Confirming who represents your website

Rankbench is where websites agree links with each other, one link at a time. If someone looks after your website's SEO, they may have set it up here for you. Before partners will exchange backlinks with it, someone at your domain has to confirm that person represents your site.

That is the email you received. It came to an address at your own domain, because only someone there can answer for it.

What the page shows

The link in the email opens a page that names the person and their email address, and the website. It says what confirming allows: they can arrange backlink exchanges for your site with other websites.

It also says what it does not do. Every link is agreed one at a time before it goes live. Nothing changes on your website unless you or they place it.

Yes or No

Yes confirms they represent your site. Your site is then verified for backlink exchanges, and partners see it as Owner confirmed by email.

No, I don't know them turns the request down. They are told, and they cannot ask the same address again for 30 days.

If you were not expecting it, choose No or ignore the email. Nothing happens either way. The link works for seven days and only for this one request. You may get one reminder before it runs out.

The answer is a button on the page, never the link in the email itself. Email security scanners open links, and a scanner must not be able to say yes for you.

Taking the site over

After you confirm, the page offers you the site on Rankbench, free: Create my account, or sign in if you already have one. The offer lasts 30 days, and the email address that confirmed the site is the one to use.

Taking it over makes you the site's owner on Rankbench. The person who set it up stays on as your SEO consultant, so their work carries on, and you can see everything they do.

You decide what they may do. On People, their row says Answers exchange requests while they may accept or decline exchange requests for your site. It starts that way. Choose Stop them answering exchange requests from the row's menu to take it back, or change their role or remove them, at any time. See people and roles.

If the link does not work

The page says why. It may have expired, it may have been replaced by a newer email, or the site may already be verified. Ask whoever sent it for a fresh one if you still want to confirm.

Where to go next

Verifying your site covers the other ways to prove a site is yours. How link exchanging works explains what your site is now part of.