# Link Builder

> How Link Builder finds link prospects, checks contacts, drafts outreach you approve, reads replies and tracks deals until the link is live.

## What Link Builder is

**Link Builder** helps you earn links from other websites. It runs the whole outreach process in one place:

1. **Find** prospects — sites that cite similar businesses in AI answers, link to your competitors, accept contributions in your niche, or already mention you without a link.
2. **Check** them — authority, traffic, relevance to your business, and whether they are a competitor.
3. **Find contacts** — email addresses and contact forms on their site, verified before use.
4. **Draft** short, personal emails and follow-ups for you to **approve**.
5. **Send** from your own mailbox, at a human pace.
6. **Read replies**, sort them and move promising ones to **deals**, until the link is live.

> **Note:** Link Builder is included in every plan. You find it in the project menu. Plan limits on campaigns, new prospects a month and mailboxes apply and are not final yet. For now you connect your own mailbox; a mailbox hosted by Rankfinity is built but not available yet.

## Before you start: connect a mailbox

Emails go from **your** mailbox, so replies come back to you.

1. Open **Link Builder › Mailboxes › Add mailbox**.
2. Enter the sender name and email, SMTP server, port, user and password, and the IMAP server, port, user and password. An app password from your email provider works.
3. Set **Emails per day** and the **Time zone** (emails are sent only in working hours there).
4. Click **Save mailbox**, then **Test connection**.

New mailboxes warm up: the daily number of emails grows gradually. If more than a small share of emails bounce, sending pauses automatically to protect your domain's reputation.

Rankfinity reads your inbox only to find replies to its own outreach, without marking anything as read.

## Creating a campaign

Click **New campaign**:

- **Name** and **Goal**.
- **Where to look** — pick at least one source: sites cited by AI, links to competitors, search footprints, mentions of your brand. **Recommended** marks the best starting point for your project.
- **Min. domain rating**, **Min. monthly traffic**, **Min. relevance (0–100)** — filters for quality.
- **Language** — prospects and emails in this language.
- **Repeat** — Once, Weekly, Every 2 weeks or Monthly.
- **Budget (credits)** — the campaign pauses when the budget is used.

The screen shows "Estimated cost: ~N credits" as you change settings. Click **Create and start** or **Save as draft**. The first prospects appear within minutes.

## Prospects

The prospects table shows: domain (linked to its homepage, with the exact page where it was found), source (Cited by AI, Competitor link, Search, Brand mention), link type, DR (Domain Rating by Ahrefs), traffic, relevance, contact and status.

Statuses include Checked, No contact, Filtered out and Rejected. Filter by view, **Download CSV**, **Refresh**.

Click **Details** for: site type (publisher, directory, competitor, big platform), why it was chosen, whether the check was done by AI or by keyword rules, how it was found, language, domain rating, monthly traffic, whether it accepts guest posts, and every contact found.

Actions: **Reject**, **Restore**, or **Never contact** (the domain is excluded from all future campaigns).

Competitors in your niche are filtered out automatically — you do not want to ask a rival for a link.

### Adding prospects yourself

From **Competitors › Competitor analysis › Link gap** or **Backlinks › Referring domains**, click **+ Campaign** on a row to add that site to a campaign.

## Contacts and verification

Contacts are found on the prospect's own pages (contact, about, imprint), politely and on a few pages only. Each email is checked for valid syntax, a working mail server, disposable addresses and role addresses (such as info@). Addresses that fail are not used.

## Outreach: drafts and approval

Click **Write drafts for ready prospects**. Each draft is short (about 120 words), specific to the prospect's page, and comes with two follow-ups. Under **Outreach emails** you see every draft and its state: Drafts, Approved, Sending, Bounced, Failed, Skipped.

**Every email waits for your approval.** Read it, edit it, approve it. Only approved emails are sent.

**Autopilot** (off by default) approves drafts that pass all checks, within the mailbox limits and working hours. It never approves role addresses or unverified contacts. Every approval is logged with who or what approved it and when. Turn it off with one click.

Every email contains a one-click unsubscribe. Someone who unsubscribes is never contacted again from any Rankfinity account.

## Replies

**Replies** lists incoming replies with site, sender, type, the reply and the date. Each reply is classified (for example interested, asks for a price, not interested, out of office). A reply stops the follow-ups for that prospect. Bounces add the address to the suppression list.

If the reply mentions a price, it shows as "Asked: …". Click **Create deal** to move the conversation to the board.

## Deals

**Deals** is a board with five columns: **Review**, **Negotiating**, **Content**, **Published**, **Lost**. Drag a card between columns. Each card holds the price they asked and currency, the live page address, anchor text and notes. **Estimate value** (paid) scores the link 0–100.

Once a deal is **Published**, Rankfinity checks the live page every 7 days to confirm the link is still there and flags it if it disappears.

## Limits

Each plan has limits on campaigns, prospects per month and mailboxes. They are shown in the campaign screen.

## Common questions

**Will Link Builder send emails without me?**
Not unless you turn on Autopilot. By default every email needs your approval.

**Which address do replies go to?**
To your own mailbox. Rankfinity reads them there.

**Why was a prospect filtered out?**
Open **Details**: it is usually a competitor, a big platform, below your quality filters, or without a usable contact.

**Can I pay a site for a link here?**
Rankfinity tracks the asked price on the deal, but payments happen outside the app.

**Is Link Builder in reports?**
Client reports can include a Link Builder section with the funnel (prospects, contacted, replied, published), without prices.