Most crypto media placements do not pass link equity, and most projects buying them believe they do. The gap exists because nobody checks, the seller has no reason to volunteer it, and the difference is invisible on the page itself.
Checking takes under a minute per placement. Here is how, and what to do with the answer.
1. Read the link’s rel attribute
Open the published page, view its source, and find your link. If the anchor tag carries rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc", search engines are being told not to pass ranking value through it. An anchor with no rel attribute, or one carrying only noopener, is a followed link.
Do this on the live page rather than a preview, and after the page has been up for a day. Some publishers add the attribute during a later editorial pass.
2. Check the page-level robots directive
A followed link on a page carrying noindex or nofollow in its robots meta tag passes nothing, because the page itself is excluded. Some outlets apply this to their entire sponsored section while leaving individual links untouched.
Search the page source for the robots meta tag. This is the check that catches the placements that look correct at link level and are worth nothing at page level.
3. Confirm the link is in the HTML, not the script
If the link only appears after JavaScript runs, or if it is a redirect through a tracking domain, what is in the source is not what you think you bought. Disable JavaScript and reload, then look again.
Redirect chains through an intermediate domain are common in paid placements and are worth identifying, because the destination of the visible link is not your site.
4. Check whether the page is indexed at all
Search for the exact article title in quotation marks a week after publication. A page that does not appear has not been indexed, and an unindexed page is worth nothing regardless of the link on it.
This happens more often than expected on outlets with large sponsored sections, where the volume of near-identical releases means much of it never enters the index.
5. Find out how long the page will exist
Ask, in writing, whether the placement is permanent. Some outlets remove sponsored content after a period, and a link that disappears after six months was a different product from the one you thought you bought.
Where a page can be removed, that changes what it is worth and should change what you pay for it.
6. Look at where the page sits on the site
A release published under a clearly separated sponsored path, unlinked from any navigation, receives no internal links and little crawl attention. A piece that appears in the normal editorial flow, linked from a category page, is treated differently by search engines.
The URL path and whether any other page on the site links to it tell you which of the two you have.
7. Ask before buying and get the answer in writing
Ask three questions: is the link followed, is the page indexable, and is the placement permanent. Sellers who know their inventory answer immediately. Sellers who deflect are telling you the answer.
Getting it in writing is what makes the post-publication check meaningful, because a placement that does not match what was promised is then a straightforward conversation rather than an argument about expectations.
8. Value the nofollow placements correctly rather than dismissing them
A nofollow link on a widely read outlet still delivers referral traffic, credibility with readers who check where a project has been covered, and a citable source that assistants and researchers can find. Those are real, they are simply not the same product as a followed link.
The error is paying a followed-link price for a nofollow placement, not the placement itself.
What the ratio actually looks like
In our own catalogue, 30 of the 195 outlets available for a press release pass a followed link, and 82 of the 106 available for an organic article do. That is a large difference between two products that are often sold as though they were interchangeable.
It is also the reason a release distribution package and a link-building campaign should be budgeted separately. They produce different things, and buying one expecting the other is the most common disappointment in crypto PR.
How to write something an editor will run in the first place is in how to write a crypto press release outlets accept. Outlet selection, link status per publication and placement are on our crypto PR page.