Backlinks pointing to your website are of utmost significance in SEO, as they influence search ranking and website authority. SEO experts and marketers use the top backlink checker tools to establish a strong link profile, analyze their backlinks, track competitors, and find link-building opportunities.
Backlink checkers help you analyze the quantity and quality of backlinks, detect toxic links, and monitor new and lost backlinks in the long run. If you are an SEO expert looking for detailed link analysis or a newbie looking for a simple tool, choosing the right backlink checker is important to maximize your strategy.
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What is a Backlink Checker Tool?
A backlink checker tool, also known as an online backlink tool, is a specialized SEO tool employed by website owners and marketers to analyze their backlink profiles. It provides data on the quantity and quality of backlinks to a website, allowing one to establish authority, identify link-building opportunities, and detect toxic or spam links.
Good software programs scavenge the web to find backlinks, organize them, and offer insight-based information for improving search rankings. Backlink tracking assists organizations in optimizing SEO strategy, weeding out spam links, and staying ahead of competitors. The right backlink checker tool is required to construct a strong online presence.
Criteria for Choosing the Best Backlink Checker Tools
We determined the 5 top criteria based on the essential features that make a backlink checker truly effective. From database size to usability and cost, these factors help ensure you choose the right tool for your SEO and link-building efforts.
- The volume of backlinks and domains covered. A reliable backlink checker should have a vast database, indexing billions of links across millions of domains. The more complete its coverage, the better you’ll understand your link-building efforts and your competitors’ strategies.
- Features and functionalities. Look for tools that offer historical backlink data, spam detection, link type classification (dofollow/nofollow), anchor text analysis, and competitor comparison to avoid spammy links. Advanced tools may also provide alerts for lost or newly acquired backlinks.
- Intuitiveness and ease of use. A good backlink checker should have a user-friendly interface, simple navigation, and clear reports, even for non-technical users.
- Provision of detailed reports and insights. The tool should offer detailed analyses like domain authority metrics, referring domains, anchor text distribution, and link growth trends. There are tools with exportable reports for deeper analysis.
- Cost-effectiveness and subscription plans. Find the pricing plans and whether the tool offers free trials, scalable plans, or pay-as-you-go. The appropriate combination of features and price is the key to choosing a good backlink checker.
Top backlink checkers combine most of these features for a reasonable price.
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Best Paid & Free Backlink Checker Tools
So, let’s explore the best paid and free backlink checker tools that can help you analyze your website’s link profile, uncover competitor strategies, and improve your SEO rankings. Whether you’re looking for an affordable solution or a premium tool with advanced features, we’ve got you covered.
1. SE Ranking
SE Ranking is a comprehensive SEO platform that offers numerous SEO tools, including a powerful backlink checker. One of the reasons why it is considered the best backlink analysis tool is its broad and up-to-date backlink databases with 2.9 trillion indexed backlinks, 411 million referring domains, and 14 billion pages crawled daily. Moreover, SE Ranking offers fresh data because it updates the statuses of 58% of backlinks within 90 days.
With this tool, you can analyze all the important backlink metrics, including new & lost links and domains, toxicity score, Domain & Page Trust, broken links, dofollow/nofollow ratio, anchor texts, and more. You can easily assess any website’s backlink profile quality and find new opportunities to strengthen yours.
The tool features an easy-to-navigate interface with different filtering and sorting options. In addition, it has Looker Studio integration, allowing you to visualize backlink data in your reports.
- Large backlink database with frequent updates
- Detailed backlink analysis, including link types and anchor texts
- User-friendly interface with intuitive navigation
- Affordable pricing compared to other premium tools
- Additional SEO features like keyword tracking and website audit
- API comes with higher-tier plans
- No free plan, but you can try the tool for free during a 14-day trial
Pricing
SE Ranking offers flexible pricing plans that can be expanded based on your needs. If you proceed with an annual subscription, you’ll get 20% off.
All plans include Backlink Checker, Backlink Monitor, and Backlink Gap Analyzer with different limits:
- Essential – Starts at $65 per month and allows you to monitor 17,500 backlinks per account as well as analyze 50 domains and 10,000 backlinks per report.
- Pro – Starts at $119 monthly and allows you to monitor 30,000 backlinks per account as well as analyze 100 domains and 30,000 backlinks per report.
- Business – Starts at $259 monthly and allows you to monitor 90,000 backlinks per account as well as analyze 300 domains and 100,000 backlinks per report.
A 14-day free trial is available.
2. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the most well-known and trusted names in SEO. Its backlink checker tool is recognized for its extensive database, often considered one of the largest on the market. The tool allows users to evaluate link quality, identify toxic backlinks, and explore competitors backlinks to gain valuable insights into their SEO strategy.
- Excellent historical data and link growth trends
- Regular updates with fresh data
- In-depth backlink analysis, including link type and anchor text
- Detailed competitor backlink research
- Expensive for small businesses and startups
- No free version available
- Steeper learning curve for beginners
- Limited to backlink-related features in lower plans
Pricing
Ahrefs provides several subscription tiers:
- Lite Plan – starts at $129/month, suitable for small websites and individuals.
- Standard Plan – starts at $249/month, ideal for growing businesses.
- Advanced Plan – starts at $449/month, for SEO agencies and large teams.
- Enterprise Plan – starts at $1499/month, providing advanced features for large-scale operations.
You can get free limited access to Site Explorer & Site Audit.
3. SEMrush
SEMrush is another SEO leader, offering its backlink checker feature as part of its digital marketing tools package.
Renowned for its simple user interface and power of information, SEMrush assists individuals in tracking backlinks, referring domains, link quality, identifying new link opportunities, and providing reports of valuable link history, anchor text, link type, and the rest. The platform also enables competitor backlink analysis, which helps users find strategies that can optimize their own SEO processes.
- Comprehensive backlink analysis with historical data
- Offers additional SEO tools beyond backlink checking
- Frequent updates and a large database of backlinks
- Expensive for small businesses or individual users
- Some features can be overwhelming for beginners
- The database may not be extensive for certain industries
Pricing
SEMrush offers multiple subscription plans based on features and usage:
- Pro Plan – costs $139.95/month and includes PPC, SEO, and competitor analysis features.
- Guru Plan – costs $249.95/month and adds content marketing tools, historical data, and extended reporting.
- Business Plan – costs $499.95/month and offers API access, Product Listing Ads analytics, and 40 projects to work on.
Unlike Ahrefs, SEMrush offers a 7-day free trial.
Check out our detailed comparison of Ahrefs vs Semrush
4. Moz Link Explorer
Moz Link Explorer is one of the most popular backlink checker tools that provides in-depth information about backlinks and domain authority. As a part of Moz’s SEO toolset, Link Explorer has in-depth backlink analysis, link quality rating, and competitor analysis, helping users analyze their incoming links, discover new link-building opportunities, and track link growth over time.
- Provides detailed backlink reports with easy-to-understand metrics like DA and PA
- Affordable for small to medium-sized businesses
- Great for competitor backlink research
- Includes spam score to help identify low-quality links
- Limited features in the lower-tier plans
- Backlink database not as large as other major competitors
- Can be slow to update backlink data
- Some reports are not as granular as other tools
Pricing
Moz Pro offers four pricing plans:
- Starter – $49/month for 1 tracked site, 50 tracked keywords, and 20K pages crawled.
- Standard – $99/month for 3 tracked sites, 300 tracked keywords, and 400K pages crawled.
- Medium – $179/month for 2 users included, 10 tracked sites, 1,500 tracked keywords, and 2M pages crawled.
- Large – $299/month for up to 3 users, 25 tracked sites, 3,000 tracked keywords, and 5M pages crawled.
Moz also provides a 30-day free trial for users to explore its features, including backlink analysis and reporting capabilities, before committing to a paid plan.
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5. Ubersuggest
Developed by Neil Patel, Ubersuggest is an affordable starter SEO tool with a free backlinks checker tool among its features. Less advanced than SE Ranking and SEMrush, Ubersuggest still provides some level of basic backlink analysis like referring domains, types of links, and link history.
One of the most incredible things about Ubersuggest is how easy it is. It also provides competitor backlink data so users can identify good linking prospects. While its database is smaller than that of premium tools, it is excellent for individuals who are looking for an affordable backlink checker.
- Affordable compared to other backlink checkers
- User-friendly UI, excellent for beginners
- Does competitor backlink analysis
- Offers link-building suggestions
- Smaller backlink index compared to top competitors
- Few advanced tools for pro SEOs
- Updates may be less regular than top tools
- Reports are occasionally shallow and poor in detail
Pricing
Ubersuggest offers flexible pricing plans:
- Individual – $12/month or $120 lifetime.
- Business – $20/month or $200 lifetime.
- Enterprise – $40/month or $400 lifetime.
Ubersuggest also has a 7-day free trial and lifetime buy, which makes it one of the most cost-effective SEO tools to employ.
Check out our detailed comparison of SE Ranking vs Ubersuggest
6. Majestic
Majestic is an SEO software for backlink analysis. One of the strongest aspects of Majestic is its Trust Flow and Citation Flow values, which enable users to measure the quality and relevance of backlinks. The software also provides detailed referring domain data, anchor text breakdown, and link history. Majestic works best for those who need extremely detailed backlink data without extra SEO tools like keyword research or site audits.
- One of the largest backlink databases available
- Proprietary Trust Flow and Citation Flow link quality metrics
- Historical backlinks for monitoring over time
- Advanced competitor backlink analysis tools
- No keyword research or on-page SEO tools included
- Less user-friendly interface compared to other rivals
- No free trial; only a few free searches permitted
- Pricing not suitable for casual use
Pricing
Majestic offers three plans:
- Lite Plan – $49.99/month, includes fresh index data, Trust Flow & Citation Flow metrics, and site explorer.
- Pro Plan – $99.99/month, adds custom reporting, sites comparison, and deeper historic backlink data.
- API Plan – $399.99/month, designed for large agencies and enterprises needing high-volume backlink data via API.
No free trial is provided by Majestic, but restricted free searches are provided to users to have an idea of their backlink data prior to subscribing.
7. Serpstat
Serpstat is a full-service SEO platform with a solid backlink analysis feature. It’s designed to help businesses, agencies, and SEO professionals track backlinks, outcompete competitors, and fine-tune link-building, including the analysis of dofollow and nofollow links. Serpstat is not as popular as Ahrefs or SE Ranking. Still, it provides a budget-friendly alternative with essential backlink data, including referring domains, gained and lost links, and anchor text checkups.
While its backlink database is not as big as that of industry leaders, it still offers helpful information for link-building optimization.
- Affordable compared to Ahrefs and SEMrush
- Blends backlink analysis with other SEO tools
- Competition backlink monitoring included
- Simple-to-comprehend reports with actionable insight
- Smaller backlink database than top-of-the-line tools
- Data refreshes are perhaps less frequent than alternatives
- The interface may feel clumsy for new users
- Fewer opportunities for higher-level filtering of backlink data
Pricing
Serpstat offers four options:
- Individual Plan – starts at $59/month, ideal for freelancers and small businesses.
- Team Plan – starts at $119/month, ideal for growing teams.
- Agency Plan – starts at $479/month, ideal for businesses and large organizations.
Serpstat also provides a free basic version.
Check out our detailed comparison of Serpstat vs Ahrefs
8. CognitiveSEO
CognitiveSEO is a sophisticated backlink check and SEO software filled with features aimed at professionals and agencies looking to optimize their link-building strategy and understand why are backlinks important. It provides in-depth backlink audit, comparative link analysis, and real-time alerts for new and lost links. Its most prominent feature is its Unnatural Link Detection, which identifies toxic backlinks that can hurt the search results of a site.
The software is helpful for visually displaying backlink profiles so that trends can be easily recognized and link quality can be assessed. Additionally, the application can be integrated with Google Search Console and Google Analytics for more comprehensive SEO tracking. Although its backlink database may not be the largest, its link risk evaluation and filtering features make it worth using for serious SEO experts.
- Unnatural Link Detection helps in the detection of bad links
- Visual display of backlink information for easy analysis
- Competitor backlink analysis with profound insights
- Integration with Google Search Console and Analytics
- Backlink database is smaller than that of top players
- Pricing can be prohibitive for small businesses
- No free plan, but a limited free trial only
Pricing
CognitiveSEO offers adaptable pricing plans:
- Starter Plan – starts at $129.99/month, ideal for single SEOs and small businesses.
- Premium Plan – starts at $199/month, ideal for experts and agencies needing in-depth analysis.
- Elite Plan – starts at $499/month, ideal for companies needing large-scale SEO insights.
CognitiveSEO also provides a 7-day free trial.
9. OpenLinkProfiler
OpenLinkProfiler is one of the best free backlink checker tools that gives detailed information on a website’s link profile. It is well suited for small businesses, bloggers, and search engine optimization newcomers who are looking for backlink data access without having to buy a commercial tool. Although less profound and with fewer bells and whistles than commercial alternatives like Majestic, OpenLinkProfiler can serve as a solid foundation to monitor backlinks, discover new link opportunities, and assess the quality of the links.
One of its strongest points is its completely free access to backlink data, with the capacity to download up to 1000 backlinks per report. It also provides link age statistics, anchor text data, and dofollow vs. nofollow link split. Its backlink database is less detailed and less updated than paid tools, so it’s best used for personal SEO campaigns.
- Free backlink tool with no subscription required
- Exports up to 1000 backlinks per report
- Supports link age and anchor text metrics
- Smaller backlink database compared to the best paid tools
- Data updates not as fast as the best tools
- Limited history backlink data available
Pricing
OpenLinkProfiler is completely free to use.
10. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is best known as a social media monitoring and content research tool, but it has a strong backlink checker as well. It enables users to track backlinks to their own posts, track competitor links, and find link-building opportunities. Compared to traditional SEO tools that focus on tracking backlink figures, BuzzSumo combines backlink analysis with content performance reporting. This makes it particularly valuable for content marketers, PR agencies, and digital marketing agencies.
One of its strongest aspects is the ability to find highly shared content with strong backlinks, which allows marketers to understand what topics are most likely to attract links. Users can also set up alerts for new backlinks and brand or competitor mentions in real time.
- Combines backlink tracking with content analysis
- Helps identify linkable content
- Real-time alerts for new backlinks and brand mentions
- Ideal for PR and digital outreach campaigns
- Smaller backlink database
- Fewer backlinks in the past compared to other tools
- No advanced SEO metrics like domain authority
Pricing
BuzzSumo offers a range of pricing plans:
- Content Creation Plan – starts at $199/month, ideal for content marketers.
- PR & Comms Plan – starts at $299/month, ideal for digital PR professionals.
- Suite Plan – starts at $499/month, ideal for marketing teams.
- Enterprise Plan – starts at $999/month for bulk content research and monitoring.
BuzzSumo also offers a limited free version.
Check out our detailed comparison of BuzzSumo vs Semrush
Conclusion
Choosing the best backlink tool is important to boost your website’s SEO plan. Backlink checkers discussed in this article offer various features to suit various budgets and needs.
To conduct in-depth backlink analysis, SE Ranking, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Majestic offer market-leading databases and sophisticated link-tracking features. For those who want to save money, Serpstat and Ubersuggest provide accurate insights for less cost. Moz Link Explorer is excellent for monitoring domain authority, and CognitiveSEO excels at link risk analysis and unnatural links.
For link-building professionals based on content, BuzzSumo provides backlink data along with content performance metrics. OpenLinkProfiler is an excellent free choice for beginners, offering basic backlink monitoring without subscription costs.
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