Free Backlink Checker and link analyser
Enter any domain and see who links to it: total backlinks, referring domains, Domain Rank for every one of them, and a spam score per link. It works on your site and on your competitors’, and it costs nothing.
Backlink Checker
Find out who links to you and to your competition.
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How to check any website’s backlinks in three steps
No account and no card. The report is ready in seconds.
Enter a domain or a URL
Your own site, or a competitor you want to take links from. Both work identically — backlink data is public, which is what makes competitor research possible at all.
Choose the scope
Domain scope covers the whole site and every subdomain, which is what you want for a link profile. Exact-URL scope covers one page, which is what you want when you are trying to work out why one article outranks yours.
Read the profile
You get the totals, the referring domains ranked by authority, the spam score on each link, and the dofollow to nofollow split.
What a backlink report tells you, term by term
Six metrics in the report, and what each one actually means.
What a backlink is
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines read it as a vote: a page linked to by many trusted sites is treated as more trustworthy itself. It is still one of the strongest ranking signals there is.
Referring domains
The number of distinct websites linking to you, as opposed to the number of links. One hundred links from one blog is one referring domain and counts for far less than one hundred links from one hundred sites. This is the number to watch.
Domain Rank (DR)
A 0–100 estimate of a domain’s link authority, derived from the size and quality of its own backlink profile. It is a comparative figure, not an official Google metric — useful for ranking prospects against each other, not as a target in itself.
Dofollow and nofollow
A nofollow link carries a rel attribute telling search engines not to pass authority through it. Dofollow links are the ones that move rankings. A natural profile has both; a profile that is all dofollow usually means somebody bought them.
Spam score
A per-link estimate of how likely that source is to be part of a link scheme. A handful of toxic links is normal and Google generally ignores them. A pattern of them is what disavow files exist for.
Growth over time
Referring domains and total backlinks plotted month by month. The shape matters more than the number: steady growth reads as earned, a vertical spike reads as bought, and a sudden drop usually means a site that linked to you removed the page.
Your competitors’ backlinks are a to-do list
Backlink data is public, so every link your competitor has earned is a site you now know links to businesses like yours. That is a far better prospect list than anything you would assemble from scratch, because these sites have already demonstrated they will link to your kind of page.
Run the tool on the three domains that outrank you and read the referring domains they share and you do not.
- Filter referring domains by Domain Rank to find the ones worth pursuing
- Sort by spam score to see which of their links are worth nothing
- Compare total referring domains to judge the size of the gap
- Check which of their pages attract the links, not just the domain
Three questions this answers
- Which sites link to my competitors but not to me?
- Is their advantage authority, or just volume?
- Which of their pages is the link magnet?
Links disappear, and nobody sends you an email about it
A backlink is not permanent. Pages get deleted, sites get redesigned, and a rel="nofollow" gets added during a CMS migration by someone who has never heard of you. Links you worked months to earn go quiet without any announcement.
A one-off report cannot see any of that. Monitoring can: mark the links that matter and TrueRanker checks them on a schedule and tells you when one changes.
- Monitor specific backlinks and get told when one is lost
- Track competitor link growth alongside your own
- Filter by Domain Rank, spam score, tag or target page
- CSV and PDF export on paid plans
What breaks a link without warning
- The linking page is deleted or unpublished
- A redesign drops the link from the template
- rel="nofollow" is added site-wide during a migration
- The page is still there but now returns a 404
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“I’ve been using TrueRanker since August on my own blog. What I value most is that it tells me every day what has happened with what I’ve already published, and the GEO score of the audits showed me that no Google AI summary was citing me. In my own language, with support close by, and a trial without a card to check it before paying.”
Backlinks, answered
The vocabulary and the caveats, in plain terms.
What is a backlink and why does it matter for SEO?
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat it as an endorsement, so pages linked to by many trusted sites tend to rank higher. It remains one of the strongest ranking factors, which is also why it is the one most often manipulated.
What is Domain Rank and how is it calculated?
Domain Rank is a 0–100 score estimating a domain’s link authority, calculated from the quantity and quality of the backlinks pointing at it. It is a third-party estimate, not a Google metric — treat it as a way of comparing two prospects, not as a number to optimise.
What is the difference between a backlink and a referring domain?
A referring domain is a distinct website linking to you; a backlink is an individual link. One site linking to you fifty times is fifty backlinks and one referring domain. Referring domains is almost always the more meaningful figure.
What is the difference between dofollow and nofollow?
A nofollow link carries a rel attribute asking search engines not to pass authority through it. Dofollow links are the ones that influence rankings. A healthy profile contains both, and a profile made entirely of dofollow links looks bought.
Can this tool find toxic links?
It reports a spam score per backlink so you can see which sources look like part of a link scheme. Worth knowing before you disavow anything: Google is generally good at ignoring low-quality links on its own, and a disavow file submitted carelessly can remove links that were helping you.
Can I check my competitors’ backlinks?
Yes, and it is the most useful thing you can do with the tool. Backlink data is public, so any domain works. The sites linking to your competitors have already shown they will link to businesses like yours.
Should I check the domain or the exact URL?
Use domain scope, including subdomains, when you want to understand a site’s overall authority. Use exact-URL scope when you want to know why one specific page ranks — the links to that page are what is doing the work.
How often is the backlink data updated?
The index refreshes continuously, so a report reflects what the crawler has found most recently. New links take time to appear anywhere — a link published today will not show in any backlink tool, ours included, until it has been crawled.
Is the Free Backlink Checker really free?
Yes, with a daily limit on how many reports one visitor can run. CSV and PDF export and ongoing link monitoring are on the paid plans; reading a profile is not.
Links disappear quietly. Get told when yours do.
Monitor the backlinks that matter, alongside your rankings. 14-day trial, no card.