After you paste a sitemap and load it, and again on any report that read only part of a site, Link Signals shows three things: your plan, the size of your site, and what we recommend.
Your sitemap lists 640 pages and Free reads up to 100, so we'll read a sample of 100 spread across the whole site (16%). Anything on the pages we don't read won't be checked. We recommend Starter (£9 a month): it reads up to 1,000 pages, which covers the whole site, and it's the smallest plan that does, so you aren't paying for more than you need. If you also want it checked automatically, Pro (£39 a month) adds monitoring.
- Reads up to 1,000 pages in a scan, so all 640 of yours
- Checks up to 2,000 links per scan, 2,000 a month
- Lets you put the priorities in your own order, and trust links you meant to have
Monitoring is what keeps a site clean after the scan: Pro (£39 a month) re-checks it automatically and emails you the day a link turns bad, so you hear about it before your visitors or Google do.
| Your site | What we tell you |
|---|---|
| Inside your plan’s page limit | Your plan covers it, and you don’t need a bigger one. |
| Bigger than your plan reads | How many pages we’ll read, that it’s a sample spread across the whole site, and that pages we don’t read aren’t checked. |
| Bigger than any standard plan | That it needs a custom plan, with a way to ask for one. |
We recommend the smallest plan that fits
The recommendation is the smallest plan whose page limit covers your whole sitemap. It is never the biggest plan, and never the one you are already on, so you aren’t paying for more than your site needs. We list what it adds: the pages it reads, the links it checks in each scan, and monitoring if the plan includes it.
Why monitoring comes up every time
A scan is a snapshot. Domains you link to expire and sites change hands without your pages changing, so a clean scan can be out of date within weeks. Monitoring re-checks the site on a schedule and emails you when a link turns bad. If your plan includes it, we suggest adding the site after the scan. If it doesn’t, we point to the smallest plan that does.
Some features come with a paid plan whatever the size of your site. One is trusted links: saying that a flagged link, such as a client logo, belongs on your page, so later scans count it as safe while it stays no more serious. The free plan shows what it does but cannot trust a link.
How to read the plan advice
- Your plan is what you are on now and the limits that go with it.
- Your site is the number of pages found in the sitemap you loaded. For a sitemap index, it is the total across all its sitemaps.
- Recommendation is what we suggest, with the reason in a sentence.
Sampled scans, and what they miss
If your site is bigger than your plan reads, the scan reads a sample, spread across the whole site rather than the first pages in the file. That gives a fair picture of the site, but links on pages outside the sample aren’t checked. See sampled scan for more. A bigger plan reads more of the pages, so more of the site is covered.
Deciding between two plans
- You have a small site and want to know what’s there. The free plan may well cover it. There is no need to pay.
- Your site is just over a limit. Check the sitemap first: old tag pages, attachment pages and duplicates can inflate the count without adding links. Cleaning them up can bring a site back within a smaller plan.
- You want to know when something changes. Choose a plan with monitoring. A one-off scan can’t tell you about a link that goes bad next month.
- You run several sites. Count the sites you want watched as well as pages. Monitoring is limited by the number of sites on each plan.
What the numbers in the recommendation mean
The pages figure is how much of your sitemap each scan reads. The links per scan figure is how many links are checked in one scan. Your monthly link checks are shared between scans and monitoring, so a monitored site uses some of the allowance each time it is checked, although only new or changed links are looked at.
Questions
Can I change plan later?
Yes. Choose a different plan whenever your site or needs change, from the Billing page.
Does the advice change if I load a different sitemap?
Yes. It is worked out from the sitemap you loaded, so a different site or a trimmed sitemap gives a different answer.
What if my site is very large?
If it is bigger than any standard plan, the advice says so and offers a way to ask for a custom plan.
Does the free plan hide anything it finds?
No. A plan only decides how much of a large site is read. Whatever is found is shown in full.
Paste it and see how your plan compares with your site.
