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General

What is a backlink, and why does it matter?

A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat them as votes of confidence — the more quality sites that link to you, the more trustworthy your site looks, and the higher you rank. Think of them as referrals: a recommendation from a respected source carries real weight.

What is Verrly?

Verrly finds websites that would realistically link to you, writes the outreach emails, sends them on your schedule, and tracks every link you win. It also monitors whether AI assistants like ChatGPT recommend your business. It's built for owners and marketers who don't have time to become SEO experts.

Do I need SEO experience to use Verrly?

No. That's the whole point. You tell us your website and what you do; we handle the analysis and hand you a short list of actions. Everything is written in plain English — no jargon, no dashboards you need a course to understand.

How long does it take to see results?

As a rough guide only, and not a promise: replies to outreach often start within 1–2 weeks, links landing can take 30–60 days, and ranking movement, if it comes, tends to follow later. Results vary a lot by site and niche. SEO compounds — the work you do this month keeps paying off long after. Anyone promising instant results is selling something risky.

What types of businesses is Verrly best for?

Any business that wants to be found online — local services, e-commerce, clinics, restaurants, agencies, SaaS, and professional practices all use it. The common thread isn't industry, it's the situation: you know SEO matters, you don't have an in-house expert, and an agency retainer is hard to justify.

Is this safe for Google? Will I get penalized?

Yes. Every link comes from a real editorial website that chose to link to you after a genuine pitch. We don't buy links, use link farms, or touch private blog networks — those are exactly what Google penalizes. This is the same white-hat approach agencies charge thousands for.

Is link building still important in 2026?

Yes, and it now does double duty. Links remain one of Google's strongest ranking signals, and they've become a major factor in whether AI assistants cite your business — language models lean heavily on sites that the wider web already vouches for. Building authority helps you in both places at once.

How is this different from Ahrefs or Semrush?

Those are research tools — extraordinarily powerful, and built for professionals who already know what to do with the data. They show you a backlink gap; they don't contact anyone for you. Verrly is a doing tool: it finds the opportunity, drafts the email, sends it, follows up, and tells you what landed. Different job, different user.

Why not just hire an SEO agency?

You still can, and for complex enterprise work you probably should. Retainers vary widely, and many small-business ones deliver a handful of links and a monthly PDF. Verrly gives you the same core activity for $125–$225/month, and you can see exactly what's being sent and what's being won.

Getting Started

What happens in my first 15 minutes?

You add your website, and we analyze it to understand what you do and who you compete with. You pick a few keywords you'd like to rank for. We then generate your first list of link opportunities and draft outreach emails for the best ones. You review, approve, and they go out.

What do I actually have to do each week?

Realistically, 15–30 minutes. Your dashboard shows a short 'Today' list — usually approving a batch of outreach emails and glancing at replies. Everything else (finding opportunities, following up, checking whether links are still live, updating rankings) runs on its own in the background.

Do I need a finished website first?

You need a live site with real content on it. Website owners link to pages that are useful to their readers, so if your site is a single placeholder page, outreach will struggle no matter how good the pitch is. A handful of solid pages is enough to start.

Can I use Verrly for more than one website?

No — every plan, including Pro, is for one website per account. Once you set yours up (run a site analysis or track a keyword), it's locked in permanently. For agencies or multi-location businesses, that means a separate account per website.

What if the AI suggests something that isn't right for my business?

Skip it — nothing sends without your approval unless you deliberately turn on Autopilot. You can reject opportunities, rewrite any email, and tune your targeting. The system learns from what you approve and reject.

Features

How does the AI find link opportunities?

It reads your site to understand your topic, then looks for places where a link to you would genuinely make sense: resource pages in your niche, broken links you could replace, sites that already link to your competitors, and guest-post targets. Each one gets a quality score so you spend time on the good ones.

How do you decide if a site is worth pitching?

We look at the site's authority, its estimated monthly traffic, how closely its topic matches yours, and a spam-risk signal. A low-quality link can do more harm than good, so weak sites get filtered out before they ever reach your list. You can tighten or loosen these filters yourself.

What's included in competitor analysis?

You'll see each competitor's authority, roughly how many sites link to them, which sites those are, and what they rank for. Most usefully, we surface the backlink gap — sites linking to them but not to you. Those are your warmest prospects, because they've already shown interest in your topic.

Do you check whether my links stay live?

Yes, automatically. We re-check your won links regularly and alert you if one disappears or turns nofollow. Lost links are a quiet, common way sites bleed rankings, and most people never notice. You'll also get a suggested re-pitch to try to win it back.

How does rank tracking work?

You add the keywords that matter to you and we check your position in real search results — Free tracks 5, Starter 100 and Pro 500, both with daily updates. We flag big movements, show which pages are close to page one, and highlight the quick wins where one link could tip you over.

What is Link Exchange?

A directory of other Verrly users open to relevant link partnerships. You browse businesses in complementary niches, propose an exchange, and we verify both links actually went live. It's included free on every plan, including Free.

What SEO tools are included?

A full technical audit that crawls your site for the issues that hurt rankings (broken links, missing tags, slow pages, thin content, schema problems), plus keyword research, SERP analysis, and an AI visibility checker. Starter and Pro both audit up to 100 pages.

Who is Scout?

Scout is your AI assistant inside Verrly. Ask it anything — 'why did my rankings drop?', 'is this site worth pitching?', 'what should I do this week?' — and it answers using your actual data, not generic advice. Free includes 5 questions a day, Starter 25 and Pro 50.

Can I connect Google Search Console?

Yes, and we recommend it. Connecting Search Console lets us see the pages and queries you already get impressions for, which makes our quick-win suggestions far more accurate — we can spot pages sitting at position 11 that one good link could push onto page one.

Can I use my own Ahrefs or Semrush data?

Yes. If you already pay for Ahrefs or Semrush, add your API key in Settings and we'll use their metrics instead of ours. If you don't, everything still works using our built-in data — it's optional, not a gap you have to fill.

Do you guarantee a number of backlinks?

No, and be sceptical of anyone who does. Results depend on your site, your niche, and how consistently you send. Guaranteed-link services almost always mean paid or low-quality placements, which is precisely the risk we're built to avoid. We optimize for links that hold their value.

Can I export my data?

Yes. Opportunities, backlinks, and keyword data all export to CSV, and Pro includes branded PDF reports you can send to clients. Your data is yours — you can download a complete copy of your account at any time from Settings.

AI Search & GEO

What is GEO, and why should I care?

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization — getting your business mentioned when someone asks an AI assistant a question instead of searching Google. When a customer asks ChatGPT 'best plumber in Denver', something gets recommended. GEO is the work of making sure it's you.

Is AI search actually worth my attention yet?

It's still smaller than Google search, but it's growing quickly and the visitors tend to convert well — someone arriving from an AI recommendation has already been pre-sold. The bigger point is timing: this space is far less crowded than Google's results, so being early is cheaper than catching up later.

How do you track my AI visibility?

You tell us the questions your customers would actually ask. We put those questions to the major AI assistants on a schedule and record whether you were mentioned, how you were described, and who got recommended instead. Over time you see whether you're gaining or losing ground.

How often is AI visibility checked?

You can run a check manually at any time on any plan. Paid plans run automatic weekly checks, and Pro adds more checks a month (8 instead of 5), so you can see how your presence moves over time without remembering to look.

Why do AI assistants give different answers each time?

Because they're probabilistic — the same question genuinely can produce different answers on different runs. That's why a single check isn't meaningful. We test repeatedly over time and report the trend, which is the only number that actually tells you something.

How do backlinks affect whether AI recommends me?

Significantly. AI assistants are trained on and cite the open web, and they lean on sources the web already treats as credible. Getting mentioned on trusted sites in your industry is one of the most reliable ways to become the answer — which is why link building and AI visibility work so well together.

What can I actually do to get recommended more often?

Earn mentions on sites AI systems trust, answer real customer questions directly on your own site, keep your business details consistent everywhere, and make sure you appear in the 'best of' lists and review platforms in your category. We turn all of this into a specific to-do list rather than general advice.

Does GEO replace regular SEO?

No — it extends it. The foundations overlap heavily: credible content, a technically sound site, and real authority help you in both places. GEO adds a layer on top, because AI assistants weigh being clearly and directly quotable more heavily than a traditional search ranking does.

Email & Outreach

How personalized are the AI-written emails?

Genuinely personalized. The AI reads the prospect's actual site and references something specific — a post they wrote, a resource page they maintain, a broken link they'd want to fix. It's the difference between a pitch that gets a reply and a mail-merge that gets deleted.

Can I edit the emails before sending?

Always. Drafts are written to be send-ready, but you can edit, rewrite, or scrap any of them. Nothing goes out without your approval unless you switch on Autopilot. Most people edit heavily in week one and barely at all by week four.

Do the emails come from my address?

Yes. You connect your own Gmail or Outlook account securely, and emails send from you — so replies come straight back to your inbox and the relationship is genuinely yours. We never send from a shared domain, which would hurt deliverability for everyone.

Will this get my email flagged as spam?

We work hard to prevent it. New accounts go through warmup, which starts your sending volume low and increases it gradually the way a real person would. We cap daily sends, space them out, verify addresses before sending, and stop automatically if bounce rates climb.

What is warmup and why does it matter?

Email providers get suspicious when an address that normally sends 5 emails a day suddenly sends 200 — that's how sending reputations get destroyed. Warmup ramps you up slowly over a few weeks so you look like a real person building relationships, because you are.

Does it follow up automatically?

Yes, and this is where most links actually come from — plenty of replies land on the second or third touch. You set how many follow-ups and how far apart, and anyone who replies is removed from the sequence immediately so nobody gets nagged after answering.

How many emails can I send?

Free can find opportunities but can't send outreach. Starter allows up to 1,000 outreach emails a month and Pro up to 10,000. Each connected mailbox sends at most 50 a day, and new mailboxes warm up first (5, then 10, then 20 a day over the first three weeks), so reaching Pro's full 10,000 takes several connected mailboxes. Those daily limits protect your domain's reputation and keep you out of spam folders.

What reply rate should I expect?

Cold outreach for links usually gets a low reply rate, and not every reply becomes a link. We can't promise a rate or a number of links, because both depend on your niche, your site and your emails. Verrly shows your own reply rate so you can see how your outreach is doing and improve it.

Is cold outreach legal?

Business-to-business email is allowed in many places when it's done properly: a real sender identity, an honest subject and reason for writing, a working unsubscribe, and a postal address. Verrly adds the unsubscribe link and a postal address to every outreach email, and keeps anyone who unsubscribes or asks to be left alone on your do-not-contact list so they aren't emailed again through Verrly. You are still responsible for who you email and for following the rules where they live: some places, including Canada (CASL), the UK and the EU, require consent or a clear legitimate interest before you send. If in doubt, ask a lawyer.

Pricing & Billing

How does pricing work?

Three plans: Free ($0 forever, no card required, a taste of both Backlinks and AI Visibility, including one free AI visibility check), Starter ($125/mo or $104/mo billed annually, you pick one: Backlinks or AI Visibility), and Pro ($225/mo or $184/mo billed annually, both products plus the extras). Starter comes with a 30-day free trial if it is your first Verrly subscription. A card is required, and it is charged automatically when the trial ends unless you cancel before then. Pro has no trial and is billed when you subscribe, and anyone who has subscribed before is billed straight away on either plan. One free trial per person; if a card has already been used for a trial, billing starts right away. Start free, upgrade when you're ready, and change or cancel from your settings at any time.

What's the difference between Starter and Pro?

Starter includes one product, and you pick which: Backlinks or AI Visibility. Pro includes both. Starter is for one website and, with Backlinks, gives you 10 opportunity searches a month, 1,000 outreach emails a month, 100 tracked keywords with daily updates, and daily rank updates; with AI Visibility it gives you 5 AI visibility checks a month. Pro gives you both products and raises the limits to 100 opportunity searches, up to 10,000 outreach emails (at most 50 a day per connected mailbox), 500 tracked keywords, and 8 AI visibility checks a month, and adds AI email personalization, app visibility tracking, and branded client reports. Every plan, including Pro, is for one website per account.

Is there a free trial?

For Starter, yes: 30 days with full access, if Starter is your first Verrly subscription. A card is required; cancel any time before day 30 and you won't be charged, otherwise the card is charged automatically when the trial ends. Pro has no trial and is billed when you subscribe, and anyone who has subscribed before is billed straight away. It's one free trial per person: if a card has already been used for a trial, billing starts right away. The Free plan works differently: it's free forever with no credit card and no expiration, so there's no trial to run out.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes, with no cancellation fee. Your plan stays active until the end of the period you've already paid for, then drops to Free. Your data stays in your account — nothing is deleted just because you downgrade.

Do you offer refunds?

Payments are non-refundable except where the law requires a refund, and we don't refund part-used billing periods. That's why Starter's trial (first subscription only) costs nothing: cancel before day 30 and you're never charged. Once you've paid, cancel any time from Settings; you keep access through the period you've already paid for, then drop to Free. If we charged you by mistake (a duplicate charge, or a charge after you cancelled), contact us and we'll refund it.

What happens if I go over my plan limits?

Nothing breaks and you're never charged a surprise overage. You'll see a heads-up as you approach a limit, and once you reach it that particular feature pauses until your next monthly reset or until you upgrade. Everything you've already built stays exactly where it is.

Do I need to pay for anything else to make this work?

No. Everything needed to find opportunities, send outreach, and track results is included. If you already own an Ahrefs or Semrush subscription you can plug it in for richer metrics, but it's genuinely optional.

Security & Privacy

Is my data secure?

Yes. Everything is encrypted in transit with TLS and at rest, hosted on hardened cloud infrastructure. Passwords are hashed, never stored in readable form, and we support two-factor authentication on every account, including Free.

Do you store my email password?

Never. Connecting Gmail or Outlook uses OAuth, which means you authorize us through your provider and we receive a revocable token — your password never touches our systems. You can revoke access from your Google or Microsoft account at any time.

Are you GDPR compliant?

Yes. You can access, export, correct, and permanently delete your data from your account settings without asking us. Our Privacy Policy sets out exactly what we collect and why.

Who can see my campaigns and data?

Only you and any team members you've explicitly invited. Support staff can't browse your account casually — access happens only when you ask for help and grant it. We never sell your data or use your campaign content to train models for other customers.

Can I turn on two-factor authentication?

Yes, from Settings → Account. It works with any authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password and similar) and issues backup codes in case you lose your phone. Worth the two minutes, especially if your account sends email as you.

Account

How do I upgrade or downgrade?

Settings → Plan & Billing, then pick your tier. Upgrades apply immediately and are prorated. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period, so you keep what you've paid for.

Can I add team members?

Yes, on any plan — up to 5 people per account. They can work on campaigns, review opportunities, and handle outreach, but they can't touch billing or subscription settings. You invite them by email from Settings and can remove them at any time.

Is there an API?

Yes — Pro accounts can generate API keys from Settings to pull your backlink, keyword, and campaign data into your own dashboards or reporting stack.

How do I reset my password?

Click 'Forgot password' on the login page and we'll email you a secure reset link. If it doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check spam, then contact support. Resetting your password also signs out every other device for safety.

Can I see where my account is logged in?

Yes. Settings → Account shows every active session with its device and location, plus a full sign-in history. You can sign out any individual device, or all of them at once, if something looks unfamiliar.

How do I delete my account?

Settings → Account → Delete Account. Cancel any active subscription first. Deletion removes your personal data from our live database straight away (payment records are kept anonymized, and backups expire within 14 days), as described in our Privacy Policy, and it can't be undone — export anything you want to keep first.

What happens to my links if I cancel?

You keep them. Backlinks live on other people's websites, not inside Verrly — cancelling doesn't remove them. You lose the monitoring, tracking, and outreach tools, but the authority you've built is permanently yours.

Still have questions?

Can't find what you're looking for? Contact support.