Backlink statuses explained
Understand why a backlink is live, nofollow, missing, blocked, errored, or temporarily paused, and what to do next.
Status meanings
Live means LinkCheck found the target URL on the referring page during the last check. Review the timeline when you need proof of the last successful check.
Nofollow means the backlink exists, but the link is marked nofollow. Review the referring page if the placement was expected to be followed.
Missing means the referring page loaded, but LinkCheck could not find the target URL. Open the referring page and target URL to check whether the placement was removed, changed, hidden behind JavaScript, or moved to another URL.
Error means LinkCheck could not confidently inspect the page because of a timeout, DNS issue, server error, redirect problem, or temporary block. Retry after the page is reachable.
Cloudflare blocked means the page appears to block automated checks. This does not always mean the backlink is gone; it may need a deeper retry or manual review.
Monitoring paused means repeated failures triggered backoff to avoid spending checks on a link that is not changing. Revive checks when you have reason to believe the page or placement changed.
What evidence means
Check evidence summarizes public-safe fields from recent audits: checked time, status, HTTP status, fetch method, target match, anchor match, link attributes, detected href, canonical URL, meta robots, page title, confidence, reason, and last error when available.
Evidence is intentionally summarized. LinkCheck does not show raw page HTML, full response headers, cookies, proxy details, provider payloads, secrets, stack traces, or raw diagnostic dumps in user-facing evidence panels.
Recommended next actions
For live links, view the page or history. For nofollow links, review the referring page. For missing links, open the referring page, check the target URL, and start outreach when the placement really changed.
For errors, retry the check after confirming the page is reachable. For Cloudflare blocked pages, retry a deeper check if supported or mark the link for manual review.
For paused links, revive checks only when you have reason to believe the page or placement changed.
Why a status can change
A later check can see a different page version, redirect chain, HTTP response, or bot-protection behavior. That can move a link between live, missing, blocked, and error without any code change.
Use the timeline and timestamps to tell a temporary fetch issue from a real publisher change.