The audit
We reviewed 720 publications and kept 139.
Anyone can list a thousand outlets. The work is in the ones you refuse. Here is what we found when we opened the domains instead of reading the rate card — including the 21 “publications” that turned out to be one company.
Three numbers, and they are not the same one. 720 publications were reviewed. 139 passed and are worth selling. 103 are stocked and buyable today — the rest are ones we would place on request but have not written up, and we would rather show you a short honest list than pad it.
How we test an outlet
- 1We open the domain and read the footer. Ownership is usually stated there, and a network is obvious once you have seen one.
- 2We check the page is indexed. An unindexed page is invisible to Google and to every AI assistant, which is the entire product.
- 3We check whether the link is do-follow, because half the rate card quietly is not.
- 4We measure real monthly visits and divide by the price. Cost per thousand visitors is the number that exposes a bad buy.
- 5We ask how long the article stays up. Five outlets on one card delete it after six months and do not say so.
What we rejected
Two different kinds of no. Some of these are dishonest. Some are perfectly real publications that simply do not do the job, and we have said which is which.
One company, 21 “publications”
We scraped 17 domains from the $125 tier of one rate card and 14 carried “Matrix Global, LLC” in the footer. Chased down, the network is 21 sites — city names that imply a local newspaper, all one owner, one template, one CMS. That is 82% of everything we tested in that tier. A buyer purchasing five of these believes they have five publications. They have one website with five skins.
A second network, same pattern
Rourke Media. Small-town newspaper names — Newhope News, Lower Southampton Spirit, Northampton Herald, Warwick Journal, Newton Gazette, Morris Ville Times and the rest — sold at $350 each on Domain Authority between 1 and 7. Not a typo: Domain Authority 1. These are shells wearing the name of a place.
Names built to be mistaken for somebody else
The worst of these is Times LA at $250, whose rate-card logo mimics the LA Times wordmark and which resellers list beside “get published on LA Times”. The real LA Times is in our catalogue, and it is not $250. Washington Guardian implies The Guardian. SnapchatPlanet.com implies Snapchat. Notion Online implies Notion. Metro Philadelphia implies the real Metro paper and has Domain Authority 5. A client who shows one of these to an investor or an immigration adjudicator is in a worse position than if they had shown nothing.
Not publications at all
PercentageCalculatorsHub.com was listed at $250. It is a calculator website. Deal Magazine's contact address resolves to a PR agency's PO box in Tustin, California. Neither is a newsroom and neither produces anything a buyer could show to another human being.
Real outlets that delete the article
Five Voice Media Group alt-weeklies remove the piece after six months. They are genuine publications with real readers, so they are fine for a launch where the job is done in week one. They are useless for an immigration petition re-filed on extension, and actively harmful for suppression, because the page you paid to outrank something with disappears and the thing you buried comes back. Our catalogue blocks these from both goals in code, not by policy.
Sold, but unreachable
Latitude 33 Magazine was on the card at $600. The domain does not resolve — there is no publication. Live Mint has Domain Authority 91 and is not indexed, which means Google cannot see it and neither can any AI assistant. An unindexed page is invisible to the only two audiences a placement is bought for.
Real, indexed, and still not worth it
The long tail: high Domain Authority, almost no readers. Fast Company Africa is the clearest case — 4,200 monthly visits, no-follow, at $550, which is $131 per thousand visitors against a median under $1 across the rest of the card. Also here: The Tempe Tribune at Domain Authority 11 for $600, Coastal Real Estate Guide at 19, Women's Golf Journal, My Aggie Nation, SweetyHigh.com. Nothing dishonest about any of them. They just do not do the job.
Why this page exists
Marketplaces in this category sell inventory by metric band — “regional business outlet, DA 60–80”, with no name attached. That is a fine way to buy a backlink and a terrible way to buy credibility, because the thing you are paying for is the name and the name is exactly what is being withheld.
Every listing we sell is named, with its real monthly audience, its byline type and whether the link is do-follow. If we cannot tell you what you are buying, we do not sell it.