Placing a link on timemag.co.uk

Mid-market at $65: the band where judgement about the site matters more than the invoice.

There is a second job these placements do that is worth naming: they make a young or thin profile look normal. A domain that acquires 35-level links from a spread of ordinary publications, in drips, over months, looks like a business that has been around. A domain that acquires forty links from aggressive networks in a fortnight looks like a campaign, and it is the pattern rather than the individual link that gets noticed.

Within the General section of the index — 1,576 listings, 39 median DA, 5k median traffic, $70 median price — this placement is 7% below the median on cost and roughly 18% of the index median on audience. Listings in that section range from $30 at the cheap end, so the question is not whether $65 is high for a link, but whether it is high for this one.

Generalist inventory also varies more than any other kind, which is why the numbers in this brief matter more than the label. A 35 DA domain with 1k estimated monthly visits and Do-follow links is a different product from the same DA with a tenth of the traffic, and they are priced too close together in most catalogues.

The index lists this property's editorial links as followed. Availability of a followed link changes with the site's monetisation decisions, so we confirm the tag on the live URL before counting delivery.

Two comparisons decide whether timemag.co.uk at $65 is a good buy: this listing against the 1,576 other General entries we index, and against the whole 2,000-site index. The gap between those two answers is where a price is either justified or inherited from a rate card nobody revisited.

Ranked against the 2,000 listings we index, timemag.co.uk sits in the top 5% for audience and the top 15% for authority, at $65 per thousand monthly visits. Inside the DA 30-39 band (892 listings) that price ranks 886th for value, which is the comparison to use: nobody competes with the whole index, they compete with the sites a buyer would book instead.

timemag.co.uk out-ranks 5% of the index on audience size (roughly 18% of the index median) and 15% on authority. The placement costs $65 per thousand estimated visits, and one of the pricier placements in its DA 30-39 band. Those two figures, not the DA column alone, decide whether $65 is a good trade or just a listed one.

• Local and service businesses whose market has few specialist publications left.
• Thin profiles where diversity matters more than raw authority.
• Anyone testing guest posting before committing to a premium title.
• Do not buy this as part of a burst. 7–12 days is the delivery window for one placement; a month's worth of placements across several hosts is the pattern that works.
• Do not buy this if the page it would sit on is already crowded with five other commercial links — we will usually flag that at the availability check and offer a different section.

Pitch angle: a practical guide that solves one named problem for your market. That is the shape we take to a General audience, because it is the version the host's own editor has a reason to keep.

• Keep the tone flat No superlatives, no promises about outcomes, no invented before-and-after. The style that survives editorial review in General is the style that sounds like someone reporting on their own work.
• Open with the thing you know One specific claim, a number or a dated decision, in the first two sentences. Editors in General positions decide whether to keep a contribution in about that long.
• Name a real author A person with a title and a bio. Anonymous contributions on General sites are the first thing an editor distrusts, and the first thing a reader discounts.

Anchor plan for this host

• no two anchors to the same target page from one article
• a descriptive anchor that repeats a phrase the article already uses naturally

• Anchor history. We pull the anchors other sites have bought there. If the last twenty were all money phrases, a brand anchor from you will look natural, which is the rare and useful direction.
• Link attribute on a live example. Not the pitch, not the rate card: the rel attribute on an outbound link in a real article published this month.
• Editorial activity. A site with 1k monthly visits and nothing published in six months is a decaying asset, and decaying assets get dropped from the index in batches.
• Indexation of the host's recent output. We run site:timemag.co.uk and compare the count against the site's publishing rate. A property publishing weekly with a fraction of its pages indexed has a crawl or quality problem you would inherit.

1. You send the target URL and your angle The page you want the link to point at, the subject, and any author you want credited. Five minutes of input.
2. We confirm availability on timemag.co.uk Publisher slots move week to week, including on 35 DA properties. Nothing is promised until the section and the placement URL are confirmed, and we tell you before you pay if the slot has gone.
3. You approve the brief and the shortlist Where the host gives a choice of section or existing article, we send options with the numbers that matter: traffic, indexation, neighbours.
4. The article is drafted and edited for the host Written for timemag.co.uk's audience rather than for your keyword, then checked against the site's own style before submission.
5. The host publishes; we verify the live URL Placement live, correct target, link attribute as recorded, indexable. Only then does the order count as delivered.
6. You get the report, and the replacement cover starts PDF and CSV with the live URL, anchor, placement date and target page. Twelve-month replacement on the link itself, no ticket required.

Rates on this kind of listing drift with the host's own demand, so $65 is a current figure rather than a locked one. Volume changes the maths: a second placement on the same domain is usually refused, whereas a second placement across the General section of our index at the same budget is easy to arrange.

What comes with this placement

• The article itself, drafted to the host's style and edited before submission.
• Live-URL verification, with a dated record of the placement.
• Availability confirmed on the exact URL before you are invoiced.
• White-label PDF + CSV report — forward it to a client unchanged.

Browse the index: all 2,000 briefs · General listings · domains beginning T (303) · DA 30-39 band (892)