Methods, systems, and devices are described for presence indication and determination in a wireless data link, such as a neighbor aware network (NAN) data link (NDL). A wireless station (STA) may identify a set of devices associated with the wireless data link and transmit a message to the set of devices including a presence request indicator. The STA may determine that a first subset of the set of devices are present in the wireless data link based on receiving a response to the message from the first subset. The STA may also determine that at least one device of the set of devices are absent from the wireless data link based on receiving a notice of absence message from the one device.