Relationship Link Sweep
Most established businesses are owed links nobody has asked for. The reason they stay unclaimed is that the search team starts from a link tool, and a link tool can only show links that already exist, so relationships that never produced one are invisible. The records that reveal them sit in finance and sales: the payables ledger, the membership renewals, the software subscriptions, the sponsorship invoices.
CATEGORY
Links & authority
FORMAT
relationship-link-sweep.md
WHEN TO REACH FOR THIS
Use when an established business has years of suppliers, customers, memberships and sponsorships and none of it has ever produced a link.
The skill file
relationship-link-sweep.md
---
name: relationship-link-sweep
description: Use when an established business has years of suppliers, customers, memberships and sponsorships and none of it has ever produced a link.
---
# Relationship Link Sweep
Most established businesses are owed links nobody has asked for. The reason they stay unclaimed is that the search team starts from a link tool, and a link tool can only show links that already exist, so relationships that never produced one are invisible. The records that reveal them sit in finance and sales: the payables ledger, the membership renewals, the software subscriptions, the sponsorship invoices.
## What you need first
- the payables and receivables ledger for the last two years, as a supplier and customer list
- memberships, accreditations, sponsorships and event participation pulled from finance rather than from marketing
- the software and services the company pays for, from the IT or finance spend list
- one internal sponsor senior enough to ask a partner contact for a favour
## Method
1. Start with payables. Every vendor you pay has an account manager and many run customer, partner or case study pages, which makes this the shortest route from a paid invoice to an earned link.
2. Repeat with receivables. Customers often run supplier, stockist or approved partner pages, and a client who is currently happy is the easiest yes in the whole programme.
3. Check every software vendor for an integration directory, app marketplace or partner tier, then check whether the listing you already have carries a followed link or only a logo.
4. Take memberships, accreditations and sponsorships from the accounts rather than from anyone's memory. Annual fees show up in the ledger years after the person who signed up has left.
5. For each relationship, record whether a public page exists, whether it links, and whether the link is followed or routed through a tracking redirect. Sort by which of those three is missing, because each needs a different email.
6. Route every ask through the internal owner of the relationship. The same request sent by an account manager gets actioned and sent by a search team to a shared marketing inbox does not.
7. Log refusals with the reason, then add a link check to supplier onboarding, membership renewal and sponsorship sign-off so the backlog does not rebuild over the next two years.
## What this produces
A relationship link register covering suppliers, customers, memberships and vendors, with link status per relationship and named internal owners for the asks.
## Where this goes wrong
- sending the ask from the search team rather than the relationship owner, which converts a routine favour into cold outreach
- accepting a logo with no link, or a link through a tracking redirect, and recording it as won
- chasing a place on a members directory that turns out to be noindexed, which trade bodies do more often than they admit
- running the sweep once and never wiring it into onboarding, so the same list has to be rebuilt from scratch later
---
From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/relationship-link-sweep
Free to download · no account, no email
What you need first
-
the payables and receivables ledger for the last two years, as a supplier and customer list
-
memberships, accreditations, sponsorships and event participation pulled from finance rather than from marketing
-
the software and services the company pays for, from the IT or finance spend list
-
one internal sponsor senior enough to ask a partner contact for a favour
Method
-
01
Start with payables. Every vendor you pay has an account manager and many run customer, partner or case study pages, which makes this the shortest route from a paid invoice to an earned link.
-
02
Repeat with receivables. Customers often run supplier, stockist or approved partner pages, and a client who is currently happy is the easiest yes in the whole programme.
-
03
Check every software vendor for an integration directory, app marketplace or partner tier, then check whether the listing you already have carries a followed link or only a logo.
-
04
Take memberships, accreditations and sponsorships from the accounts rather than from anyone's memory. Annual fees show up in the ledger years after the person who signed up has left.
-
05
For each relationship, record whether a public page exists, whether it links, and whether the link is followed or routed through a tracking redirect. Sort by which of those three is missing, because each needs a different email.
-
06
Route every ask through the internal owner of the relationship. The same request sent by an account manager gets actioned and sent by a search team to a shared marketing inbox does not.
-
07
Log refusals with the reason, then add a link check to supplier onboarding, membership renewal and sponsorship sign-off so the backlog does not rebuild over the next two years.
What this produces
A relationship link register covering suppliers, customers, memberships and vendors, with link status per relationship and named internal owners for the asks.
Where this goes wrong
-
sending the ask from the search team rather than the relationship owner, which converts a routine favour into cold outreach
-
accepting a logo with no link, or a link through a tracking redirect, and recording it as won
-
chasing a place on a members directory that turns out to be noindexed, which trade bodies do more often than they admit
-
running the sweep once and never wiring it into onboarding, so the same list has to be rebuilt from scratch later
Use this skill in your own AI
The download is a plain markdown file with the name and trigger in its frontmatter. Where an assistant supports skills it can load itself, that frontmatter is what it reads to decide this one applies.
Claude Code
Save it as ~/.claude/skills/relationship-link-sweep/SKILL.md and Claude loads it on its own when what you are doing matches the trigger line. Put it in .claude/skills inside a project instead if the whole team should have it.
Claude
Upload the file in the skills section of your settings. Once it is there it applies itself in any conversation where the trigger fits, so you do not have to remember it exists.
ChatGPT
There is no skills format to install into, so paste the file contents into a Project instruction or a Custom GPT instead. It then applies to every chat in that project rather than only the one you paste it into.
Anything else
Paste the markdown into the chat before your question. It works in any assistant, it just has to be pasted again each time.
Questions about this skill
When does this beat starting from a link tool?
When an established business has years of suppliers, customers, memberships and sponsorships behind it. A link tool can only show links that already exist, so relationships that never produced one are invisible to it by definition. A young company with a short payables ledger has nothing to sweep, and age of business is genuinely the qualifier here.
What do I need in hand before starting?
Payables and receivables for the last two years, memberships, accreditations and sponsorships pulled from finance rather than marketing, the software and services spend list, and one internal sponsor senior enough to ask a partner for a favour. Marketing recollection misses annual fees still being paid years after whoever signed up has left, and those appear only in the ledger.
What do I end up with, and which part gets used?
A register of every relationship with a public page you could appear on, recording whether the page exists, whether it links, and whether that link is followed or routed through a tracking redirect. Sorting by which of the three is missing is the operative step, because each of those states needs a different email and a different internal owner named against it.
What most often ruins this, and what does it cost?
Sending the ask from the search team. The same request from the account manager who owns the relationship gets actioned; from a stranger into a shared marketing inbox it becomes cold outreach and dies. After that, recording a logo or a tracked redirect as a win, and running the sweep once without wiring a link check into onboarding and renewal.
More in Links & authority