How Rankbank tells you things

Almost everything in Rankbank involves someone else: an editor reading your article, a partner deciding whether to place your link, a site owner answering a swap request. Notifications are how you find out that the other side moved. They live on the bell in the header, and nowhere else.

The bell and its count

Top right of every page, next to the view switch and the light and dark toggle. When you have unread notifications, a small dark badge sits on it with the number, capped at "9+". No unread ones, no badge at all.

Clicking it opens the notifications page. It does not open a dropdown, and there is no separate inbox to keep in sync.

The notifications page

The page is headed Notifications, with the line "When something needs you — a guest post decision, a swap request, a review — it lands here."

Rows are grouped by day, newest first. Today's group is headed Today, yesterday's Yesterday, and anything older gets its date. Within a group, unread rows come first, and inside that, the most urgent come first.

Read rows stay in place, dimmed, so a busy day still reads as a timeline rather than a queue that keeps emptying itself.

The three tiers

Every notification carries one of three severities, and they set the order:

1. Action needed, meaning nothing moves until you do something. These get a red dot and a small Action needed chip.
2. Important, meaning worth knowing straight away, but nobody is waiting on you. Blue dot, no chip.
3. FYI, a fact for the record. Grey dot, no chip.

Only the blocking tier is labelled. Putting a chip on every row is how labels stop meaning anything.

Clicking a row

The whole row is a button, and it does two things at once: marks that notification read and opens whatever it is about. An approved article opens that article. A swap request opens the request. A link that changed opens the link's page.

That is deliberate. Nothing gets marked read without being opened, so the count is always honest about what you have actually seen.

Mark all read

When you have unread items, a Mark all read button sits in the page header. It clears the badge without opening anything. Use it after a week away, when the backlog is history rather than a to-do list.

Older notifications

The page shows your 50 most recent. If there are more, a Show older notifications link at the bottom loads up to 200.

When there is nothing

The empty state reads:

You're all caught up Nothing needs your attention right now. When a site answers your guest post or someone asks to swap links, you'll see it here.

Notifications are in-app, and that is all

Rankbank has no email delivery today. Nothing lands in your inbox, and nothing is sent to anyone on your behalf.

That is true across the product, not just here. When you invite a website, Rankbank makes a link for you to send yourself, and the "open a ready-written email" button opens your own mail client with the text prepared. When you create a link for a publisher, you copy that link and send it however you like. The invite dialog is honest about why: "invitations from a person get read; invitations from platforms get deleted".

On your Profile page there are two switches under Notifications, described as "What lands in your bell — and, soon, your inbox":

• Notifications is the master switch, with "Turn this off and Rankbank stays quiet." Off means nothing is recorded for you at all.
• Email me too says "Email delivery is coming soon — your choice is saved." Switching it on saves your preference and changes nothing else today. When you do switch it on, a third control appears, Email me about, offering "Only action needed", "Action needed and important", or "Everything". Same story: stored, not yet acted on.

What generates one

A tour by module, with the label each event carries and its tier.

Guest posts

For a writer: Someone started reviewing your article (FYI), Your article was approved (Important), Your article needs changes (Action needed), Your article was declined (Important), New comment on an article (Action needed), Your article went live (Important), The live link checked out (FYI), and The live link failed its check (Action needed).

For a site owner: A guest post is waiting for review (Action needed) when someone submits, and Revisions were sent (Action needed) when a writer sends an updated version.

The wording is plain. A change request arrives as "Changes were requested on {title}" with the body "Read their notes, revise the draft, and send it back." See when the editors ask for changes.

Link exchange

Someone wants to swap links (Action needed) when a request arrives, then Your swap request was approved or Your swap request was declined (both Important).

Once you are partners: A partner asked you for a link (Action needed), Your link request was accepted (Important), A partner suggested different wording (Action needed), A partner passed on that link (Important), Your link went live (Important), and A placed link changed or disappeared (Action needed).

That last one is the reason monitoring exists. It arrives as "A link your partner placed has changed", with the specific finding and the note "We'll keep checking; you may want to ask them about it." See how Rankbank keeps watch.

Site audit

Your site audit finished (FYI), with a body like "We read 128 pages and found 24 things worth fixing", and Your site audit hit a problem (Important) when a read stopped early.

Only the person who started a read is told about it. A read that Rankbank started by itself, such as the first one after you verify a site, notifies nobody. See how Rankbank reads your site.

Content calendar

Your content plan is ready (FYI) when a build finishes, A content plan build failed (Important), and A draft is waiting for your approval (Action needed) when the calendar has written an article for you to read. See reviewing and editing a draft.

Who gets told

Two rules cover almost everything.

The other side is notified, never the person who acted. You do not get a notification for sending your own request. The site receiving it does.

Work you started tells you when it is done. Audits, calendar builds and generated drafts notify whoever kicked them off, because that is the entire point of them. Routine background work that succeeded quietly tells nobody.

Where a notification is meant for a site rather than a person, it goes to the admins of the organisation that owns that site.

Where to go next

The place notifications most often land is your dashboard, which shows the same open work as counted cards. If you are getting swap notifications and want the vocabulary behind them, read the partner ledger.