How to Check Your Backlinks (Free and Paid Methods)

Knowing who links to your website is basic SEO hygiene. Backlinks help Google discover your pages and understand what they are about, and a sudden change in your link profile, good or bad, often explains a change in rankings. Yet many site owners have never looked at their links, or only see the totals a tool shows them.

The good news is that checking backlinks does not have to cost anything. Google and Bing both give you free link data for your own site, and paid tools add competitor insight and better filtering when you need it.

This guide explains how to check your backlinks with free and paid methods, how to read what you find, how to check individual links by hand, and what to do next.

Key Takeaways

• Google Search Console’s Links report is the best free source, but it is a sample, not a full list.
• Bing Webmaster Tools adds a second first-party view and a comparison with similar sites.
• Paid backlink checkers add competitor data, link attributes, history and filtering.
• Every tool shows a different number; use one consistently for trends.
• Do not disavow links just because a tool labels them toxic.

Free vs paid backlink checkers

Method	Cost	Your site	Competitors	Shows link attributes?
Google Search Console Links report	Free	Yes (verified)	No	No
Bing Webmaster Tools Backlinks	Free	Yes (verified)	Comparison with similar sites	Limited
Free tiers of third-party tools	Free with limits	Yes	Often limited	Usually
Paid backlink indexes (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Majestic)	Subscription	Yes	Yes	Yes
Manual inspection	Free	One link at a time	One link at a time	Yes

Method 1: Google Search Console

Search Console shows links Google has actually found, which makes it the most trustworthy free source. To use it:

1. Verify your site in Search Console (a Domain property covers all subdomains and protocols).
2. Open Links in the left menu.
3. Review Top linked pages under External links to see which of your pages attract the most links.
4. Open Top linking sites to see the root domains linking to you most.
5. Check Top linking text to see your most common anchor text.
6. Click Export external links and choose Latest links to download recently discovered links with dates.

Know the limits. Google’s help page describes the report as a sample of links, says it can include links that have since been removed, and notes that it does not show whether a link is nofollow. On-screen tables stop at 1,000 rows, and the “Latest links” and “More sample links” exports offer up to 100,000 rows each. For a section-by-section walkthrough, see our Search Console Links report guide.

Method 2: Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing runs its own crawler, so its link data is a useful cross-check. Its Backlinks tool shows referring pages and anchors for your verified site, and Search Engine Land reported that a similar-sites tab lets you compare your profile with another domain. Bing also has its own disavow feature. Our Bing Webmaster Tools guide covers setup, including importing your site from Search Console.

Method 3: Third-party backlink checkers

Paid tools crawl the web independently and store link histories. They are essential for competitor research and much faster for filtering. Typical reports include:

• Referring domains with authority estimates and traffic estimates.
• New and lost links over time, useful for link reclamation.
• Anchor text distribution, to spot over-optimised or spammy anchors.
• Link attributes (follow, nofollow, sponsored, UGC).
• Link gap comparisons against competitors.

Many tools offer free versions. For example, Ahrefs says its free webmaster tools show up to 1,000 backlinks at once for verified sites. Our roundup of link building tools worth using compares the main options.

Method 4: Check a single link manually

When a partner says they have linked to you, or you want to confirm a link’s attributes, check it yourself:

1. Open the linking page and find the link.
2. Right-click the link and choose Inspect.
3. Confirm the href points to the correct URL on your site.
4. Look for a rel attribute. rel="sponsored", rel="ugc" or rel="nofollow" tell Google not to treat it as an endorsement in the normal way.
5. Check that the link is a normal <a href> element. Google’s documentation says it can generally only crawl links that are <a> elements with an href attribute.

Our guide to dofollow vs nofollow links explains what each attribute means.

How to read your backlink data

What you see	What it may mean	What to do
Most links point to the homepage	Brand links dominate; deep pages lack support	Create linkable content near key topics and link internally
One anchor text dominates	Possible past manipulation or a widget/footer link	Investigate the source; see anchor text best practices
Hundreds of links from one domain	Sitewide footer or sidebar link	Check whether it is natural; paid sitewide links need qualifying
Sudden spike of foreign-language spam	Common background noise or negative SEO	Investigate before acting; random spam rarely needs a disavow
Lost links from strong sites	Page moved, removed or link edited	Reach out or fix redirects on your side

How to check a competitor’s backlinks

Your own links tell you where you stand; a competitor’s links tell you where you could go. Search Console cannot help here because it only covers verified properties, so you need a third-party index or Bing’s comparison view.

1. Pick two or three competitors that outrank you for your most valuable keywords, not just the biggest brands in your market.
2. Enter each domain (or the specific ranking page) into your backlink tool and open the referring domains report.
3. Filter out obvious spam, scrapers and directories so you are left with editorial links.
4. Sort by relevance first, then by authority or traffic estimates.
5. Note why each site linked: a resource list, a data study, a review, a quote, a partnership.
6. Run a link gap report to find domains linking to several competitors but not to you.

The “why” column is the useful part. If three competitors were linked for publishing original survey data, that is a stronger hint than any metric. Our competitor backlink analysis guide goes deeper.

What to do after checking

A link check is the start, not the end. Turn it into actions: fix broken pages that have links, ask for corrections on lost or misdirected links, list the sites linking to competitors but not to you, and record your baseline. For a deeper review of risk and quality, follow our backlink audit guide.

If you do find genuinely manipulative links you or a previous agency built, Google is clear that the disavow tool is for specific situations, not routine clean-ups:

“This is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution.”

— Search Console Help, Disavow links to your site

Common mistakes

• Comparing totals across tools. Each index is different; compare trends within one tool.
• Treating Search Console as complete. It is a sample, so absence from the report does not mean a link does not exist.
• Panic-disavowing. Random spam links are normal. See toxic backlinks and disavow before acting.
• Ignoring link attributes. A partner link marked sponsored behaves differently from an editorial link; know what you have.
• Checking once and forgetting. Set a monthly reminder and keep a simple log of new and lost links.

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Conclusion

Checking your backlinks takes minutes with Search Console and Bing, and a paid tool adds competitor insight when you are ready to grow. Read the data for patterns, protect the links you have, and use what you learn to plan new ones. To understand which links are worth pursuing, read what makes a high-quality backlink. If you would like experts to audit your profile and fix problems, our penalty recovery and SEO services can help. Request a free quote.

References

1. Search Console Help – Links report
2. Google Search Central – Link best practices for Google
3. Google Search Central – Qualify your outbound links to Google
4. Search Console Help – Disavow links to your site
5. Search Engine Land – Bing Webmaster Tools now gives you competitive link data
6. Ahrefs – Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
7. Semrush – How to find backlinks to your site

Related Guides

• What Makes a High-Quality Backlink?
• .Edu and .Gov Backlinks: What’s Real and What’s Hype
• Sponsored Links: How to Label Paid Links Correctly