About, editorial policy and ownership

What the site covers

The handbook covers one task: checking that links you have placed or earned on other websites keep existing and keep working. It defines backlink monitoring, sets out the six health checks a link should pass, explains each signal (rel values, robots.txt, noindex, canonicals, indexation) and gives practical guidance on cadence, paid links and recovering removed links.

It does not rank tools or review vendors, and it does not cover link building tactics.

Ownership

backlinkmonitoring.org is published by IndexChex, the company behind indexchex.com. IndexChex sells a backlink indexer, a Google index checker and a backlink monitor, described on the IndexChex backlink monitor page. Readers should weigh any mention of IndexChex with that relationship in mind. Concept pages mention IndexChex only where a tool example is relevant.

Editorial policy

• Google behaviour. Statements about crawling, robots.txt, rel values, noindex and canonicals are checked against Google Search Central documentation, and each page lists the documents it relies on. The handbook does not publish statistics about Google that Google has not published.
• IndexChex facts. Prices, credit costs, limits and features come from IndexChex's own published specifications. Where IndexChex performance is mentioned, it is reported as the result of IndexChex's weekly measurement on recurring URL sets, dated, and described as an average rather than a guarantee.
• Third-party tools. Any fact about another vendor is given with a source link and the date it was checked.
• Neutral wording. Pages are written in the third person without promotional claims.

Corrections

Errors and outdated statements can be reported to support@indexchex.com. Please include the page URL and, where possible, a source for the correction. Corrected pages show an updated date.

How to cite

Each page ends with a "Cite this entry" block giving the title, site, publisher and date. When quoting, cite the specific page rather than the home page, and note that the publisher is IndexChex.

Related sites

This handbook is one of several reference sites published by IndexChex on indexing and link verification. The full list is on the network page. Common definitions live in the IndexChex glossary. The handbook's own directory is on the home page, and recent examples of link problems are discussed on lost backlinks.