Parked and for-sale domains in your links

What a parked page looks like

This domain is for sale.
Make an offer on this domain.
Related searches: ...

The page loads, so it isn’t broken. But the site your link was written for is gone, and the domain is held by someone who is selling it, parking it for advertising, or waiting for a buyer.

How Link Signals recognises one

A page is only treated as parked if it is short enough to be a placeholder, so an article about buying domains is not flagged.

What to do

1. Open the pageUse the Found on column and look at the anchor text.
2. Replace or remove the linkThe site it meant is gone. Link to where it moved, or to an archived copy, or remove the link.
3. Scan againFindings like this are checked again on every monitoring check, because a parked domain can be rebuilt as something else at any time.

Why a parked page matters

A parked domain has no content of its own, and the page is often covered in advertising. A reader who follows your link finds nothing useful, and your page now appears to recommend an advertising page. Search engines treat a link to a page that does not deliver what the anchor promised as a poor experience. And because the domain is for sale, the next owner can put anything on it.

What a parked page is not

• A site under maintenance, which usually says so and keeps its own branding.
• A long article about buying and selling domains. Only short pages, up to a few thousand characters of text, can match the parking wording.
• A page that has been rebuilt as something new. That is judged as an ordinary destination.

How it ranks in the report

Parked is the first priority in the default action plan. A finding belongs to the first priority it matches, so a parked link is counted once, here. You can change the order in set your priority order.

Where parked links come from

1. A site you linked to closes and its domain lapses.
2. The owner or a registrar parks it, or it is bought by a domain reseller.
3. Your link still points there, and a visitor lands on a for-sale page.
4. Later the new owner may rebuild it, which could be harmless or could be spam.

Common mistakes

• Leaving the link because the page loads. A loading page is not a working destination.
• Replacing the link with the same domain’s homepage. The site is still gone.
• Buying the domain to “fix” the link, unless you want to host something there.

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.

In your report

The Parked domains card on the report’s Overview tab counts the links that end on a parked or for-sale page. By default it carries a red Priority 1 chip, because parked is the first of the five priorities. On a paid plan the order can be changed, and the chip then shows the card’s new place in it.

Under the numbers is one sentence of advice, for example “Replace or remove the 3 links to parked pages, because the site you linked to is gone and visitors who click land on an advert”. The Review these links button opens the Findings tab on its Parked tab, which lists exactly the links the card counted. The small button beside it, labelled “What a parked domain is”, opens this page in a new tab, so the report stays where it is.

When no link is parked, the report shows no card of zeros. Parked domains appears instead in the green “Nothing found in” line under the cards.

What a parked row shows in Findings

• Priority: a 1 Parked chip. A parked link is judged Needs review, but the Priority column shows the priority in place of the verdict word.
• Destination: the host in bold, the path in grey, and the reason underneath: “Parked or for-sale domain: the original site is gone and the domain is available to buy”.
• Signals: an amber Parked chip, plus a Nofollow, Sponsored or UGC chip when the link is marked that way, and Reviewed once you have dealt with it.
• Found on: the page that carries the link. That is where the fix is made.

Select a row to open the detail panel. It says “The destination is a parking or for-sale page. The site this link was meant for is gone”, shows the page and anchor text, and adds a What to do note that depends on how the link is marked. Open loads the parked page in a new tab, Copy URL copies the address and Mark reviewed records that you have dealt with it.

What to do next

1. Use Open on a row to see what the destination shows now.
2. On the page named in Found on, point the link at the live replacement, or remove it. Pointing it at the parked domain’s homepage changes nothing, because the site is still gone.
3. Choose Mark reviewed, then use Re-check on the Overview tab. The link becomes Resolved only when the page is read again and the link is gone or no longer flagged.

How this counts in your LinkSignal

A link to a parked page is counted in the links to parked pages row of your site’s external LinkSignal. A parked link that is also hidden or broken is counted once, in the parked row, because that comes first in the default order. The points are in how the score is worked out, and the LinkSignal overview lists every row. 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.