Turn legacy link reports into an audit you can act on

Old link files are rarely tidy. A client may send a PDF report from a former agency; a vendor may leave you with an Excel workbook full of placement URLs and notes. Rebuilding either as a clean CSV costs time before you have learned whether the links still exist.

bklink accepts PDF and spreadsheet uploads, alongside CSV files and domain scans. That gives you a direct route from an existing report to an audit. The useful discipline is not to treat the upload as the whole job. Keep the source file, preserve who supplied it, then check what the audit says about the placements.

Start with the source file

Choose one report or vendor delivery at a time. Mixing several suppliers into one file makes it harder to work out whose placements created a problem. If the client’s PDF combines multiple campaigns, split the work by vendor where practical, or keep a clear record of which placements came from which source.

Before uploading, open the file and check that it contains the placement URLs you intend to inspect. Remove unrelated pages or rows from a working copy if they would muddy the list. Keep the original untouched: it is the record of what was delivered, while the working copy is for the audit.

For a spreadsheet, check that URLs have not been cut off and that the file has not mixed target pages with unrelated reporting links. For a PDF, make sure the placement list is actually present and readable. If the file is too messy to establish which URLs belong to the campaign, resolve that ambiguity first. An audit cannot tell you which placements you meant to include.

Upload and run the audit

Submit the PDF or spreadsheet to bklink for an audit. If you already have a clean list, CSV upload is another option. If you are checking a site rather than a delivered file, bklink also accepts a domain scan.

The point is to test the placements, not just count rows in a vendor report. bklink checks links for dead URLs and link rot, and audits backlink footprints for shared-IP networks and subnet C-block clusters. Those checks help distinguish a long list of domains from a genuinely varied set of placements.

Keep each vendor’s batch separate when you want a verdict you can use in a renewal or client conversation. bklink provides agency and vendor attribution for audited placements. Compare the audited placements with the source report and note any gaps before drawing a conclusion about a supplier.

Read the result as evidence, not a score

Start with the basic question: which URLs are live and which are dead? A dead placement is not delivering the link you expected at the time of the audit. Then look at follow state and infrastructure. A set of sites that resolves to shared hosts or subnet clusters may be less independent than its domain count suggests.

That distinction matters when a vendor sells “diverse” placements. Shared infrastructure is not, on its own, proof of a private blog network or a bad placement. It is evidence worth investigating. For more context on why host concentration deserves scrutiny, see how shared hosting clusters can undermine placement quality.

bklink also estimates market value for backlink placements. Treat that figure as an estimate, not a refund calculation or a guarantee of traffic. Put it beside the invoice and the live-status findings. A placement that is dead or part of a concentrated footprint should not be represented to a client as equivalent to a live, independently hosted link.

Keep the audit repeatable

Save the original file, the date you audited it and the vendor or campaign it belongs to. If you revisit the same placements later, a status re-check can identify links that have since gone dark and update the valuation around what remains live. That makes the comparison more useful than keeping a one-time spreadsheet of URLs.

Cost is predictable for a small, occasional check: bklink charges $1 per audit, with a maximum ceiling of $1.92 for larger profiles. New accounts receive $1 in credit without requiring a card. The service uses a prepaid wallet, has a $10 minimum top-up and does not charge a recurring subscription. That suits legacy-file work where audits happen when a client hands over a report, not on a fixed monthly schedule.

The practical outcome is simple: keep the messy source as evidence, audit one vendor’s placements at a time, and use dead-link and infrastructure findings to ask sharper questions. You do not need to retype an old report before finding out whether its links are still there.