The idea
A casino link on a casino-review site is expected. The same link in an article about growing tomatoes is not. The destination alone cannot tell these apart, so Link Signals also reads the page the link sits on: its title, main heading and meta description.
How the comparison works
- Read the source pageThe title, the first
h1and the meta description of the page that contains the link. - Check the destinationLink Signals fetches the destination and decides which risky categories, if any, it belongs to: adult, gambling, pharma, payday loans, drugs, violence, hate or malware.
- CompareIf the source page is itself about that category, the link is on-topic. If not, it is marked Out of context.
- Ask the modelWhen AI analysis is on, a model also reads the source, the anchor text and the destination, and judges whether the link belongs and whether it looks promotional or spammy.
The same destination on two pages
| Page carrying the link | Destination | Result |
|---|---|---|
| “Seasonal planting guide” | A gambling site on a blocklist | Not safe, with the Out of context badge |
| “Best Online Casino Reviews” | The same gambling site | Not safe, on-topic (no Out of context badge) |
Out of context: “Seasonal planting guide” links to gambling content
/guides/seasonal-planting · Anchor text “best slots bonus”Domain is on the gambling blocklist
/reviews/best-online-casinos · Anchor text “visit the casino”What it does not flag
Reputable, authoritative destinations are not flagged just for being off-topic. A gardening blog that cites a government page or a national newspaper is normal, and generic anchor text such as “click here” is not treated as evidence of spam. Without AI analysis, only the risky categories above can be out of context.
Limits
- The topic of the source page comes from its title, main heading and description only, not its full text. A vague title weakens the comparison.
- The category of the destination comes from the blocklists, the keyword list and the model. See accuracy and limits.
- Each destination is checked once per scan, against the first page where it appears.
Why it matters
Search engines and readers both judge a link by the company it keeps. A page that suddenly sends visitors to a payday-loan or pharmacy site looks like a page selling its endorsement, and the cause is usually a compromised plugin, theme or account, or a forgotten paid arrangement. Because the destination often looks harmless to the site owner, this is the check that finds links nobody would think to look for.
What each outcome means
| How the link was judged | Verdict | What the report says |
|---|---|---|
| Destination is on a blocklist and the page isn’t about that topic | Not safe | Out of context: the page’s heading links to that category of content |
| Destination matches the keyword list and the page isn’t about that topic | Needs review | The same out-of-context wording |
| AI analysis finds the destination unsafe | Not safe | The model’s one-line reason |
| AI analysis finds the link unrelated and the destination promotional or spammy | Needs review | “Unrelated link:” followed by the reason |
| The link is off-topic but the destination is reputable | No known issues | Nothing is flagged |
What to do when you find one
- Open the page and find the linkUse Found on and search the page for the anchor text shown in the finding. If you cannot see it, it may be hidden or written by a script.
- Decide whether you put it thereIf it is a genuine partner, sponsor or affiliate, keep it and mark it correctly (see which rel should a link have). On a paid plan you can also trust the link, so later scans still read it but count it as safe while it stays no more serious. Link Signals cannot tell a client logo from spam, so this is your decision. If nobody on your team added it, treat it as injected.
- Remove it at the sourceCheck the post content, widgets, theme footer and any plugin that inserts links. Then change passwords and update software, as set out in after a WordPress hack.
- ConfirmRe-check the link, as described below.
Common mistakes
- Dismissing a finding because the destination looks respectable in a browser. The question is whether it belongs on that page.
- Ignoring a finding because the page is old. Old pages are exactly where unnoticed links stay longest.
- Expecting the badge on an on-topic page. A casino-review site linking to a casino is still flagged for the destination, just without the Out of context badge.
How to confirm it is fixed
Run a re-check from the report’s Overview tab after the fix. It reads only the pages your flagged links are on, so it takes a minute or two. Marking a finding as reviewed does not close it: the next scan reads the page again and calls the finding resolved only when the link is gone or no longer flagged. On a monitored site, later checks keep watching for it to come back.
Questions
Will an affiliate link be flagged?
Only if its destination is a risky category or looks unrelated and promotional to the model. Marking a paid link sponsored is good practice either way (see which rel should a link have).
Why was a link flagged when the page is about that topic?
The topic comes from the page’s title, main heading and description. If those do not mention it, the page can look unrelated even when the body text covers it. Clearer headings help, and you can ignore a finding you have judged fine.
Does Link Signals read the whole source page?
No. It uses the title, first heading and meta description, together with the anchor text and the destination.
In your report
The Out of context links step on the Overview tab counts every flagged link that is either unrelated to the page carrying it or concealed from visitors. It carries a red Priority 3 chip by default, after parked and unregistered domains. It also feeds the Need action now tile at the top of the Overview, together with those two.
| Number on the card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Off-topic for the page | Links to a risky category the page is not about, and which are not concealed. Amber. |
| Hidden with styling | Links hidden with inline styles. Red. See hidden links. |
| Shown only to search engines | Links that appear only when the page is requested as a search crawler or as a visitor from a search. Red. See cloaked links. |
| Hidden in scripts | Links written into the page by a script from an encoded string. Red. See script-written links. |
| Passing ranking credit | Out of context links that carry no nofollow, sponsored or ugc marker, so they still pass your ranking credit. Amber, and shown only when there are some. Selecting it opens exactly those links. See which rel a link should have. |
The advice depends on the numbers. If any link is hidden from visitors, the card treats it as a possible hack: find out how the links were added (a plugin, a theme file or a compromised login), remove them and change your passwords, then check the off-topic ones. If every link is merely off-topic, it asks you to check the links that do not fit their page and remove any you did not put there. If any of them still pass ranking credit, it also asks you to add a rel marker to the ones you keep. Review these links opens the Findings tab on its Out of context tab. The small button beside it, labelled “What an out of context link is”, opens this page in a new tab, so the report stays where it is.
What an out of context row shows in Findings
- Priority: a 3 Out of context chip, plus a red Not safe chip when its verdict is Not safe.
- Signals: the category chips (such as gambling or pharma), an amber Out of context chip when the page is not about that topic, and red Hidden, Cloaked or Hidden in script chips for concealed links.
- Detail panel: a line such as “Source page ‘Seasonal planting guide’ isn’t about gambling”, and one line for each way the link is concealed. An on-topic link shows a green “On-topic for the page that links to it” line instead.
The detail panel also names the page the link was found on and the anchor text, and its What to do note changes with how the link is marked. A concealed link that is still followed gets the plainest advice: remove it.
What to do next
- Start with the red rows, which are concealed. Open the page in Found on, view its source and find the link.
- For an off-topic row, decide whether you put the link there. If you did not, treat it as an injection and find the way in.
- After the fix, choose Mark reviewed and run Re-check from the Overview tab.
How this counts in your LinkSignal
An out of context link that is not concealed is counted in the out of context links row of your site’s external LinkSignal. If it is also hidden, cloaked or script-injected, it is counted once, in the hidden, cloaked and script-injected links row instead. Risky links that fit their page and match no other row fall under links that need review. See the LinkSignal overview for all the rows. 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.
Paste your sitemap and see which links don’t belong on the pages that carry them.
