site count once, so a small budget does better with a few different donors than with several links from the same one. The before and after sketch shows that spread in practice.
Do I need to learn every term before I buy?
No. Learn the numbers on the row and the path from basket to order. The rest makes more sense once you have read a few donor articles and seen the terms in use.
Be wary of anyone who uses the word guaranteed next to a link. No seller, tool or agency can promise a ranking, and Google's own spam policies treat links meant to manipulate rankings as a problem.
Terms about measuring after the purchase
A placement is only half of the story. The words below describe how you read its effect, and they are the ones people mix up most often.
Impressions
Impressions count how often a page appeared in search results, whether or not anyone clicked. A slow climb is worth noting after a placement, though it proves little on its own.
Impressions also move with seasons and with unrelated updates. Read them against the weeks before the purchase rather than against zero.
Queries
A query is the phrase a person typed. A page that starts to appear for a wider set of queries shows a change that one headline number can hide.
Check whether the new queries sit close to your product, since a page can gain visibility for phrases that bring no buyers at all.
Indexed pages
Indexed means a search engine has stored the page and may show it. Search Console reports the state of each URL, which makes it the first thing to check when a placement seems to do nothing.
A page that is not indexed cannot benefit from any link. Run the check before the purchase and again after it.
Where to go next
With the words sorted, the pricing explainer shows what the numbers cost. The donor scorecard turns them into a yes or no.
The terms above map onto the rows of Semrush and Majestic exports too, although each tool scores sites its own way and the numbers will not match exactly. Compare like with like, and note the month a figure was taken.
Short on time? Skip to the scorecard.
If a term keeps slipping away from you, write it on the sheet at the end of this page and come back to it after your first reading.
Reread the list once a quarter, since your own vocabulary will shift as the product does.
A sheet of your own definitions
Keep a one-page sheet of the definitions you actually use. Write each term in your own words, next to the tool that produced the number.
A sheet like that outlasts any single report. When a figure looks strange a year from now, it tells you what you meant when you wrote it down.
