Answering a link request

A partner has asked for a link on one of your pages. Nothing changes on your site until you say so.

What is being asked

The request shows exactly what would change: which of your pages, where the link would point, which words would carry it, and how it goes in.

Two shapes. Words already on your page become a link, and nothing else changes. Or one new sentence is added after a sentence they picked, carrying the link.

Either way you see the before and the after, so there is nothing to imagine.

The three answers

Accept. The page is clear about what that means: you will add this to your page yourself, and nothing is published for you.

Suggest different wording. Send back the version you would rather publish.

Decline. Nothing happens, and they can ask about a different page any time.

You can attach a note to any of them, shown to them either way.

Suggesting different wording

The most useful of the three, and the one to reach for rather than declining.

You rewrite the sentence so it reads like your site, or change the words carrying the link so they fit your house style. The form invites exactly that: rewrite it so it sounds like your site.

Then it goes back to them, and they either agree or send theirs back. That ping-pong is normal and usually ends after one round.

Two things worth keeping when you rewrite. Keep the link pointing at the page they asked for, and keep the wording descriptive of that page. Changing the destination or flattening the anchor to "click here" is technically an answer and practically a decline.

When to decline

When the page they want a link on is wrong for it. When the destination has nothing to do with your readers. When their rules and yours have drifted apart.

Declining one link does not end the partnership, and the page says so: they can ask about a different page any time.

After you accept: place the link

Accepting does not place anything. You add the link to your page, in your own CMS, then tell Rankbench.

It's live records that. Rankbench then opens the page, looks for the agreed link with the agreed wording, and confirms it.

If the link ended up on a different page than planned, there is a field to say so, and the page notes to only change it in that case.

When the page is published somewhere you cannot edit

If the page is on a platform where somebody else applies changes, you say so and Rankbench produces a link to send the publisher. They see exactly what would change and answer in one click. See when the page is published somewhere you cannot edit.

Keeping the balance

The ledger counts both directions: links you placed for them, and links they placed for you.

Nobody enforces a ratio. But a partnership where one side always says yes and the other always asks does not last, and the ledger is where that becomes visible before it becomes resentment.

Where to go next

The partner ledger is where all of this is tracked. How Rankbench keeps watch covers what happens after a link is live.