Share your backlink audit workflow

What does a repeatable backlink audit look like in your team?

Useful details include your data sources, how you group domains, how you inspect suspicious patterns, and how you report uncertainty. A sample spreadsheet layout is welcome; remove confidential data first.

Try to explain what each step changes in your final recommendation.

Keep the source data and the decisions separate. A downloaded backlink list is evidence to inspect; labels such as “suspicious” or “irrelevant” are judgments that need reasons.

Include the verification date and whether a link was actually checked on the live page. This makes repeat audits easier and prevents old tool observations from being treated as current facts.

Preserve the raw backlink export and work on a separate review sheet. Deduplication and classification decisions should be reproducible.

For each sampled source, record whether the live reference was inspected and whether the destination still answers what the source promises. A tool label without that context can be difficult to interpret later.