Backlink exchange
How RankPine matches contextual backlinks, prices placements with credits, verifies links, and protects the network from obvious abuse.
RankPine's backlink exchange is an optional contextual-link network between participating customer sites. While a new article is being written, RankPine can reference one genuinely related article elsewhere in the network — but only if an existing sentence naturally supports the link.
It does not add sitewide footers, directory pages, "related reading" blocks, or automatic A-for-B swaps. If the destination does not fit the writing, RankPine skips it and spends nothing.
No network can promise Google-policy safety
Google's spam policies list automated link creation and excessive link exchanges as potential link spam. RankPine reduces obvious abuse with relevance checks, article separation, pair cooldowns, and live verification, but cannot guarantee rankings or immunity from a search-engine action. Participation is optional.
The dashboard
Open Backlinks in the site sidebar to see the site's participation state, available credits, next refresh, purchased reserve, and every earned or hosted placement.
Each row shows the source article and site, anchor text, destination article, referring Domain Rating, credit cost, date, direction, and current verification state.
The page header controls which new backlinks the site may receive:
- Source language means the language of the article linking to you. Keep the current same-language behavior, accept all supported languages, or choose a specific set of languages.
- Minimum referring Domain Rating is the lowest Ahrefs DR a site may have to
create a new link to you.
DR 0+accepts any measured rating; higher thresholds reduce the available network pool and usually spend more credits per match.
These preferences apply to new matches. They do not remove or rewrite backlinks that were already placed.
Before a site can join
The participation switch unlocks when all of these are true:
- You are the site's owner.
- Your RankPine account has an active paid subscription. Trial accounts cannot join yet.
- Autopilot is on.
- A publishing integration is connected.
- RankPine has measured the site's Domain Rating.
- At least one article is published. RankPine uses the CMS destination when one is available, otherwise it derives the URL from the site's Blog address and article slug.
Hover or focus the participation switch to see every missing requirement. Turning autopilot off later immediately pauses participation.
How matching works
Find related live articles
RankPine first uses the draft's title, target keyword, niche, and site description to build a compact shortlist of public articles from other eligible participants. It then compares the finished draft with each destination's public summary, headings, and excerpt. This second review judges meaning rather than requiring the same vocabulary, so a controlled number of zero-word-overlap candidates can still be considered. The destination site's source-language and minimum-referring-DR preferences continue to apply.
Space out repeated pairs
RankPine rejects your own sites and sites under the same owner. Two domains may link in both directions over time, but not as a direct article-for-article swap. Each return link must use different source and destination articles, any two placements for the pair must be at least 14 days apart, and each direction is limited to 12 placements in a rolling year.
Let the sentence decide
A focused review identifies an existing sentence where the destination would materially help the reader. The edit may hyperlink a useful phrase and minimally rewrite that one sentence for grammar, but it cannot add a standalone sentence, new claim, or recommendation to manufacture context. If the first selected page does not fit during insertion, its temporary credit reservation is refunded and one fallback may be tried. No natural fit means no link and no spent credits.
Verify the public page
After the CMS returns a public URL, RankPine checks that the page contains the promised followed link. Verified links are revisited weekly. Transient failures are retried before a placement is considered lost.
Credits
Every eligible site gets 100 included credits per UTC calendar month.
A placement costs the referring site's rounded Domain Rating, with a 10-credit minimum and a 100-credit maximum:
| Referring Domain Rating | Cost |
|---|---|
| 0–10 | 10 credits |
| 28 | 28 credits |
| 70 | 70 credits |
| 100 | 100 credits |
Included credits are spent first. They refresh on the first of the month and do not accumulate. One-time top-ups stay in the site's purchased reserve until they are used:
| Pack | Price |
|---|---|
| 100 credits | $39 |
| 250 credits | $89 |
| 500 credits | $149 |
Choose Get more credits on the dashboard. Polar handles payment in an embedded checkout; a successful order is reconciled by both the signed webhook and the return page, with an idempotency guard so it can only credit the wallet once.
Buying credits does not buy a guaranteed number of links. RankPine considers lightly related candidates when supply is small, but placement still depends on the finished article having a natural sentence-level fit and on the referring sites' DR.
Placement states
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Queued | Credits are reserved and the contextual link is present in the draft. |
| Checking | The CMS published the article; RankPine is checking its public URL. |
| Verified | The live page contains the followed link. |
| Lost | Repeated checks could no longer find a valid followed link; credits were returned. |
RankPine also refunds a reservation when article generation fails, the contextual edit finds no fit, you delete or archive the source article, an editor removes the link before publishing, the publishing integration disappears, or the CMS does not return a public URL.
Same-month refunds return credits to the buckets that paid for the placement. If the included-credit month has already ended, those expired monthly credits move to the purchased reserve so the refund does not disappear at the next refresh.
Turning participation off
Switch Participating off on the Backlinks page. RankPine stops creating new matches for the site. Existing public links are not remotely deleted from either customer's CMS; they remain visible in the ledger and continue through the normal verification lifecycle.
What another participant can see
The network uses only the public/site content needed to match and verify a link: article titles and URLs, site name and niche context, language, Domain Rating, anchor text, and placement state. It never exposes account email, credentials, tokens, billing data, private drafts, or full site settings to another customer.
How RankPine works
See how RankPine researches your niche, plans keywords, edits articles, and publishes to your CMS. Learn what runs automatically and what you control.
Integrations overview
Connect RankPine to your CMS or website builder. Explore native integrations, secure webhook publishing, RSS feeds, and Search Console setup guides.