Backlinks are absolutely essential to SEO. If you want to know what are backlinks and why are backlinks critical for SEO, read our What is SEO guide for an overview of on-page and off-page SEO.

Building backlinks is one of the first SEO projects to undertake if you want to get your website to the top of Google Search. To build backlinks, you need to iterate between creation of back links and checking your back links. Backlink checker tools help analyze the links that point to your website.

By evaluating the quality and quantity of backlinks, backlink checker tools will give you insights into your website's authority, trust, and overall SEO health. Backlink checker tools provide a wealth of information including the ability to track the total number of backlinks, referring domains, anchor texts, link attributes (follow/ nofollow), and the history of backlinks. Additionally, many backlink tools offer competitor analysis, broken link detection, and backlink gap analysis to identify new link-building opportunities.

By regularly checking your backlinks, you can maintain a healthy backlink profile, disavow toxic links and identify new and evolving opportunities to build more high authority backlinks. We at Rewaqe keep a constant eye on our back links and have identified the best free backlink checker tools that you can use. So if you’re confused about where to check my backlinks and where to check my competitors backlinks, you’ve come to the right place.

Best 5 Free Backlink Checker Tools

Here’s our shortlist of the best free backlink checker tools -

1. SEMrush Backlink Analytics

2. Ahrefs Backlink Checker

3. SERanking Backlink Checker

4. SEO Review Tools - Free Backlink Checker

5. SEO SpyGlass - Powerful Backlink Software

We also analysed several other backlink checker tools in the process, like

• Backlinko

• Small SEO Tools (SST)

• SEOptimer

• Ubersuggest

• Moz

Eventually we loved the 5 best free backlink checker tools we have listed for the different features they provide. Let’s deep dive into their key features, cost, and unique reports they offer, providing a comprehensive guide to choose and use the tools that solve your particular issues.

We have also provided a comparison summary and table for ease of use and quick reference.

1. SEMrush Backlink Analytics

SEMrush is a fast backlink discovery tool with comprehensive analysis features, allowing users to compare their domain with competitors. It is one of the most advanced tools available and provides almost all analytics you require, but unfortunately most of its features are paid.

Key Features:

• Backlink Metrics: Total backlinks, referring domains, relevant authority score, monthly visits, organic traffic, outbound domains, overall toxicity score.

  

  
  

• Link Types: Do-Follow / No-Follow links, backlink types (text/ image/ form/ frame), link attributes (follow/ nofollow/ sponsored/ UGC), TLD distribution (.com/ .in/ .net/ .gov/ .edu/ other)

• Detailed Link Analysis: Examine page authority score, page title, URL, external links, internal links, anchor text, target URL, first and last seen dates.

• Competitor Analysis: Competitor domain list, competition level, total backlinks, referring domains, common referring domains.

  

  
  

• Backlink Opportunities: Indexed pages report for content ideas, network graph report for backlink profile health, link building tool for finding new links.

• Backlink Monitoring:: Track new and lost links, backlink audit tool for toxic backlinks, email notifications.

  

  
  

• Bulk Analysis: You can analyze up to 200 competitor domains.

• Data Export: You can export data for further analysis.

• Other Reports:

  • Anchor Text Report: Provides a list of the most common anchor texts along with their backlink counts, domains, and first and last seen dates.

  • Indexed Pages Report: Highlights competitors’ content attracting the most quality links for content ideas.

  • Network Graph Report: Visual representation of backlink profile health to identify reputable, relevant, moderate, or suspicious links.

    

Cost: Limited free access (10 requests per day). Pro plans start at $130/month, offering access to 5 projects and 500 keywords.

2. Ahrefs Backlink Checker

Ahrefs is popular for its frequent updates and detailed backlink analysis, with comprehensive reports. It is the top competitor of SEMRush in terms of amount and breakdown of analysis.

Key Features:

• Backlink Metrics: Total backlinks, referring domains, domain rating, URL rating, page traffic, anchor text, referring pages, first and last seen dates.

• Link Types: Do-follow/ No-follow links, rise and fall of backlinks, broken links.

• Competitor Analysis: Can track competitor's domain backlinks analysis and see competitors’ most linked-to pages

• Backlink Opportunities: Identify opportunities through competitor backlink profiles.

• Backlink Monitoring: Track newly gained and recently lost backlinks over time.

• Data Export: You can export reports in PDF and CSV formats for further analysis or keeping records.

• Other Reports:

  • Referring Domains Report: Shows domain rating, organic traffic, dofollow /nofollow referring domains, linked domains report with outbound links data (domain rating, referring domains, linked domains, organic traffic).

  • Broken Backlinks Report: Identifies broken backlinks that can be reclaimed or fixed.

Cost: Limited free access (100 backlinks per check, unlimited daily checks). Paid plans start at $129/month, providing access to 5 projects and 6 months of history.

3. SERanking Backlink Checker

SERanking offers detailed backlink reports and features to help find new opportunities and monitor backlink health. The reports are well organised by Backlinks, Referring Domains and more. The dashboard also provides a good overview and breakdown by important elements you might want to track.

Key Features:

• Backlink Metrics: Total backlinks, referring domains, domain and page trust, anchor count, IPs, overall toxicity score, broken backlinks.

  

  
  

• Link Types: Do-Follow/ No-follow links, link type (image/text).

• Detailed Link Analysis: Examine domain trust, page trust, toxicity score, target URL, anchor text, link type, first and last seen dates for each backlink.

• Competitor Analysis: Backlink gap analyzer compares your backlinks vs your competitor back links and is helpful to find new backlink opportunities.

• Backlink Opportunities: You can refer to the pages report for detailed SEO data by each page and backlink gap analyzer.

  

  
  

• Backlink Monitoring: Keep track new and lost backlinks.

• Data Export: You can export backlink reports for further analysis in their paid plans

• Other Reports:

  • Top Pages Report: Shows which pages receive the most backlinks and which need more attention.

Cost: 14-day free trial. Plans start at $55/month, providing access to 10 projects, 750 keywords, and 50 domain/URL checks per day.

4. SEO Review Tools - Free Backlink Checker

SEO Review Tools provides a suite of really useful free SEO products including their free backlink checker tool. While not as extensive as the other tools, it gives an overview of essential backlink information for the top valuable links.

Key Features:

• Backlink Metrics: Total backlinks, referring domains, domain authority score, referring IPs.

• Link Types: Do- Follow/ No-Follow links.

• Detailed Link Analysis: Most valuable backlinks (top 100), anchor text, popular URLs. It also provides an option to analyse traffic statistics for specific back links.

  

  
  

• Competitor Analysis: You can search for your SEO competitors by your domain for specific countries and identify competitors that share similar keywords with you, and their organic traffic.

• Data Export: You can export data in CSV format.

• Other Reports: Also provides Broken Backlinks and New Backlinks Report

Cost: 100% free.

5. SEO SpyGlass - Powerful Backlink Software

SEO SpyGlass is a part of the SEO Powersuite and is slightly different from the other free backlink checker tools. Unlike the other web-based tools, SEO SpyGlass must be downloaded. It offers comprehensive backlink analysis, backlink quality audit and integration with Google services.

Key Features:

• Backlink Metrics: Total backlinks, referring domains, C-blocks, IPs, page inlink rank, domain inlink rank.

  

  
  

• Link Types: Do-follow/ No-follow links.

• Detailed Link Analysis: Examine page inlink rank, domain inlink rank, anchor text, URL, first and last seen dates.

• Competitor Analysis: You can analyse and compare your competitor domains as well though the SEO SpyGlass backlink checker tool.

• Backlink Opportunities: Backlink gap analysis tool to find opportunities where your competitors are already linked but you aren’t.

• Bulk Analysis: You can analyze up to 200 domains together in one click

• Data Export: Interestingly it provides an integration with Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

• Other Reports:

  • Backlink History Graph: Visualizes changes in the number of backlinks over time to monitor SEO strategy performance.

  • Backlink Performance Report: Provides insights into the quality and effectiveness of backlinks.

Cost: Completely free.

Pros and Cons of Other Top Backlink Checker Tools

BacklinkO (Powered by SEMRush)

Pro: Shows Domain Authority Score, Number of Referring Domains, Backlinks

Con: Limited to top 5 Backlinks only

Small SEO Tools (Powered by SEMRush)

Pro: Shows Domain Rating and Number of Referring Domains, Backlinks etc.

Con: Limited to top 10 Backlinks only. Shows only URL and Anchor Text for these backlinks.

SEOptimer

Pro: Shows Domain Strength, Page Strength, Number of Backlinks, Referring Domains, Top Backlinks, Top Pages by Backlinks and more.

Con: Data does not seem reliable. For the same website, other tools discover more backlinks.

Ubersuggest

Pro: Shows backlinks over time, new & lost domains, and more detailed data for each backlink including DA and PA of backlinking page.

Con: Need to create an account, and provides only 3 daily searches.

Moz

Pro: Shows detailed link analysis in the free version, including download of backlinks, referring domains and more.

Con: Need to create an account, and provides only 10 daily searches across the Moz login including searches on other tools.

Comparison of the 5 Free Backlink Checker Tools

Summary of the Backlink Checkers

• SEMrush: Comprehensive and graphical backlink analysis with robust competitor comparison and extensive backlink opportunities. Higher cost for paid plans, and limited features in free plan.

• Ahrefs: Frequent updates, detailed metrics including rise and fall of backlinks and broken link tracking, strong competitor analysis. Mid to high cost for paid plans, and limited features in free plan.

• SERanking: Offers detailed backlink metrics and opportunities for a lower starting cost, ideal for finding new backlink opportunities with backlink gap analyzer.

• SEO Review Tool: Free tool providing essential backlink information, suitable for quick checks.

• SEO SpyGlass: Free with detailed analysis and integration with Google services, ideal for comprehensive backlink strategy development.

Feature Comparison of the Backlink Checker Tools

We hope our list of the best free backlink checker tools helps you find and check backlinks for your website effectively. If you’re looking to check your overall SEO, you can also look at the 5 Best SEO Ranking Checkers. Feel free to reach out to us on always@rewaqe.com for any queries.