How to Check Backlinks: Google Search Console and the Best Backlink Checkers

At a glance

• To check backlinks to your own site, start with the free Links report in Google Search Console. It’s the only backlink report that comes from Google itself.
• To check backlinks to any other site, use a third-party backlink checker such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic or Moz.
• Search Console shows a sample, not every link: its tables stop at 1,000 rows, and Google says it “isn’t a comprehensive list” (Google, fetched 2026-10-28).
• Ahrefs has a free Backlink Checker for any site, plus free backlink data for sites you verify through Ahrefs Free (per Ahrefs, fetched 2026-10-28).
• Every tool shows a different number because each runs its own crawler and keeps its own index.
• To check one specific link, open the page, inspect the link’s rel attribute, and confirm the page is in Google’s index.

Most backlink checker pages give you a box to paste a URL into and stop there. This guide walks through each source step by step, explains why the numbers never match, and shows how to check whether one particular page links to you.

Check backlinks in Google Search Console

Search Console is free for any site you’ve verified. Its Links report shows links Google has found, which makes it the most direct view of what Google sees.

1. Sign in to Google Search Console and select your property.
2. In the left menu, click Links.
3. Look at the External links section. It has three tables.

[SCREENSHOT: Search Console Links report overview, with the External links and Internal links sections visible]

What each table shows, in Google’s words (fetched 2026-10-28):

• Top linked pages: “Pages most linked to on your site.” Click a page to see which sites link to it.
• Top linking sites: “Sites that link to you the most.” Click a site to see which of your pages it links to.
• Top linking text: “Most common text in links to your site.” This is your anchor text.

[SCREENSHOT: Top linking sites table, expanded to show linking domains and link counts]

The Internal links table shows the pages most linked to from within your own site. That’s a different subject from backlinks, but it’s a quick check that your important pages get internal links.

Export your links

Use the Export button in the report. Google says “You can export your link data as a CSV file or a Google Sheet,” with up to 100,000 rows, in two versions: Latest links and More sample links (fetched 2026-10-28). The export goes well beyond the 1,000 rows the on-screen tables show, so use it for any real analysis.

[SCREENSHOT: Export menu showing Latest links and More sample links]

What Search Console doesn’t show

Know the limits before you rely on it:

• It’s a sample. Google says “This report isn’t a comprehensive list of every link on your site,” and that “Tables are limited to 1,000 rows, so tables may be truncated in larger or more linked-to sites.”
• It doesn’t say which links are nofollow. “The report doesn’t specify if a link is marked as nofollow.”
• It can include links that are gone. The report includes links Google found over time, which “may have since been removed.”
• It groups pages by canonical URL and combines duplicate links.
• It only works for sites you’ve verified, so you can’t use it on competitors.

(All quotes from Google’s Links report help page, fetched 2026-10-28.)

Check backlinks in Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools gives you a second search engine’s view of links to sites you’ve verified there, for free. It’s useful as a cross-check against Search Console, especially for spotting linking sites Google’s sample left out. Bing’s crawler is separate from Google’s, so the two lists won’t match, and the differences are worth a look.

The major backlink checkers compared

Third-party tools run their own crawlers across the web, so they can show links to any site, not just yours. These are the four large, established ones.

Tool	Free option	Standout metric	Best for
Ahrefs	Free Backlink Checker for any site. Ahrefs Free for sites you verify, showing “up to 1000 backlinks at once.”	Domain Rating (DR)	An all-round view of any site’s links, and free data for your own
Semrush	Trial	Authority Score	Combining backlink checks with keyword and competitor research
Majestic	Free demo on a rotating example site	Trust Flow and Citation Flow	Link history and link-quality scoring
Moz Link Explorer	Free tier	Domain Authority (DA)	A second opinion from a separate index

Free options and metric names per each vendor’s site, fetched 2026-10-28, except Moz, whose site we couldn’t load on that date. Check current limits before you rely on them, because vendors change plans often.

Ahrefs Site Explorer walk-through

For a quick check of any site, the free Backlink Checker shows the number of referring domains, the number of backlinks, Domain Rating and Ahrefs Rank (per Ahrefs, fetched 2026-10-28). For your own site, Ahrefs Free (previously called Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) gives you Site Explorer data for any site you verify.

In the full Site Explorer:

1. Enter the domain, or the exact URL if you’re checking one page.
2. Open Referring domains first. This lists every site that links to the target, one row per site, which is the number that matters most.
3. Open Backlinks to see individual links: the linking page, its anchor text, and whether the link is followed.
4. Filter. Exclude nofollow links to see what’s passing value, or filter by anchor to find links using a specific phrase.
5. Open Anchors to see the anchor text distribution across all links.
6. Check the history of new and lost links, if your plan includes it, to see what appeared and what disappeared recently.

[SCREENSHOT: Ahrefs Site Explorer Referring domains report for a test site]

Ahrefs’ own backlink audit guide uses the Referring domains, Backlinks and Anchors reports in this order (per Ahrefs, fetched 2026-10-28). Report names change from time to time, so look for the equivalent if one has moved.

Semrush

Semrush’s backlink tool shows, in its words, “every link pointing to your site, with backlink data updated daily, including authority scores, anchor text, and link status” (per Semrush, fetched 2026-10-28). Enter a domain to see its referring domains, backlinks and anchors. Semrush also has a Backlink Gap tool that compares your links with up to five competitors at once, and a Backlink Audit tool for flagging potential spam links.

Majestic

Majestic keeps two indexes. Per Majestic (fetched 2026-10-28), the Fresh Index “contains backlinks we’ve seen in the past 120 days,” and the Historic Index “contains all backlinks we’ve seen since 2006.” Use Fresh for what’s live now and Historic for tracing links a site used to have. Its two headline metrics are Trust Flow, which “represents the quality of backlinks,” and Citation Flow, which “reflects the quantity of links pointing to a given website.”

Moz Link Explorer

Moz runs its own link index and scores sites with Domain Authority. It’s most useful as a second opinion: if Moz and another tool agree a site has strong links, you can trust that more than either alone.

Metrics such as DR, Authority Score, Trust Flow and DA are each vendor’s estimate, built from that vendor’s crawl. They’re good for comparing sites inside one tool, and not comparable across tools.

How to check a single backlink

Sometimes you don’t need a full report. You want to know whether one page links to you, and whether that link counts.

1. Open the page. Use your browser’s find (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) to search for your domain name.
2. Check it’s a real link. Right-click the link text and choose Inspect. You should see an <a href="https://yoursite.com/..."> tag pointing to the right URL.
3. Read the rel attribute. No rel, or only noopener or noreferrer, means a normal link. rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" means the link is qualified.
4. Check the target. Click the link and confirm it reaches your page directly, not through a redirect chain or a 404.
5. Check the page is indexed. Search Google for the exact URL of the linking page, or use site: with the URL. If the page isn’t in Google’s index, the link isn’t helping you there yet.

If the link is new, it may not appear in any tool for a while. Our guide on why a new backlink doesn’t show up yet covers how long that takes.

Why every tool shows a different number

Put the same site into four tools and you’ll get four different backlink counts. That’s normal, and there are good reasons for it:

• Each tool runs its own crawler. No crawler visits every page on the web, and each one prioritizes differently.
• Each tool keeps links for a different length of time. Some show only links seen recently, others keep links long after they disappear. Majestic makes this explicit with its Fresh and Historic indexes.
• Each tool refreshes at a different rate, so a link added last week may be in one tool and not another.
• Sites can block a tool’s crawler. A site owner can block a specific crawler in robots.txt, and that tool will never see the links on that site, while other tools do.
• Google shows a sample. Search Console reports links Google chose to show you, with tables capped at 1,000 rows. It’s not Google’s full link graph.

So don’t add the numbers together or argue about which is “right.” Pick one third-party tool, use it consistently over time, and compare its trends with Search Console.

What to do with the list

Once you have your links, three things are worth doing:

• Reclaim lost links. Look at lost links from strong, relevant pages. If your URL changed, redirect the old one. If the page linking to you moved, ask the owner to update the link.
• Watch your anchors. If one keyword phrase dominates your anchor text, a past campaign probably overdid it.
• Decide whether you need an audit. If rankings dropped or you’ve inherited a site with a messy history, a full backlink audit is the next step.

What backlinks don’t need is panic about every spammy-looking link in the list. Every site that ranks collects junk links, and Google says it can usually assess which links to trust without help.

If you run your own blogs, you know exactly which links exist, because you placed them. Checking them is a matter of confirming each blog is indexed and each link is live. Our free PBN guide covers how to build and test blogs like that.

FAQ

How do I check backlinks using Google?

Use the Links report in Google Search Console for any site you’ve verified. It shows your top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text. Searching Google won’t give you a backlink list, so Search Console is the way to see Google’s data.

What’s the best free backlink checker?

For your own site, Google Search Console plus Ahrefs Free. For any other site, Ahrefs’ free Backlink Checker gives you the headline numbers. For full lists of another site’s links, you’ll need a paid plan or trial from Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic or Moz.

Can I check a competitor’s backlinks in Search Console?

No. Search Console only shows links to sites you’ve verified. Use a third-party tool for competitors.

What is a toxic backlink?

A link from a spammy or manipulative source, usually a link you or a previous agency bought or built. Tools label links “toxic” using their own scores, which aren’t Google’s. Most low-quality links you didn’t build are noise.

Does Search Console show nofollow links?

Google doesn’t say. Its help page states the report “doesn’t specify if a link is marked as nofollow.” To check a link’s attributes, inspect it on the page or use a third-party tool’s follow/nofollow filter.

Why does Search Console show no backlinks for my site?

The usual reasons are that the site is new, the property was only just verified, or Google hasn’t found any links yet. Check that you’re looking at the right property (the www and non-www versions, or http and https, can be separate URL-prefix properties), then compare with a third-party tool. If a tool finds links and Search Console doesn’t, give Google time: the report only shows links Google has crawled.

Should I check backlinks to a page or to the whole domain?

Both, for different questions. Domain-level links tell you how strong the site is overall. Page-level links tell you why one particular page ranks, or doesn’t. When you’re trying to rank a specific page, its own referring domains are the number to watch.

How do I track backlinks earned and lost over time?

Export Search Console’s Latest links every month and compare, or use the new and lost links history in a third-party tool, which records changes for you.