A report can contain dozens of flagged links, and they are not equally urgent. A finding priority sorts each one into a group so that you know where to begin. Every finding belongs to exactly one, the first that it matches, so nothing is counted twice.
The five priorities
A report sorts every finding into one priority, by default parked, not registered, out of context, broken, then needs review. The action plan at the top of a report takes the most urgent ones and says what to do about each.
| Priority | In short |
|---|---|
| 1 Parked | The site you linked to is gone and the domain is for sale. |
| 2 Not registered | Nobody holds the domain, or it has expired. |
| 3 Out of context | Hidden, or nothing to do with its page. |
| 4 Broken (404) | The page is gone. |
| 5 Needs review | Anything else risky or unsafe. |
Why this order
The first two are the ones where someone else can take your link over. A parked domain is already in the hands of a seller, and a not-registered or expired domain can be bought by anyone, so those leave the most to lose. Out-of-context links come next because they are the usual sign of injected spam. A 404 is untidy and costs readers, but nobody can use it against you. Needs review is the catch-all for anything else flagged, so it is always last.
Changing the order
Paid plans can change the order of the first four. The fifth, needs review, stays last, because it matches anything flagged that the others did not, and placing it earlier would swallow the rest. The order you choose is used for sorting findings, for the action plan and for the order a re-check takes them in. See set your priority order.
Common misunderstandings
- A link with no priority is not necessarily fine. Sites that refused the scanner, server errors and clean links have no priority at all, so they do not appear in the plan.
- Priority is not severity. A Not safe verdict on a link that is also parked appears under parked.
- The priority belongs to the link, not the page. Several pages linking to the same destination share it.
Paid plans can change the order. See how findings are prioritised.
Questions
Why is my broken link not first?
A 404 is the least dangerous of the group. Unless you change the order, it comes after the cases where someone else can take over the link.
How this counts in your LinkSignal
The priorities feed your site’s external LinkSignal, but the score always uses the default order, so changing your own order does not change it. See the LinkSignal overview for the rows and how the score is worked out for the rules. LinkSignal is Link Signals’ own metric, worked out only from what this tool finds, and it is not connected to any search engine or third-party score.
Run a scan and find where these show up on your own site.
