33 links for a niche online retailer, and the four-line test every site had to pass

One-line summary: A small online retailer in a very specific niche got 33 links over five months, each from a site that passed a written four-line test, and we kept the emails to show how it was done.

The situation

The client sells one kind of product online, in a single themed category. Like most small shops, it had a handful of product pages and almost nothing linking to them. It wanted a focused campaign, not a big, vague one.

The work ran in five monthly batches. The tracker carries month names but no year. The dates inside the placed URLs and the email threads put the work between autumn 2021 and January 2022.

The play

The test. The sheet opens with a qualification list, four lines long:

• Traffic over 1,000 a month
• DR over 30 (Ahrefs)
• Relevant
• Low spam score

The pick list. A second tab lists the sites we proposed. It has 29 rows. 22 of them show a DR, ranging from 27 to 64 with an average of 46.6, next to an estimated monthly traffic figure. The status column splits them into 7 live, 20 in the pipeline and 1 in progress for the next batch.

The exclusion list. A third tab, headed as a list of domains already linking to the client and sourced from Ahrefs, keeps us from spending time on a second link from a site that had already given one.

The angle. None of the posts were product ads. The placed articles sit in the wider world around the product: entertainment lists, party planning, hobby and craft ideas, family activities. The product page gets a link where it helps the reader, usually on a descriptive phrase.

The first touch. One short email, the same structure to every blog, with the owner's first name and site. It asks a plain question: do you accept guest contributions from writers relevant to your industry?

Two real emails

Both are from the threads for this account. Names are removed and we've trimmed them for length.

1. The first touch

Hey [first name],

I was looking for a few blogs for my clients, and I found yours, [site]. I wonder if you accept guest contributions from known authors and writers who are relevant to your industry? If so, let me know, and I will share with you some ideas from our writers.

We are looking for a business partnership with known blogs like yours, and I hope we can work something out.

I am looking forward to hearing back from you.

Best,

2. The reply after a month of silence

A gaming blog's owner answered the first email the same day, on 3 November 2021: "Yes, I am interested." The owner followed up on 2 December. We wrote back on 9 January:

Sorry. Your emails ended up in my spam folder.

I would like to contribute relevant content on your website. This is not going to be a one time collaboration. Every month based on our various relevant requirements, we will contribute relevant content on your blog!

Let us know what you think!

The article was live on 15 January 2022.

What the owners replied

• A same-day yes. The gaming blog's owner replied within the day, in one line.
• Slow replies on both sides. After sending the content to a lifestyle blog on 13 November, we wrote three times (23, 25 and 27 November) with the same short line: "Any update? Is this published yet?" The owner answered on 28 November: "I have no idea how I missed this! I'm so sorry. I'm working on it right now for you." The gaming blog went the other way: the owner's follow-up on 2 December sat unanswered until 9 January.
• A live link, volunteered. Both owners sent the live address without being asked: "The post is now live" on 28 November, "here is your article live link" on 15 January.

The results

Over the five months in the tracker (September to January):

• 33 links published, all on different domains: 5 in September, 5 in October, 8 in November, 9 in December and 6 in January.
• DA recorded: 26 to 79, average 47.4, median 47. 29 of the 33 are above 30. The four that aren't are at 26, 27, 27 and 30. The test says DR and the tracker records DA, so the two aren't directly comparable, but we'd rather you see the gap.
• Traffic recorded in the tracker: 1,000 to 62,000 a month, median 5,300. All 33 are at or above the 1,000 line. The tracker doesn't say where the traffic figures come from.
• Where the links point: 20 of the 33 go to the main category page. 11 go to three product-variant pages. One row has no destination and one lists the publisher's own page, which looks like a data-entry slip.
• Anchors: mostly short product-category phrases. The six January links all use the same one.

We haven't put a traffic or sales number on the client's side because the files don't have one.

What we'd do again, and what we'd change

Again: write the filter down before hunting. Four lines on the first tab meant nobody had to guess whether a site was in. The exclusion tab saved time on sites that already linked.

Differently: vary the anchors. Six links in one month sharing one phrase reads as repetitive to anyone who looks. A mix of brand, plain URL and different descriptive phrases is what we'd set up at the start next time.

Receipt box

Four links from the tracker. Category, DA as recorded, live status, anchor type. No URLs.

Site category	DA	Traffic recorded	Status	Anchor type
Travel and lifestyle blog	46	22,000	Published	Product keyword
Entertainment and movies blog	56	9,100	Published	Product keyword
Party and kids' activities blog	63	53,000	Published	Product keyword
Fashion and lifestyle blog	44	5,500	Published	Longer descriptive phrase

How we vetted these sites

Each site had to clear the four-line test: traffic over 1,000 a month, DR over 30, relevance, and low spam score. The pick list shows 29 candidates and the tracker shows the 33 that went live, every one with a recorded traffic figure at or above 1,000. The sheet also has "client approval" and "why it's rejected" columns, but both are empty in the export we have, so we can't show you a rejected row for this account. Whether a given spam score was checked isn't recorded either, only that it was on the list. The 7 October 2026 live check didn't cover this account.