Learn how to use these backlink checker platforms to estimate how many links a website gets and which domains are improving their SEO.
This article covers a few paid and free backlink checkers I like to use for my own websites. It won’t list every service available.
Knowing how many links a website has or whether they’ve been buying links helps you understand what’s needed to rank higher in search engines.
By using these backlink checkers, you can analyze competitor strategies, identify quality links, and enhance your own SEO efforts to drive more traffic.
Using these services you will be able to
- Check how many backlinks a website has
- Find the best links a site may have
- Copy a competitors backlinks
How do you check the backlinks of your own website?
- Use a tool such as Google Search Console to check your own website.
- Use a free service listed below
- Enter your website URL in the box above to view your traffic.
This guide covers a few platforms I use to find quality backlinks or check how many backlinks a site might have.
Paid Tools
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
Free Tools
- Google Search Console
SEMrush
SEMrush lets you view backlinks through their Domain Overview tool, which has 8 tabs.
- Overview
- Backlinks
- Anchors
- Referring Domains
- Referring IPs
- Indexed Pages
- Competitors
SEMrush Backlink
The overview page gives you a big picture of how the website is performing. You can quickly see referring domains, backlinks, monthly visits, and keywords.
Top anchors
This tool is useful for copying your competitors’ backlink profile. Here you can see a breakdown of anchors used and how many backlinks each keyword has.
At the time of taking this screenshot, I couldn’t get the chart for SEMrush anchors to load. It normally shows the percentages.
View referring domains
The referring domains page shows which TLD and country each backlink is from. It also displays how many times a domain links to the website you’re viewing.
This is a great tool for your own site because you can quickly spot spam domains worth removing.
Backlinks by IPs
This tab shows which IPs are linking to your site the most. You’ll probably see web 2.0 platforms like Blogspot and WordPress.
Clicking on an IP gives you more information, such as all the domains associated with that address.
Indexed Pages
This tab shows internal links already indexed in Google and how many backlinks each one has. You can sort by domain, backlink list, first or last seen, and export the data.
Competition based on backlinks
The final tab lists competitors based on your backlink profile. SEMrush splits this data into tables sorted by Authority Score, Competition Level, Common Referring Domains, Total Referring Domains, and Backlinks.
This is a great tab for finding links your competitors have that you don’t.
SEMrush Verdict
SEMrush is our favorite all-rounder. The data they have and how easy it is to read makes understanding your own and competitors’ sites a simple task.
Exploring the top google analytics competitors available can further enhance your understanding of market trends and user behavior. Each platform offers unique features and insights, allowing you to tailor your strategies effectively. By comparing these tools, you can identify which solutions best meet your business needs.
We at Traffic Masters use SEMrush daily to check backlinks and monitor competitors using their traffic checker tool.
SEMrush is a paid service, but we have a great 7 day free trial for our readers!
Ahrefs
Ahrefs was built from the ground up to find backlink data across the web, and it shows. Their tools and interface make finding backlinking opportunities easier than leading competitors.
The main reporting tools for checking backlinks are split into 8 sections.
Backlink Profile
- Backlink Overview
- New & Lost
- Broken
Referring domains
- New & Lost
- Anchors
- Referring IPs
- Internal Backlinks
- Link Intersect
Pages
- Best by links
- Best by links’ growth
Outgoing links
- Linked domains
- Anchors
- Broken links
Ahrefs Backlinks
Ahrefs has the best UX out of all SaaS products I use. Everything is easy to find with great filters to export data if needed.
After entering a URL, you get an overview of referring pages sorted by UR rating. You can sort and filter by link type, platform, language, or search for links with specific words. This is how most Ahrefs tabs look—a nice sortable table.
New & Lost Backlinks
This tab shows the latest backlinks Ahrefs found for the entered domain. By default, it displays the last 3 months of data. Green links are found; red are lost.
Below the calendar, you get a table of links sorted by how recently they were found. You can change dates for more data or click on a specific day to view those links.
Broken Links
The broken tab helps you check backlinks that have been removed or are no longer working.
If you find content with lots of broken links, you could recreate your own version. Then reach out to the website owner to inform them the link is now a 404 and you have a better version. This is called broken link building.
New & Lost Referring Domains
This tab shows domain addresses instead of individual pages. You can click the backlink button next to each domain to check how many individual links are coming from each site.
Anchors
Anchor ratio is important when building links. If you target too many similar keywords and it looks unnatural, you can receive a penalty from Google and lose rank.
The Ahrefs anchor tab is great for checking competitors’ backlinks to see what keywords they’ve been targeting. Most high-ranking sites use brand terms or related phrases mixed with generic terms like “here,” “site,” or “read.”
Referring IPs
I haven’t used this tab much myself. Ahrefs gives you a breakdown of all IPs linking to your site. The top results will almost always be web 2.0s like Blogspot and WordPress.
Internal Backlinks
Here you can view how a website is “built” in terms of interlinking pages and posts. It’s a nice tool to quickly find how many internal backlinks there are.
However, I would rather use Screaming Frog SEO Spider because it has more features.
Link Intersect
Use this tool to find backlinks your competitors have that you don’t. You can enter three or more competitors, and Ahrefs will find all links they have that you’re missing.
Best Links by Page
This reporting tool shows the best pages ranked by the volume of incoming links. This includes all subdomains and subfolders. You would typically see a site’s most important pages here, like the homepage and money pages.
