Securing a backlink from The Spruce supports topical relevance, referral traffic and measurable domain authority gains for home, DIY and lifestyle sites. We compare standard publisher routes and their approximate costs with a targeted expired-domain + 301 redirect approach. The article is practical, metric-driven and written from the perspective of practitioners running link-acquisition experiments.
Standard Routes and Approximate Cost
Three publisher-friendly methods typically lead to links on The Spruce:
- Earned editorial coverage. Pitch reporters with a timely project, proprietary data or expert commentary. Outreach costs are mainly staff time or agency fees; success depends on newsworthiness and editorial fit. See The Spruce: https://www.thespruce.com/.
- Sponsored or native content. Publishers sell branded content and newsletter integrations. Native campaigns vary by format and reach; many market studies place entry-level sponsored/native campaigns in the low thousands with premium placements costing more.
- PR agency outreach. Agencies use retainer models to build relationships and secure placements; common retainer ranges reported across the industry start in the low thousands per month and scale according to scope and seniority.
Representative planning figures: a one-off sponsored/native insertion commonly costs several thousand USD; PR retainers often run from roughly $2,000 to $20,000+ per month depending on scope. These are planning benchmarks, not formal quotes.
Why Those Prices Exist
Publishers monetize curated audience access, homepage and newsletter distribution, and editorial workflow (production, legal/FTC disclosure and reporting). Agencies charge for relationship-building, story development and sustained outreach capacity. If the objective is a guaranteed, tracked placement on The Spruce, these line items explain the higher cost per link or placement.
Expired Domains + 301 Redirects: How the Alternative Works
We deploy expired-domain acquisition and controlled 301 redirects when the objective is to capture legacy referral equity rather than to buy a fresh editorial mention.
Three practical steps we run
- Identify candidates. Use backlink tools (Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz) to shortlist expired domains with authoritative inbound links and topical relevance. Ahrefs defines Domain Rating as: “Domain Rating (DR) shows the strength of a website’s backlink profile compared to the others in our database on a 100-point scale.” See Ahrefs DR explanation: https://help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/1409408-what-is-domain-rating-dr.
- Vet history and risk. Inspect Wayback Machine snapshots to confirm prior content and the presence of the exact outbound link you want to capture; review anchor-text distribution and check for spam/manual-action signals. Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/.
- Acquire and implement server-side 301s. Configure permanent 301 redirects (server-side) from the expired domain (or specific pages) to the target URL and monitor Google Search Console and analytics for referral and index behavior. Google documents recommended practices for redirects: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/301-redirects.
When It Can Help — And When It Won’t
If the expired domain previously attracted editorial links—ideally from pages comparable to The Spruce—a correctly implemented 301 can route referral sessions and some portion of legacy link authority to your destination page. The effect size depends on topical match, the context of the original editorial link, and whether the linking page still exists.
Search engines apply nuance to redirects: blanket redirects to an unrelated homepage or mass redirect patterns receive little benefit and can look manipulative. John Mueller framed this nuance plainly: “I wouldn’t see it as ‘full credit or not’, but rather – as mentioned in our docs – it’s a good practice for any move to update the important old links to point at the right new pages.” See reporting on redirect credit: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-301-redirects-full-credit-33576.html.
There is also policy risk when many unrelated domains are purchased to manufacture links; patterns that look manipulative increase manual-review risk. Conservative, targeted purchases with transparent vetting lower that exposure.
Actionable Workflow and Metrics to Track
- Use Ahrefs/Majestic to export referring-domain lists and filter by DR and Trust Flow. Shortlist domains that show editorial links within the home, DIY or lifestyle vertical. https://ahrefs.com/, https://majestic.com/.
- Verify the archived page and outbound link with the Wayback Machine; record the archived URL, anchor text and snapshot date. https://web.archive.org/.
- After purchase, implement server-level 301s (avoid chains), submit sitemap updates or use Search Console tools, and watch referral traffic, index status, and ranking movement over 4–12 weeks. Key metrics: referral sessions, organic clicks to the target page, index/coverage and crawl behavior. See Google site-move guidance: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes.
Cost Comparison (Practical Perspective)
Sponsored/native or agency-led PR: typical budgets range from several thousand dollars for single-campaign native placements up to ongoing retainers in the thousands per month.
Expired-domain + 301 experiment: domain acquisition prices vary by domain; our service fee for research, vetting, acquisition coordination, and server-level 301 setup is $150 per domain (domain registration/purchase price is separate). For many teams, a $150 per-domain experiment is an economical way to test whether legacy link equity can be captured before committing to higher-cost sponsored placements or long-term PR retainers.
Final Considerations
A direct editorial link from The Spruce is brand-safe and publisher-approved, but often carries multi-thousand-dollar costs when bought or the time cost of earned coverage. The expired-domain plus 301 redirect tactic offers a measurable, lower-cost experiment to attempt capture of legacy editorial signals—provided the expired domain carried relevant editorial links that remain live.
This is where we come in: we research, vet, acquire and configure server-level 301 redirects for $150 per domain (our fee covers domain research, vetting, acquisition coordination, and 301 setup; domain purchase/registration is separate). We apply Ahrefs-driven filtering, archived-page validation, anchor-profile screening and conservative redirect implementation to reduce risk and improve the likelihood that legacy editorial links deliver referral and authority signals. For teams comparing a multi-thousand-dollar sponsored placement to a targeted expired-domain test, our service provides a low-cost way to assess link-equity transfer before larger budget commitments.
