Donor and Acceptor: Linkbuilding Terms
Donor — a site or page from which a link originates. Acceptor — the page to which it leads. These are industry jargon terms, but they are constantly encountered in reports and correspondence with contractors, so it is important to understand them unambiguously.
How it Looks in the Cascade
| Level | Donor | Acceptor |
|---|---|---|
| First | Publication on an external platform | Your promoted page |
| Second | Second-level publication | First-level publication |
| Crowd | Message on a forum or service | Top-level publication |
Criteria for Evaluating a Donor
- Is it indexed? A page outside the index does not pass anything — this is the first thing we measure for each platform.
- Does it pass weight? The link attribute is checked in the rendered view, not in the source code.
- Domain authority. DR and the volume of the donor's backlink profile.
- Is the platform alive? Is there external content and an audience, or is the site created solely for links?
- Thematic proximity. It's nice when it exists, but for public platforms, this is rare — the first three points are more important.
Acceptor: What is Important
Links lead to a specific address, so the acceptor must be chosen consciously: the page must be accessible, respond with a 200 code, not have indexing restrictions, and indicate its own canonical address. Otherwise, the weight will go to another page or not reach at all.
Donor Base
This refers to the list of platforms available for placement. In our case, this is 72 verified platforms, of which 45 are included in the rotation: the composition changes based on measurement results, not agreements.
How Many Links from One Donor
The second and third links from the same site provide significantly less value than the first: the value is determined by the number of different referring domains, not the total number of links. Therefore, in the cascade, the diversity of platforms is more important than the number of publications on one of them, and for this reason, each platform has a limit on the number of placements for one project.