Top 7+ Backlink Monitoring Tools For Strategic Backlinks

The best way to find out if your link-building campaign is working or not is to track and analyze the links generated.

You want to ensure that your site is attracting healthy and high-quality links that are relevant to your content and industry. 

In case of toxic or spammy links, you can quickly disavow them disassociating your site from them to prevent any negative impact on your SEO rankings.

Backlink monitoring tools help you get this data.

I tested the top-rated backlink monitoring tools to see how each measures up.

I considered the following: 

• Accuracy and freshness of data
• User interface
• Anchor text analysis
• Backlink source coverage 
• Historical data
• Alerts and notifications

But before we delve deep into our list of the best backlink monitoring tools, let’s first learn a little bit more about why monitoring backlinks is important.

What are Backlink Monitoring Tools?

A backlink monitoring tool is a piece of software that occasionally crawls and scans your website to find all links pointing to your website. They provide you with information about individual links to help you keep your backlink profile steady and clean. This data includes:

• A list of newly acquired links
• Number of lost backlinks
• Anchor text
• Link type (Followed or Nofollow)
• Domain authority of each domain linking to your site
• Page authority of the page linking back to you
• Spam score and health status of each linking domain

Backlink monitoring tools also provide data on your competitor’s backlink profiles, allowing you to compare your website’s link profile with those of your competitors and identify opportunities for improvement.

Why Backlink Monitoring is Important

Backlink monitoring is important as it helps you stay updated on the backlink profile of your website. It allows you to track the quality and quantity of incoming links, ensuring that the website is associated with high-authority, relevant sources while identifying low-quality links. 

By continuously monitoring your website’s backlink profile, you can detect lost or broken links, assess the impact of your link-building efforts, and remain vigilant against potential negative SEO tactics. 

This ensures that your website remains credible in the eyes of search engines, contributing to higher search rankings, increased organic traffic, and a stronger online presence.

1. Monitor Backlinks

Monitor your backlinks and keywords.

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Monitor Backlinks tops our list of the best backlink monitoring and for a good reason. The software provides detailed insights into your website’s link profile, your keyword rankings, and an insightful comparative analysis against your competitors.

When you sign up, Monitor Backlinks will crawl your website and provide information about your site’s backlink profile. It’ll display the links your website has acquired, the status of each incoming link (whether it’s a dofollow or nofollow backlink), anchor text, along with other metrics such as spam score, domain rating, and page rating of the URL linking to you.

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One feature that sets Monitor Backlinks apart is its email notification system. This feature enables you to receive daily notifications with data about your backlink profile.

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This real-time update is invaluable for assessing the quality of incoming links. For instance, if you’ve recently published a new article, you can see which websites are linking to your content and take the right actions. This helps you distinguish between valuable organic links and potentially harmful links from spammy or Private Blog Network (PBN) sites. 

Another useful highlight is the disavow feature. This tool allows you to submit spammy and toxic links to the Google Disavow tool. 

Monitor Backlinks also allows you to track your competitor new and lost backlinks. You can view your competitor’s backlink profile over time which provides you with competitive intelligence about your competitor’s building strategy

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You can use the information to understand some of the sources that your competitor is getting the links from which you can strategically target and outreach.

2. Monitor Backlink Report by Semrush

Find link-building prospects and reach out.

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The Monitor Backlink Report feature is part of the SEMrush Link Building tool, which is a comprehensive solution for finding and building backlinks to your website.

The tool allows you to:

• Find relevant link prospects based on your keywords, competitors, and preferred link types
• Outreach to potential link prospects via email templates and tracking
• Monitor your newly acquired backlinks and their status over time

The Monitor Backlink Report feature works by tracking the status of your backlinks on a daily basis. You can manually add links to the monitor section or import them from other sources such as Google Search Console or via a CSV file.

Once you have added your links to the monitor section, you can see them in a graph and a table that shows their status over time. The status of each link can be one of the following:

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• Active 
• Lost 
• Broken
• Undefined
• Rejected

You can filter the graph and the table by any of these statuses, as well as by other criteria such as Google Search Console index and redirect chains. This way, you can easily spot any problems or opportunities with your backlinks and take action accordingly.

I have talked about Semrush a few times in the past, and for an agency or big content firm, Semrush is a wholesome tool.

3. Linkody

Create white-label reports.

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Linkody is a comprehensive backlink management tool that offers a range of features to help you manage and analyze your backlink campaigns.

The tool offers real-time email alerts notifying you when a new website links to your domain. This keeps you informed of your backlink acquisitions as they happen, allowing you to gauge their impact in real-time.

Linkody’s link profile analysis tool is a game-changer. It checks the anchor text used to link to your site, evaluates the spam score of linking domains, and assesses the page and domain authority of sites pointing to yours.

Competitor analysis is another useful feature of Linkody. You can gain an edge by delving into your competitors’ link-building strategies. Discover the pages that link to them and use this valuable data to uncover fresh link-building opportunities for your own site.

Additionally, Linkody offers a disavow tool that makes it effortless to protect your site from harmful backlinks. This tool helps you identify and create a disavow file for submission to Google, ensuring that your site remains safe from potential penalties.

If you’re an agency or consultant, Linkody’s ability to create white-label reports with your logo is a noteworthy feature. It allows you to present your results to clients with a personalized touch, enhancing your professional image.

4. Majestic SEO

Comprehensive backlink analysis platform.

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Backlink analysis is the core functionality of Majestic SEO. The tool allows you to crawl any website and check its backlinks profile based on proprietary data. Majestic boosts over 4 Trillion backlinks in its index database providing you with a robust foundation for your SEO strategies 

What makes Majestic stands out as one of the best backlink monitoring tools is its built-in metrics. This includes:

• Trust Flow: this allows you to check the trustworthiness of the sites that link to yours, as well as the sites that link to them, and so on. A high Trust Flow score indicates that a website has good-quality links from reputable sources.  
• Topical Trust Flow: shows the topical relevance of a website or URL based on the categories of the sites that link to it. It is derived from Trust Flow, but instead of measuring the overall quality of links, it measures the quality of links from specific topics. A high Topical Trust Flow score indicates that a website has good-quality links from relevant sources within its niche.  
• Citation Flow: reflects the number of links that point to any given website or URL. It is calculated by looking at the number of sites that link to it, as well as the number of sites that link to it, and so on. A high Citation Flow score indicates that a website has a lot of link equity or “juice” from other sites.  

Moreover, you can explore link types, anchor text usage, and the ratio of follow-to-nofollow links. The Majestic Link Graph graphically displays the origin of your backlinks, providing actionable insights to boost your website authority.

5. SE Ranking Backlink Monitoring Tool

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Backlink monitoring is one of the features SE Ranking offers in its comprehensive SEO stack. With this tool you can monitor your website’s backlinks, ensuring your online presence remains strong.

The SE Ranking web crawlers regularly inspect your site for any changes to your backlink profile. If any changes are detected, you receive prompt email notifications.

Specifically, it allows you to:

• Verify the presence or removal of backlinks.
• Check whether the pages containing your backlinks have been indexed by Google.
• Identify whether your backlinks are embedded in text or images.
• Examine the anchor text used to link to your site.
• Determine the link’s status (dofollow or nofollow).

SE Ranking also offers a convenient feature to generate a disavow file. You can select the links you want to disavow and SE Ranking will generate a file that you can readily submit to Google. Read SEranking review to learn more about it.

6. BuzzSumo

Best for finding unlinked mentions

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BuzzSumo is a versatile platform that serves as a brand monitoring, content research, and outreach solution. But, it also offers a backlink monitoring feature. You can set up email alerts within BuzzSumo to receive email and Slack notifications each time a new backlink is acquired.

What’s even more intriguing is BuzzSumo’s ability to track your competitors’ backlinks. With this feature, you can gain insights into the websites that are linking to your competitors’ content in your industry. This information provides valuable intelligence about potential link sources and the competitive landscape within your niche.

Besides backlink monitoring, you can use BuzzSumo to find unlinked mentions. With its brand monitoring tool, you identify websites that mention you or your brand but haven’t linked back to your site. You can use the information to reach out to the website owner and request them to link to one of your most relevant pages.

7. Linkio

Backlink monitoring tool with daily updates

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Linkio is another backlink monitoring tool that stands out for several reasons. It provides information about your website’s backlink profile including anchor text, and the nature of links pointing to your website. The tool also frequently recrawls your links to track any changes. It identifies whether your backlinks are still live, removed, or indexed.

Furthermore, it seamlessly integrates with Moz and Ahrefs, providing access to essential metrics such as Domain Authority, Page Authority Spam Score, and others to help you evaluate the quality of your incoming links. Linkio also integrates with Google Search Console allowing you to import your backlinks and monitor them.

Linkio has a blogger outreach feature too. It helps you find authors’ names and emails, so you can contact them and ask for links or build relationships. It also checks if the emails are valid, so you don’t waste your time or hurt your email reputation.

8. LinkResearchTools

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LinkResearchTools is a powerful SEO tool that lets you audit and monitor your backlinks. It has over 20 specialized tools for deep backlink analysis.

You can manage your backlinks and get real-time alerts about any changes, such as new or lost links, anchor text changes, or link status changes. You can also track your competitors’ backlinks and find new linking opportunities.

LinkResearchTools also helps you spot harmful links that could hurt your rankings or cause Google penalties. You can use its disavow tool to create and submit a disavow file to Google, giving you more control over your backlink profile.

Features to consider for top backlink monitoring tool

There are several features to consider before choosing a backlink monitoring tool. This includes:

• Automated Reports: You should seek a tool that automatically creates reports about your backlinks. This saves you time while also keeping you updated.
• White Label Dashboard: A white-label dashboard allows you to customize and brand the tool with your logo and colors, providing a professional appearance to your clients.
• Client & Staff Access: Ensure the tool provides different access levels for clients and staff, allowing you to share relevant data with your team and clients while maintaining security and confidentiality.
• Alerts (Email, SMS, Slack): Look for a backlink monitoring tool that can send alerts through various channels, such as email, SMS, or Slack, to keep you informed of important changes in real time.
• Backlink Database Size: Assess the size and quality of the tool’s backlink database. A larger and more comprehensive database can provide a more accurate picture of your backlink profile.
• Data Visualization: Look for a tool that offers robust data visualization features, making it easier to interpret and act on the data.
• Competitor Analysis: Some tools allow you to monitor your competitors’ backlinks, helping you identify opportunities and gaps in your own strategy.
• Disavow Feature: A built-in disavow feature can be essential for managing toxic or unwanted backlinks and ensuring a healthy link profile.
• Integration with SEO Tools: Consider whether the backlink monitoring tool integrates seamlessly with other SEO and digital marketing tools you use, such as Google Analytics or Google Search Console.

FAQ

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