Choose what this report can establish
A useful backlink report tells a reader what was supplied, what was observed, when the observation happened and which decisions remain open. This template creates a dated snapshot from your records. It does not retrieve your orders, discover backlinks or inspect publisher pages. The composer above runs locally in your browser.
Use it for a reviewable handoff rather than treating every row as proof of delivery. A publisher may report publication while a subsequent check cannot find the link. Those statements belong in different fields. For preparing a raw export first, use the CSV analysis workflow.
Record provenance before preparing the figures
Enter a title, report date, data source and source scope. The client name is optional. Name the actual export or record set and the filters you used, including any excluded campaign or domain. Save a short limitation note when coverage is partial. Search Console’s Links report is sampled; an export is not automatically a complete inventory.
The report date is a cutoff, not a date-range filter. Every accepted record contributes to the totals, including older observations. Supply the relevant slice yourself and describe it in Scope. Publication and check dates later than the cutoff are rejected. The tool does not label a collection of records “this month’s growth.”
Use the evidence columns consistently
Download the blank CSV, keep its ten technical headers and enter one record per row. Column order may change, but each header must appear once; extra columns are rejected so evidence is not silently discarded. Source and target URLs must be absolute HTTP or HTTPS addresses without embedded credentials. URLs pass through the browser parser; fragments remain intact.
Use the stable values unknown, ordered, published, cancelled for delivery and not_checked, present, missing, unresolved for observation. The report displays native-language labels. Blank delivery becomes unknown; blank observation becomes not checked. The limit is 500 records and 512 KB of CSV.
| CSV | Report preview |
|---|---|
Source URL | Source URL Optional until publication or a check is reported; required for those cases. |
Target URL | Target URL Required destination for every record. |
Anchor | Anchor Optional text exactly as recorded; empty is not a claim about link type. |
Delivery status | Reported delivery One of the four delivery values; blank means unknown. |
Publication date | Publication date Optional valid date no later than the report date. |
Observation status | Observed link status One of the four observation values; blank means not_checked. |
Checked date | Check date Required for a recorded check; blank for not_checked. |
Evidence URL | Evidence URL Optional evidence reference; this URL is not fetched. |
Owner | Owner Optional named person or role responsible for follow-up. |
Next action | Next action Optional specific verification or correction step. |
Keep publication and checking dates distinct
Use a publication date only when your source supports it; leaving it blank is allowed. Semrush’s First Seen records when its system first found a link. Do not relabel that as the publisher’s confirmed publication date. Explain any date interpretation in your source notes.
A present, missing or unresolved observation requires a source URL and valid check date. Not checked must have no check date. An access error should remain unresolved when you lack evidence of absence. The tool validates the format and consistency of your entries, not the truth of a claimed check. For real supplied-pair checks, use the link monitor.
Read the four-record example
Load the example above or restore the downloadable example JSON. Four hypothetical records describe three reported publications and one order. Their observations are one present, one missing, one unresolved and one not checked. Three source domains are supplied. No report or page request was used to produce these teaching records.
The correct summary is not “three verified live links.” Assign the missing and unresolved records for review, and keep the unverified order separate. Repeated identical records are retained with a warning, so the count is records rather than deduplicated placements. A source domain count also does not prove independent ownership of each publisher.
Download, print and preserve your working draft
Prepare the report after changing data. The preview shows ten records per page; both exports contain every validated record. The evidence CSV preserves all ten fields, while the HTML contains provenance, separate status totals, notes and the complete evidence table. It needs no external scripts, images or fonts. Open the downloaded HTML and use your browser’s print or Save as PDF option if available.
Save a JSON draft to restore the exact editable input later, including unfinished fields. Nothing is automatically persisted to your account or browser storage. Keep that draft and the original source privately. CSV exports protect against spreadsheet formulas and may prefix risky text, so use JSON for an exact editing round trip. This is not a native Excel workbook or Word document.
Download complete example draft (JSON)
Add measured outcomes without claiming causation
The outcomes field starts empty. If you add visits, impressions, clicks or conversions, name the measurement source, property, period and filters. A missing measurement is not zero. A number copied from a different period should not be shown as the consequence of the links in this snapshot.
The example explicitly says that no outcome measurement is supplied. Keep this distinction in client reports: publication is a delivery claim, presence is a dated observation, and business performance needs its own evidence. The fundamentals guide explains the underlying link relationship; a report does not change that mechanism or guarantee ranking gains.
Review the report before sharing
Before sharing, verify the source scope, date cutoff, repeated records, unknown values and assigned actions. Open the downloaded HTML and inspect long URLs, page breaks and right-to-left text where relevant. Replace the example project, dates and notes with your own supported evidence. Reopen the draft once to check that the next reviewer can reproduce the report.
A useful handoff gives each unresolved item an owner and a concrete next check. Use the audit workflow when the report identifies a defect. This template owns creating a reusable evidence report; interpreting a campaign over time, comparing competitors and reconciling provider counts require their own analyses.