Welcome to Base!

In the following text, we will be guiding you through how to get started with our tool. Base is a link building management platform made mainly for link building management, backlinks monitoring, and improving your team’s workflow.

It is quite easy to use, but in order to get the most out of Base, we suggest some steps to be taken in a recommended order. This way, by the time you’ve completed all the steps - you’ll already have gotten the hang of the majority of the features of the tool.

If you're unsure where to start, as the first step, we recommend scheduling a quick demo or onboarding call with our CEO. As an owner of an SEO agency himself, he will be able to understand and recognize your needs and requests and offer helpful solutions.

An even quicker way for you to check out the main features of our app and how to get started with Base.

Once you've formatted your CSV file, it’s time to tackle what Base does best and what it’s made for - Links.

There are two ways to import links:

In both cases, the fields that are necessary to be filled out include:

*Note: If you are adding a link with the Confirmed status, please ensure you include the full URL. If the link is only an Opportunity, feel free to add only the domain of the website, and update it subsequently (once the link reaches CO status). If you have a specific link in mind whilst adding an Opp, feel free to write it down in the Notes section.

If you’re unsure how to format your CSV file, we have an example that you can check out right below the “CSV urls list” button.

Here’s another example of what the CSV should look like, with only the required fields included:

Please note that if you do not have the User column in your sheet, the links will automatically be assigned to the person uploading the links.

Clients and Users which you enter in the sheet will automatically be created in Base once you upload your CSV. The number of clients you are able to add is unlimited, but the number of users is limited in accordance with the subscription plan you opted for.

After you’ve finished adding your links, they will appear on the Search page.

If you need a quick overview of all your links, you are able to do so via Link Stats.

In Base, there are four stages as far as Link Status goes.

As we’ve mentioned earlier, once you add a link into Base, you need to select one of the following options in accordance with the current status of your link. If it’s only an opportunity, i.e you are collecting link building opportunities, you should probably start off with the OP status.

Once you reach out and request from someone that your link is posted to their website, you can easily change the status to RE (Requested) in the Search tab.

The next step is for when you have made an arrangement for your link with a client, and while you are waiting for it to become live, you can move on to the pending (PE) status.

Finally, once your link gets published and the status can be changed to confirmed (CO).

In Link Stats, you are also able to see how many confirmed links you have, what percentage of them are in good health, and which are not.

This brings us to another important subject - Link Health.

In Base, there are four types of health statuses, and each has its own symbol under the Health (H) column, so they are easily noticed.

As soon as you change the link’s status to Confirmed, its health changes to one of the following:

Since Base works as a searchable database of your link building efforts, there are many ways you can filter out the links you’ve created.

By clicking on the Filters button, you are able to easily search specific links or groups of links, based on several different options - Type, Client, Status, Link health, etc.

You are also able to manage which Columns you would like to see in your Search table. You can do this by clicking on the eye button. For example, if you only want to see the links’ health, quality, and status, it would look something like this:

Another cool feature that Base has is the Google Chrome add-on, from which you can easily add your Opps while browsing (OPPS tab), as well as check links on a certain domain (LINKS tab).

Once you click on the Extension tab, it will directly lead you to the install page. Once you set it up in your browser, the process for adding Opps is pretty straightforward - once you are on the page which you wish to add to Opps, select the Client, Link type, and Category, and you’re all set. You can also click on “Load Domain info” in order to find out the domain rating, organic traffic, and spam rating of the page.

Last, but not least, we’ll go over the Settings tab.

Subscription - Here you can manage your payment plan, or purchase Add-ons such as additional user seats or booster packs (available in the Enterprise payment plan only; $10/100 links; $9/100 link checks).

Settings - On this page, you are able to change your company's basic information and also set up and use Base via your own (sub)domain*, choose whether or not you would like to have duplicate links, manage link groups**, select the time period after which we should delete unused links (links with the status OP, RE or PE), and define link categories***.

*Whitelabel service is available only for the Enterprise plan.

**This option allows you to assign links' types to a specific group. Only one link per client and domain are allowed inside one type group. If you change this setting, i.e move a certain type to another type’s group - the link with the assigned type will not be deleted, but you might get a weekly email warning about duplicates if we detect any.

***We’ve implemented a feature that allows you to add your own custom categories into Base. In addition to our Merge option, you are able to merge categories that you don’t find necessary and create your own custom list.

Blacklist - Enables you to insert the domains on which you do not want your links to be made, preventing link builders from even considering them as link opportunities. You are able to add these domains via CSV bulk upload or by manually adding them.

Spam - When analyzing a certain website, we take into consideration everything from social metrics to domain authority and domain rating data. If links don’t meet some of the desired criteria, our spam factor will recognize this and increase the numerical value of the spam factor for that particular link, which will help rate the pages in your search results. If you are wondering how Base's spam algorithm works, check out this article.

Role Settings - On this page, you are able to update the role settings of each role, i.e. to which columns and filters they have access.

Integrations - Enables you to connect your data sources (such as Ahrefs) to Base.

Apps - Here you can create and manage your OAuth 2.0 apps (max 5 per account).
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For more information check our API docs: https://base.me/api-docs/index.html

Custom Fields - Custom fields in Base are additional link fields you are able to add to your account. This is especially useful if there are certain metrics you use to optimize your link building process, but they are not included in Base already.

For example, if you were to create a field that required multiple options, you can create a custom field with the type Dropdown list selected, and simply type in the options you need below:

This is how the custom field would appear in Search > Filters:

And that’s it! If you have any additional questions or something is still unclear to you, we suggest visiting our Help Center for more useful articles or starting a chat with us in-app, we’ll gladly help out.

Happy link building and may your links always stay healthy!