Link and budget accounting for link building teams
Link and budget accounting is the part of CRM development at Best Boost Partners that turns a spreadsheet of links into a register with checks and money attached. Every link is recorded with its donor, target page, anchor, price, date, contractor and status, and the CRM checks on a schedule that the link is still live and the donor page is indexed. Budgets are kept by project and month: planned against spent, cost per link and payments to contractors.
What exactly does link and budget accounting cover?
Link register
Each link is kept as a separate record: the donor, the donor page, the target page, the anchor, the type and attributes of the link, the price, the placement date, the contractor and the status. The register is filtered by any of these fields.
Donor base
A donor has its own card with the topic, the language, the contact, the price history and all links placed on the donor across projects. The team sees whether a donor has already been used for a project before paying for the donor again.
Live link checks
The CRM requests the donor page on a schedule and checks that the link is present, leads to the right URL, has kept its anchor and has not received a nofollow attribute or a noindex tag. A link that fails the check changes status, and the responsible person receives a notification.
Indexation checks
Whether the donor page is in the index is checked through the service your team uses for this, connected by API. The result is stored with its date: an indexation check shows the state on the day of the request, and the state can change later.
Budgets by project and month
A budget is set for each project and month, and every paid link is written off against the budget. The screen shows the planned amount, the spent amount, the remainder and the average cost per link.
Payments to contractors
Payments are tied to links and tasks: the amount, the currency, the date and the status from request to payment. The contractor’s card shows what has been ordered, what has been delivered and what has been paid.
What do you get from link and budget accounting?
- A link register with your existing links moved from spreadsheets and brought to one format.
- A donor base with the history of placements and prices across all projects.
- Scheduled checks of links and indexation with a log of results and notifications about lost links.
- Budget screens by project and month with planned and spent amounts and cost per link.
- A register of payments to contractors with an export for accounting.
When is link and budget accounting needed?
- Links are bought by several link builders, and the same donor gets paid twice for one project.
- Nobody can say which of the links paid for last year are still live and in the index.
- The link budget is known at the start of the month, and the amount spent becomes clear only after someone adds up the spreadsheets.
- Contractors ask about payments, and the answer has to be looked for in a messenger history.
Frequently asked questions
How does the CRM check that a link is still live?
The CRM opens the donor page on a schedule and looks for the link in the code of the page. The check compares the target URL and the anchor with the record, reads the rel attribute and the robots meta tag, and saves the server response code. The check sees the page as a crawler without a login sees it, so links shown only to logged-in users are marked for a manual check.
What happens when a paid link disappears?
When a paid link disappears, the CRM changes the status of the link to lost and notifies the link builder and the manager. The record keeps the contractor, the price and the payment date, so the request to restore or replace the link goes out with all the details. A restored link returns to the live status after the next check.
Can the CRM account for links from our own PBN and for free placements?
Yes, the register has a link type, and links from your own network, free outreach placements and paid placements are recorded side by side. A link from your own network has a zero price, and the costs of domains and hosting are kept as separate lines of the project budget. Reports can show each type separately.
Tell us about the project
Fill in what you already know. Blank fields are fine: we will clarify the rest in conversation.
Brief sent
Thank you. We will reply within one working day.
Preview mode: the form handler is not connected yet, so nothing was sent.