Looking for the most effective way to strengthen your domain’s reach and popularity? Then, it’s a good thing that you’ve got here! This article talks about essential tools that lie in the inventory of every SEO expert. We are talking about website backlink checker tools.
What are backlinks? How they affect website performance? What are the best free tools to check backlinks for website?
Keep reading to find out everything about it!
What is a Backlink? Definition and Examples
In simple terms, backlink (also known as an inbound link)is a hyperlink on a website that directs people to another portal.
Hence, the term backlinking refers to a practice of boosting the website’s reach and search engine appeal through references from other portals.
Need an example?
Take any hyperlink from this article that mentions someone else’s portal. For the owner of that site, this link is going to be a backlink.
Inbound links are an integral part of a successful link building strategy. At the start of the 2000s, inbound linking was the best way to promote a domain on search engines. Back in the 2010s, Google’s algorithm still aimed mostly at backlinks to determine the platform’s position in the SERP (search engine results page). Since then, the search engine had undergone several substantial updates to battle black-hat SEOs and spammers.
Is inbound linking practice still effective for boosting the website’s performance? Let’s find out.
How Backlinks Affect Website Rankings?
Backlinks are one of the deciding factors in determining the portal’s (or page) authority. Studies show that the number of domains linking to a certain page has a topmost impact on Google’s SERP.
As we mentioned, search engine algorithms don’t rely solely on inbound hyperlinks for ranking. Instead, Google approaches them as signs that other online resources approve your content.
The effect is greater if top-ranking sites mention your platform. Google recognizes this as an indicator that your pages are relevant, significant, and devoid of spam. And don’t forget that backlinks drive new visitors to your site via clicks.
You can look at it like references in scholarly works. The more writers cite your work in their publications, the more academic weight you gain as an author. The same principles apply to your page’s SEO value when other portals direct to your site.
Let’s sum it up. In terms of website performance backlinks offer the following advantages:
- Improve search engine appeal of a portal, thus boosting the SEO ranking.
- Allow people to discover new websites, increasing the site’s traffic.
- Serve as a means to establish authority and build a recognizable brand.
- Help website owners and bloggers connect.
Why Should You Use Website Backlink Checkers?
Learning how to check backlinks for websites is essential for improving your domain’s performance. Do you want to learn why?
Using good website backlink checker tools can help you with the following:
- Finding out who links to your website to establish new connections.
- Learning what pages drive people to your domain.
- Monitoring competitors to find out about the most attractive keyword phrases and link building strategies.
- Identifying low-quality, irrelevant, or broken backlinks. That way, you can contact domain owners and ask them to fix these hyperlinks.
These are just some of the uses of website backlink checker services. Do you want to know how to utilize them? Then, continue reading.
How to Find Who Links to My Website?
What’s the best way to check backlinks for your website? From our experience, the easiest way to do it is by using a Google Search Console. It’s a free website backlink checker for website owners who want to see who mentions their domain.
Let’s see how you can do that with this tool.
1. Register Your Website
Sign in or create an account. Then, choose the type of portal and enter the domain address.
2. Navigate to the “Links” section
After verifying your website, you’ll get to the Search Console’s main menu. From here, navigate to the “Links” section. For there, go to “External Links.”
Now, you can choose one of the two options.
3. Check the most popular websites and pages
Google’s Search Console can compile two exhaustive backlink reports.
The Top linking sites feature shows up to 1,000 of the most popular platforms that link your website. The report includes:
- The number of pages on each portal that have backlinks to your site (total external Links).
- How many of your website’s pages these portals link to in total (total linked pages).
- Pages that get the most mentions from these portals (top target pages).
With Top linking pages, you’ll know what pages on your portal get the most links from other websites. By clicking on each page, you can find out about websites that direct to it the most (top sites linking to this page).
Google backlink checker has some limitations. In particular, it doesn’t give you any link context or quality metrics. This means that you won’t learn relevant insight, like information about surrounding and anchoring text. You also don’t get any data about the search engine ranking of the sites that mention your portal.
Don’t worry, however. Many SEO backlink checker tools can fill these gaps. By the way, you don’t need to be tech-savvy to use them either.
6 Free Website Backlink Checker Tools
Need to improve link building strategy and boost SEO ranking? Then you need to analyze essential backlink data for your portal, as well as for competitive websites.
Here are some excellent free services and tools to check backlinks for any website.
1. Moz Link Explorer
We are launching the list with a service that’s well-known among SEO authorities. Moz Link Explorer is easily among the oldest and most reliable services for backlink examination.
Questions like “who links to my website?” or “why does this site have so much traffic?” keep arising in your mind? Moz Link Explorer can help you with that! You can get an advantage over the competition even with the free version of their tool. But what does it offer?
This SEO backlink checker shows every website that hooks to a specific URL or domain. You’re also getting information about anchoring text, inbound links, as well as authority and spam rating for each result.
Want to discover new link building opportunities, analyze anchors, and find broken links? You can try this and many other practical features for free with Moz’s 30-day trial.
2. OpenLinkProfiler
Here’s another fantastic service to check backlinks for any website. OpenLinkProfiler has an immense database that stores information about active links for up to 3 months. Good news: all of the functionality is free for the first 100,000 searches.
The report it complies includes a wide range of data. It divides every link by three types: those that direct to the homepage, as well as unique and trusted links. OpenLinkProfiler also scores portals based on the quality of backlinks.
You get to see every resource that mentions your site, coupled with link destination and anchor text. Want to get more details? The tool allows you to filter the results by several criteria. Additionally, OpenLinkProfiler offers other features that can assist you in getting more links.
3. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a very unlikely visitor in any list involving the word “free.” Yet, you’ll be glad to know that in addition to myriads of premium services, Ahrefs has one of the best link checker tools out there!
You’d want to register an account first. Don’t worry! It comes at no charge as well. Type the name of the portal you’re interested in to see the domain-level and page-level metrics. The report contains info about a number of backlinks and referring domains, as well as extra data like Ahrefs ranking and URL score.
Want to fix broken links that would otherwise guide new traffic to your site? With Ahrefs backlink checker, you can identify non-working backlinks without effort. Next, contact the owners of backlinking sites and ask to repair these links.
4. Backlink Watch
Not afraid to check a captcha from time to time? If not, then we have another great website backlink checker! Backlink Watch is a tool for checking your site, as well as for spying on competitors.
Backlink Watch report contains data for over 1000 backlinks. It includes the total number of outbound links on websites, the ranking of anchoring page, and the anchor text. Additionally, it marks sites with a nofollow tag on the backlinks.
5. Ubersuggest
A free SEO backlink checker by Neil Patel, Ubersuggest is a great tool in every marketer’s arsenal. This checker makes it easy to analyze your rivals and get insight into their successful link building strategies.
Ubersuggest’s report offers essential search optimization data on any website. It contains domain and page score, number of backlinks and nofollow links.
You’ll see a similar statistic about every portal that mentions your site, along with the info about link type and anchor text. But that’s not all! You can also make use of advanced filtering options to divide backlinks by metric prefixes.
6. Linkody
Linkody is a powerful SaaS tool for website monitoring and backlink checking. It’s incredibly popular among SEO experts who want to enhance link strategy. What makes it so handy for marketers?
This free tool checks backlink data for any website and provides a report with valuable metrics. Linkody shows the link itself, the page that contains it, the Rel attribute of a hyperlink, as well as the anchor text.
However, there’s an advanced functionality hiding behind the paywall. For a reasonably priced monthly subscription, you get access to link audit, competitor’s SEO analysis, and backlink monitoring. Worry not, because you can see the full extent of Linkody’s functionality for free. Just get a 30-day trial to see how this tool can help you improve your domain’s reach.
Final Thoughts
Natural backlinks remain a surefire way to boost any website’s popularity. They serve as indicators that a domain contains relevant and useful content. Furthermore, quality inbound links improve the page’s search engine appeal and SERP position.
With proper tools, domain owners can establish an effective link building strategy. They make it possible to see what kind of platform links to your website. Also, some of the services we mentioned have other useful features. Among other things, they allow to copy successful practices from competitors, find and fix broken hyperlinks, as well as help establish connections between domain owners.
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