What is a live link in SEO?

A live link in SEO is a backlink added to partner sources. It can be a text or graphic. We name the link live when it is visible to everyone. However, there are many cases when people use the live link in other contexts. Here are some other cases when people use the expression “live link”:

• When the developer publishes any page on the site, they say “the link is live.”
• When you send emails and insert a link in them. If it is pointing to some URL, people say the link is live
• When you send a document for temporary use, and people say the link is live until some date.

Types of live links

• Internal live links: These are links that direct to the internal pages. I think you have noticed it many times on platforms like Wikipedia. Internal live links should always be dofollow.
• External live links: There are live links that go outside of the website. External live links can be nofollow or dofollow.

Status of a live link

If we say the link is live, it should be:

• Active.
• Not broken or removed.
• No redirects
• Indexed
• Clickable

How to check if the link is live or not?

Easy 2 steps we use to check if the link is live or not, if it is live but not visible:

Step 1: Ctrl + U

You will see the HTML code of the page.

Ste2: CTRL+F

Search your URL or domain name that should be added.

Alternative ways

Alternative ways to check whether the link is live or not are with backlinks management tools like Ahrefs.

• If you buy external dofollow backlinks, these types of links will help your pages rank on Google. Make sure to avoid PBNs.
• Internal dofollow backlinks will connect your relevant pages and will help your pages always be indexed.
• Nofollow external live links can help you create a natural backlink portfolio and gather traffic for your target source.

To measure the effect of live links, you should track

• Your traffic
• Google positioning
• Indexed pages
• Service or product sales

We love the sentence ” Your link is live” as this helps complete the plan of our monthly contextual backlinks service. However, after this message, we check the page where the link was added. It can be done manually or with backlink monitoring tools.

In some cases, we get a message that the link is live, but after our manual checking, we identify that it is not live. Here are all the points we noticed when the link is technically live but not really:

• link inside a <div style=”display: none”>: This can be a manipulative link, so you should avoid this type of link.
• Javarendered links: These links may not be seen by Search engines, you should check with a URL inspection tool
• CMS issues: Companies that have their own custom CMS can have bugs in their code. Sometimes they add the link, they see that, but others don’t.
• Cache: When you first enter the URL, it is kept in your browser history. So you should clean your cache, or just try to update the page with CTRL+R.
• Draft content: Sometimes, editors did not save or keep the content in the draft. Just random.

There are 3 points I can mention here.

1. The link exists in the noindex tag page. Google just does not see that link.

2. The link is nofollow. This is the question that can be discussed as the links of nofollow nowadays have a good impact on a clear backlink portfolio. The website with full dofollow backlinks can be manipulative and promotional.

3. Links in the widget, plugins, or iframes: People who use WordPress know that there are some educational articles that WordPress or plugins can suggest to better use their tools. So that links cannot be visible. Technically live but not visible.