Is It Out of Scope? — Web development
Is link building out of scope for a web development project?
Yes. Link building is outreach and marketing work, unrelated to development regardless of how technically SEO-conscious the build was.
A client whose site was just built sometimes asks the dev team how to "get more links" to it, treating link building as a natural next step after launch rather than a distinct discipline.
Is it out of scope?
Yes. Link building is outreach work — pitching other sites, guest content, digital PR — with no technical component the dev team would own.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Exclusions clause→ — The engagement covers development work — link building and outreach are excluded as an unrelated discipline.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Getting other sites to link to yours isn't development work — that's an SEO/outreach discipline. What we can make sure of technically is that the site's structure doesn't get in the way once that outreach happens. Want a referral to someone who does link building?
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags link-building and outreach requests outside_scope on development contracts, keeping the classification consistent with how it treats other SEO-discipline requests on dev engagements.