| Tool Name | Key Features | Pricing |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Semrush | ☆ Large backlink database ☆ Rapid backlink discovery tool ☆ Conduct deep link analysis ☆ Reliable Authority Score ☆ Competitor analysis + Additional Features ✓ Keyword Research ✓ Rank Tracking ✓ Scheduled PDF reports ✓ Semrush API | Pro Plan – $119.95/month Guru Plan – $229.95/month Business – $449.95/month ➥ Try 30-day Guru plan for FREE (worth $229) |
| 2. LinkMiner | ☆ Analyze backlinks with all vital details ☆ Find powerful backlinks ☆ Evaluate the Link Strength ☆ Competitor analysis ☆ Embedded website preview + Additional Features ✓ Save favorite backlinks ✓ Find fresh or deleted backlinks | Basic – $29.90/month Premium – $44.90/month Agency – $89.90/month ➥ Get FREE 10-day trial |
| 3. Ahrefs | ☆ Backlink Checker ☆ Check broken inbound & outbond links ☆ Website Authority Checker ☆ Schedule site audit ☆ Find and fix broken redirects + Additional Features ✓ See top 100 backlinks in free plan ✓ Export Ahrefs report as CSV | Lite – $99/month Standard – $199/month Advanced – $399/month ➥ Use FREE Version of Ahrefs Blacklink Checker |
| 4. SE Ranking | ☆ Build link building strategy ☆ Backlink Gap Analyzer ☆ Referring domains ☆ Dofollow/Nofollow ratio ☆ Real-time backlink status checker + Additional Features ✓ Domain Trust metric ✓ Page Trust metrics | Essentials – $39/month Pro – $89/month Business – $189/month ➥ Get 14-day FREE trial |
| 5. Keyword Everywhere | ☆ View the top 5000 backlinks ☆ Free backlink checker tool ☆ Chrome extension + Additional Features ✓ Update the data on a monthly basis ✓ Export backlinks data as CSV | ➥ Learn more here |
| 6. OpenLinkProfiler | ☆ Free backlink checker ☆ Analyse your competitor’s site ☆ Numerous filters to sort the data ☆ Link Influence Score + Additional Features ✓ Identify active links and spam links ✓ Download backlinks in CSV format | ➥ Check backlinks on OpenLinkProfiler |
| 7. BuzzSumo | ☆ Backlink Checker ☆ Explore pages linking to a URL ☆ Export backlinks data as CSV | Free – 10 free search/month Pro – $99/month Plus – $179/month Large – $299/month ➥ Start 30-day FREE trial |
| 8. Moz Link Explorer | ☆ Explore the links to any site ☆ Research Competitor backlinks ☆ Check Spam Score of backlinks ☆ Monitor new and lost links ☆ Analyze anchor text + Additional Features ✓ Discover link building opportunities ✓ Export Links Data to CSV | Standard – $99/month Medium – $179/month Large – $299/month Premium – $599/month ➥ Moz Pro FREE for 30 days |
Looking for a backlink checker that you can use?
With regard to SEO, much has changed in the last couple of years, but one thing that remains the same is the backlink.
Formerly, your site would rank higher based on the number of backlinks you’ve gotten, but in 2023 it’s all about how many quality links you have.
Last year, Google’s Penguin algorithm update killed all the private blog networks and devalued low-quality links. In this tutorial, I will be discussing some of the best online backlink checker websites you can use to check how many backlinks your website has gotten.
More about backlinks:
Why you need backlink checker tools?
When any website links to your site or any page of your site from its website, this is called backlinks. Backlinks used to be one of the most important parameters for high page ranking and better keyword ranking. However, with time, Google demoted the priority of backlinks and added more signals to rank a website.
Backlinks are usually categorized in two ways: Dofollow backlinks and no follow backlinks.
When we talk about creating backlinks, we usually concentrate on creating dofollow links. Using backlink checker tools, we count how many backlinks we have created for our site. A good number of backlinks helps immensely in increasing the domain authority and also the Moz rank of our site.
Following are some free online backlink checker tools that will help you to see all the incoming backlinks to your website.
You can select any one of these tools based on your requirements.
Some of them offer detailed results, while others offer only the number of backlinks, but none of them requires registration or signing up, which makes the process quick and easy!
- Update: Semrush added a backlink analytic feature.
- Read: 5 Awesome Websites to Check Google Keyword Ranking
8 Best Tools to Check backlinks
1. Semrush (Popular)
Semrush is a tool I have been using for almost 9+ years, and with the extra features they are adding, it is becoming a highly robust SEO suite.
Before I discuss the backlink checker feature of Semrush, I must mention that Semrush is a complete suite of SEO tools that you may ever need.
Semrush has an extensive database that is updated daily, allowing you to check accurately your website’s backlink status.
Here is a screenshot of their main page, where I’m checking the backlink status of my website.
Note how their domain Overview report displays details such as which TLD’s zone is linking you to the most pages. You can also find details about the country from which you are getting most links.
You can use Semrush to check backlinks for your website or your competitor’s website.
They also have a backlink comparison tool that you can use to compare your own domain’s backlinks with others and get a complete report. Here is one such report:
Overall, Semrush is a tool that you should be using right now as your backlink checker.
Here is the special link that will allow you to try Semrush for free for 14 days. (You can cancel anytime within the 14-day period, and you will not be charged.)
2. LinkMiner
If you are doing Backlink analysis to find opportunities, you are going to love this one. Here are a few things that you can easily do with LinkMiner:
- Analyze backlinks with all vital details
- Embedded website preview from the dashboard
- See the backlinks based on category (Blogs, forum, Q&A)
- See the link strength
- Mark backlink as favorite
They have also merged Majestic historic and fresh index and that makes them one of the best backlink checker tools.
3. Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker: Recommended for link detox
Ahrefs is a recent addition and a popular backlink checker tool. They are a premium tool but you can check backlinks for free using their free plan.
You can see the top 100 backlinks to any domain or webpage using this free tool.
You can also register for an account and get a complete backlink analysis along with an anchor text analysis of your site.
Ahrefs offers a detailed analysis of backlinks to any domain or webpage. The engine is very popular and you can see data like:
- Anchor text distribution
- Dofollow-nofollow link
- Domain rating
- New or lost backlinks
Following the Penguin update, if you are hit with negative SEO, this will be a time-saving tool for your site, as you can get all the link details along with a percentage breakdown of anchor text pointing to your site.
4. SE Ranking
SE Ranking is an SEO suite that offers the feature of checking backlinks. What really interesting here is, you can track backlinks using:
- By manually adding backlinks
- Import using the Google search console
- Use SE Ranking Backlink database
I liked the feature of “manually adding backlink”, which is helpful for webmasters and SEO professionals to track the performance of backlinks after running a backlink building campaign.
Otherwise, if you wish to check the backlinks of your domain or your competitor’s domain for backlink-building opportunities, you can use the backlink checker tool.
SERanking offers 14-day free trial, and you can get started immediately. Overall SE Ranking backlink tool would delight you with the breeze of freshness. Read Seranking review.
5. Keyword Everywhere
Keyword everywhere is a popular chrome extension for Keyword research, and recently they have added the capability to check backlinks for free.
Both (free and paid users), can check up to 5000 backlinks to a domain or to a webpage. Their backlink database is updated monthly, so you may not be able to check the recent backlinks.
Watch this video to understand how to check the backlinks of a domain name :
However, for a free backlink checker tool, and for small domains, this is not a bad option.
6. OpenLinkProfiler
OpenLinkProfiler provides you with different options while checking backlinks for your blog. For example, if you need a detailed report or optimization, or if you want to check backlinks for a single page or an entire website, Link Diagnosis allows you to do all of this. It also offers various types of outputs and other features.
This is a free backlink checker tool that allows you to check the freshest backlinks (and all other backlinks) pointing to your site. You can also export 1000 of the freshest backlinks in .csv format. This tool is probably the best free option available for checking links to your site.
7. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is one of my favorite tools for content marketing, and they offer a free version as well as a pro version. The pro version now has an added feature allowing you to check backlinks to your domain or any individual page. You also have the option to export existing links into .csv or Excel format.
8. Moz Link Explorer
Of all the tools listed in this article, Moz Link Explorer is old & popular. If you want to compare backlinks between two or more domains, Open Site Explorer is worth trying. This tool works best when you have a paid account of SEOMoz though a free version of this tool is good enough to get you started checking the backlinks of your site and the sites of your competitors.
This article has pointed you toward some of the fastest and most trusted backlink checker tools for your website. Here are a few recommended guides for you to read next:
- Best Websites to Check Google Keyword Ranking (Popular Guide)
Let me know if you know of any other tools that allow you to check backlinks in the fastest way possible.
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i am using semrush and found it very good. in addition to it, ahrefs i have used it too
I personally love Ahref and semrush. Both the tools serve same purpose and they are really effective to explore link audit plus improve your backlinks. Thank you harsh sir for bringing in genuine content.
Google does make some backlink data available through the dashboard. To access this, simply click the “search appearance” button on the left-hand side, then click “search traffic” then “links to your site.” When you’ve opened the “links to your site” page, you’ll have the option to view your latest links.
Tried the moz open site explorer but seems to take ages to find my backlinks.
Links that google bing and other free backlink checkers picked up only a day or 2 after creation are still not on moz over a month later 🙁
I use SEMRush for monitoring the quality of the backlinks I get and I use Ahrefs to keep track of the backlinks I get. But, I feel both these tools offer premium features at a very high price. And, the free version is also limited.
Great article, I personally try to use variations of different back link checkers in order to get more accurate picture, it seems they all pick them up differently as the number always varies. SEM Rush is still my favourite though, cant beat the level of detail that tool provides. I’m only a beginner but I’m starting to learn so much!
Most of Backlink checker tools check the backlink 2 or 3 weeks old links.
Is there any tools available which provides updated backlink to 1 or 2 day ago?
Ahrefs should solve this purpose. They update their database more often.
Great post! Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I have used Majestic and it’s a great tool for analyzing how much link power a specific link provides. I haven’t used Ahref as much, but it should be equally useful for Off Page SEO. Maybe even better.
I agree with the tools, although more and more I use them, I’m using less and less of OSE and openlinkprofiler. SEMrush and ahrefs definitely tops and paid service is definitely worth it with all the data you can get from them.
Semrush seems like an interesting tool but I definitely have to agree with everyone else ahrefs and even moz does a pretty solid job on being able to checkup ones own backlinks.
Hi Harsh bro,
SEO Powersuite is also a great choice if you aren’t having the budget for purchasing from paid services. Although, I personally love Ahrefs (used the trial for 2 weeks).
Thanks for the share bro!
Great list of tools. But my personal favorite is SEMrush. The reason is- it is crucial to disavow spammy links as per Penguin Update 4 and one can disavow it easily through this tool.
Thanks for sharing your experience!
And what do you think about using SERPstat for this purpose? Is it ok or not?
Personally I like this tool
@Sim
I heard good things about SerpStat so far. Haven’t used it myself yet.
Thank You Harsh Agrawal for an amazing post. I’ve been using Moz for all my projects but I will definitely try out some of the other tools you mentioned.
In the past, I was using mostly free tools but I strongly believe that committing to one paid tool that overall does what is promises is far better. Having said that, no one tool is ideal for all purposes as you outline in your post!
I will be looking forwards to your new blog posts! Thank you very much for putting the time and effort to help us!
Thank you for sharing online free backlink checking tools
i am using backlinkwatch because it is free and very easy to use
Great List. Starting with the ahref. Hoping best results.
Thank You Harsh Agrawal. I have used all the mentioned tools. You can also add SEOProfiler in this list. This is good for getting the raw backlink data.
thats the open link profiler he mentioned redirects to 🙂
Much appreciated. Thank you heaps. Big help. 🙂 I’ve been using Backlink Watch.
Much appreciated. Thank you heaps. Big help. 🙂
Thanks a lot sharing this post Harsh. I use semrush and got wonderful information about my blog. And now I can choose right keyword from this tool. Thanks again for sharing this.