Top 10 Most Popular Backlink Checker Tools

When doing SEO, backlinks are always an important factor that directly affects your site's ranking and visibility on search engines. But not every backlink is effective, so checking and evaluating backlink quality is necessary to avoid risks and optimize your SEO strategy. To help you track and manage your backlinks more effectively, MONA Media has gathered the popular backlink checker tools of today, suitable for both beginners and professional SEOers. Read on!

Top 10 popular backlink checker tools

Backlink is one of the key factors that directly affect a website's ranking on search engines. But to judge backlink quality properly and build an effective strategy, you need specialized tools. Below are the popular backlink checker tools today, helping you track, analyze and optimize your links more easily.

Majestic SEO backlink checker

Majestic SEO is an in-depth tool for backlink analysis, used by many SEOers to evaluate the quality of a site's link profile. It stands out with metrics such as Trust Flow, Citation Flow, the number of backlinks and referring domains, helping you understand the trust and strength of each link pointing to your site.

Steps to check backlinks with Majestic SEO:

Step 1: Go to the Majestic website and log in to your account

Step 2: Enter the domain you want to check in the search box

Step 3: Read the backlink report, including key metrics such as Trust Flow, Citation Flow, the number of backlinks and referring domains

Step 4: Analyze the data to judge backlink quality, and spot low-quality or risky links so you can deal with them in time

Combining Majestic SEO with other tools gives you a fuller picture of your backlink profile, so you can optimize your SEO strategy more effectively.

≫ You may also want to read: What are dofollow and nofollow? Detailed uses of the 2 types of links

Ahrefs backlink checker 

Ahrefs is one of the most SEO tools powerful and popular tools today, especially strong at full backlink analysis. With Ahrefs, you can easily check the backlinks of your own site or a competitor's, judge link quality and build a more effective SEO strategy.

Steps to check backlinks with Ahrefs:

Step 1: Go to the Ahrefs website, choose Site Explorer, enter the URL you want to check in the search box and click analyze

Step 2: In the results, choose the Backlinks tab to see the list of links pointing to the site

Step 3: View and analyze key information such as:

• The source URL containing the backlink
• The anchor text of the link
• DR (Domain Rating), which shows the trust of the source site
• The target URL being linked to
• HTTP status (200, 404, 301…)

Step 4: Based on the data, you can judge backlink quality, spot low-quality links or find opportunities to build new backlinks

Ahrefs is a paid tool, but well worth the investment if you need in-depth backlink analysis and want to track both your own site and your competitors.

Moz backlink analysis tool

Moz is a popular SEO tool used by many SEOers to check and evaluate backlink profiles. Moz stands out for its own metrics, Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA), which help you measure a site's trust and the quality of each link pointing to it.

How to check backlinks with Moz:

Step 1: Go to the Moz website and log in to your account

Step 2: Enter the domain you want to check in the search box

Step 3: View the SEO overview report from Moz, which includes a lot of backlink-related data

Step 4: Choose Backlinks to see the list of links pointing to the site, along with DA, PA, anchor text and other metrics

Based on this data, you can easily judge backlink quality and optimize SEO strategy more effectively.

How to check backlinks with Monitor Backlinks 

Monitor Backlinks is a backlink checker used by many SEOers and SEO services to track and evaluate the quality of links pointing to a site. It lets you see detailed information about dofollow and nofollow backlinks and analyze competitors to find potential link sources. You can even view some backlinks quickly without signing up, and try all the features with a free trial.

Steps to check backlinks with Monitor Backlinks:

Step 1: Go to the Monitor Backlinks website

Step 2: Enter the domain you want to check in the search box

Step 3: View the backlink list the system provides, including details such as link type (dofollow or nofollow) and backlink source

Step 4: Analyze the data to judge backlink quality, and look at competitors' backlinks to find better link-building opportunities

Monitor Backlinks is a good choice if you want to check backlinks quickly, easily and cheaply when you are just starting out in SEO.

Google Search Console, a free backlink checker

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google that helps you track and check backlinks to your site accurately. Because it is data straight from Google, it is very reliable, helping you judge link quality and spot unwanted backlinks in time to optimize your SEO strategy.

How to analyze backlinks for free with Google Search Console:

Step 1: Log in to Google Search Console and choose the site you want to check

Step 2: In the left menu, choose Links, go to Top linking sites and click More to see the full backlink list

Step 3: Click Export to download the backlink data as Google Sheets, Excel or CSV

Step 4: Open the file and check the backlink list, watching for signs such as:

• Backlinks from spam sites or unrelated content
• Unnatural anchor text or keyword-stuffed anchors
• Links from sites at risk of a Google penalty

Step 5: Save the low-quality backlink domains to a file so you can submit a disavow request to Google, which limits the negative impact on your site

Using Google Search Console helps you control your backlinks effectively, so you can build a safer and more sustainable SEO strategy.

≫ Read now: How to check for bad backlinks and remove them from your website

How to check backlinks with SEMrush 

SEMrush is a versatile SEO tool used by many SEOers to analyze a whole website, especially to check backlinks. With SEMrush, you can track the number of backlinks, link quality and judge a site's trust through metrics such as Authority Score and the number of referring domains.

Steps to use the backlink checker in SEMrush:

Step 1: Go to the SEMrush website and log in. If you do not have an account, you can sign up or try it for free

Step 2: Enter the domain you want to check in the search box and press Enter

Step 3: View the overview with metrics such as Authority Score, total backlinks, referring domains, estimated traffic and ranking keywords

Step 4: Choose the Backlinks tab to see the detailed list of links pointing to the site

Step 5: Analyze key information such as:

• Referring Page: The page containing the backlink
• Anchor text: The link text
• Target Page: The target page being linked to
• Backlink type: Text, image or other
• When the backlink was discovered

Based on this data, you can judge backlink quality, spot low-quality links and track backlink growth over time to optimize your SEO strategy more effectively.

SEMrush is not just a way to check a site's backlinks but also a great helper for understanding your own website better. From there, you can answer the question “How does SEO work” yourself and plan a better SEO rollout, boosting your ability to generate leads. 

Poor SEO results may be caused by errors on your site that you do not know about. WATCH THE VIDEO to learn how to use SEMrush to check technical SEO, backlinks, traffic and more on your own site! 

Open Link Profiler tool check backlink

Open Link Profiler is a free backlink checker used by many SEOers to track and evaluate the links pointing to a site. It stands out for continuously updated data, its own crawler and the LIS metric, which lets you judge backlink quality at a glance. You can also download the latest backlink list as a file for easier management.

Steps to check backlinks with Open Link Profiler:

Step 1: Go to the Open Link Profiler website

Step 2: Enter the domain you want to check in the search box

Step 3: View the backlink report, including the number of backlinks, link quality and the LIS metric

Step 4: Analyze the data to judge good backlinks and spot low-quality links

Step 5: Download the backlink list as a CSV file to track and manage it more easily

Open Link Profiler is a good choice if you want to check backlinks for free, with frequently updated data and an easy interface.

Backlink Watch backlink checker

Backlink Watch is a free backlink checker used by many SEOers to analyze a site's link profile. It provides key information such as total backlinks, anchor text, page rank and link types. Because it uses Ahrefs data, Backlink Watch gives fairly accurate and reliable results, suitable for analyzing both your site and your competitors.

Steps to check backlinks with Backlink Watch:

Step 1: Go to the Backlink Watch website

Step 2: Enter the URL you want to check in the search box

Step 3: Click check and wait for the system to analyze

Step 4: View the backlink list the tool returns, including anchor text, link source and the number of backlinks

Step 5: Use the data to judge backlink quality and learn from your competitors' link strategy

Showing many results and free to use, Backlink Watch is a good tool for checking backlinks fast and getting an overview of a site's link profile.

BuzzSumo, a popular website backlink analysis tool

BuzzSumo is a powerful SEO tool built to analyze competitors' content and backlinks. Although it is paid, BuzzSumo gives detailed, accurate data, helping you see which content works and find potential backlink sources. It also helps you identify influencers in your field to widen collaboration and link-building opportunities.

How to check backlinks with BuzzSumo: 

Step 1: Go to the BuzzSumo website and log in (you can use the free version to try it)

Step 2: Enter a competitor's website or page URL in the search box

Step 3: View the list of the most shared content on social media

Step 4: Analyze these articles to identify backlink sources and the content that attracts many links

Step 5: Use the data to build a content strategy and find chances to earn quality backlinks

BuzzSumo is a good choice if you want to combine content and backlink analysis to optimize your SEO strategy as a whole.

Rank Signals, how to check a website's backlinks

Rank Signals is a free backlink checker used by many SEOers to evaluate a site's link profile. It provides key information such as the number and quality of backlinks, dofollow and nofollow types, and some metrics on traffic and social media popularity. This makes it easier to track and optimize your backlink strategy.

Steps to check backlinks with Rank Signals

Step 1: Go to the Rank Signals website and sign up for an account

Step 2: Log in and enter the domain you want to check in the search box

Step 3: View the backlink report with details such as the number of links, backlink quality and link type (dofollow or nofollow)

Step 4: Analyze the data to judge how well your backlink profile performs and spot low-quality links

Step 5: Use the results to optimize your SEO strategy and build a better backlink profile

Rank Signals is a good tool if you need to check backlinks for free, easily, with enough basic data for SEO.

Key metrics to know when analyzing backlinks

When analyzing backlinks, quantity alone is not enough. What matters is understanding the quality of each link. Knowing the key metrics helps you judge backlink performance correctly and build a safer, more sustainable link profile for SEO. So when analyzing backlinks, you need to know these metrics:

• Domain Authority (DA) / Domain Rating (DR): Shows the trust of the site that places the backlink. The higher the score, the more valuable the backlink
• Referring Domains: The number of domains linking to you. Many different domains are much better than many backlinks from one source
• Anchor Text: The text that contains the link. It should be varied, avoiding too much repetition of the main keyword
• Dofollow and Nofollow: Dofollow passes SEO strength. Nofollow does not, but makes your backlink profile look more natural
• Relevance: Backlinks from sites in the same field are worth more
• Traffic: Backlinks from pages with real traffic bring more value
• Link Velocity: Backlink growth rate. Growing too fast can look unnatural to Google

From the list of backlink checker tools above, you can see each tool has its own strengths, suited to different needs from basic to advanced. Choosing the right tool helps you control your backlink profile, catch risks early and optimize your SEO strategy more effectively.

If you want to move fast and in the right direction from the start, MONA Media is ready to work with you on a complete SEO service, from backlink analysis to the full strategy. Contact MONA to get detailed advice and find the best solution for your website.