Reciprocal Link Audit

Why Audit Your Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal link exchanges degrade over time. Partners remove links, change them to nofollow, or let pages drop from the index. A quarterly audit keeps your link profile healthy and ensures you get the value you negotiated.

Step-by-Step Audit Process

1. Export your active exchanges from Linkorite or your tracking spreadsheet
2. Verify each partner link is still live and pointing to the correct URL
3. Check link attributes — confirm links are dofollow unless otherwise agreed
4. Validate indexability — ensure the linking page is indexed in Google
5. Assess page quality — check if the linking page still has reasonable traffic and authority
6. Review anchor text — confirm it matches what was agreed upon
7. Flag violations — mark any exchanges where the partner has not upheld their end

Quality Checkpoints

• Is the linking page returning a 200 status code?
• Is the link visible in the page source (not injected via JavaScript only)?
• Does the page pass a robots.txt and meta robots check?
• Has the partner domain’s authority dropped significantly since the exchange?

After the Audit

• Reach out to partners with violations and request corrections within 14 days
• Remove your outbound link if the partner does not respond after two follow-ups
• Document findings and update your exchange records in Linkorite
• Use audit results to refine your partner qualification criteria going forward