Backlink Checker
Find backlinks to a site. Search the links we hold, see which domains point at it, what anchor text they use, and how many pass authority. Free, instant results.
Enter a domain and we search our backlink index for links pointing at it. You get the sites doing the linking, an example page and anchor text from each, and whether those links pass authority.
The links come from our own data rather than a reseller feed, so what you see here is what we hold: an open crawl of the public web plus our own crawling. It is a real sample, not the whole web, and the page says so wherever the numbers could be read as complete.
Enter a domain to check backlinks
Search the backlinks pointing at any website
What we measure
What a lookup returns, and what each column of the link table is telling you.
Referring Domains
The unique sites linking to the domain. A hundred links from fifty domains is worth more than a hundred links from five, so this is the number to read first.
Source Page and Anchor
For every linking site we show one page that carries the link and the anchor text used. Anchor text is how the rest of the web describes the domain, which is a large part of what a link is worth.
Link Type
Whether a link passes authority. Dofollow links do; nofollow, ugc and sponsored links carry rel attributes that ask search engines not to. A site linking with several kinds is shown as "mixed".
Crawl
Which crawl the link was seen in. Links are found in archived crawls rather than checked live, so a link listed here was on the page when that crawl ran.
Link rows from our web crawl web archive and our own crawls
How this backlink checker works
Where the links come from, what each column means, and why the count differs from a paid index.
Where the links come from
Every row in a result is a link we hold in our own index. Most of it is an open crawl of the public web published several times a year, which we import at domain level and at link level for the domains we track. The rest comes from our own crawls of pages that link to those domains. No row is bought from a link reseller, and a result is never padded with a third-party count to look fuller.
Headline totals, where we hold them, come from a cached backlink summary and carry the date it was refreshed. When we hold no summary, the page shows the crawl rows on their own and says so.
What a lookup returns
Referring domains first. Then, for every linking site, one page that carries the link, the anchor text it uses, the link type, and the crawl the link was seen in. Anchor text matters because it is how the rest of the web describes the domain, and search engines read it as a description. Link type says whether the link passes authority: dofollow does, while nofollow, ugc and sponsored carry rel attributes that ask engines not to count them.
How to read the result
Treat the result as a backlink analyzer, not a count. Count referring domains before backlinks. A hundred links from fifty domains say more than a hundred from five. Then read the anchor text. Branded and topical anchors from real sites are the profile you want. A run of identical commercial anchors from unrelated sites is the profile a penalty follows.
Then check the crawl date. A link seen in a crawl was on the page then. It may have gone since, and a link from a page that has itself dropped out of the index has stopped counting for anything.
Why the count is lower than Ahrefs or Semrush
No index sees the whole web, and ours is built for the expired-domain work we do rather than for exhaustive coverage. Commercial indexes crawl continuously and hold trillions of links. our web crawl is a periodic sample of a few billion pages. A thin result here means the domain is thin in our index, not that it has no backlinks. Use a second tool before concluding a site has none.
Checking an expired domain
An expired domain keeps the links it earned until the linking pages change, which is why a lapsed name can carry a stronger profile than a new one. Run the check, then open the source pages. A link from a page that still exists and still describes what the domain used to be will keep working. A link from a page that has been rewritten, or from a domain that has itself lapsed, will not.
Google's expired domain abuse policy applies when a name is reused to manipulate rankings, so what you build on the domain matters as much as what points at it. The guides linked below cover both halves.
Frequently asked questions
What is a backlink checker?
A backlink checker, also called a backlink analyzer, lists the links pointing to a website from other sites. It tells you how many a domain has, where they come from, what anchor text they use, and whether they are dofollow or nofollow.
How do I find backlinks to a site for free?
Enter the domain above. No signup, no card, and no usage cap beyond a per-visitor rate limit. You get the referring domains, the individual links we hold with a source page and anchor text for each, and the dofollow share.
Where does the backlink data come from?
Our own index. The individual links come from our web crawl web archive, an open crawl of the public web, plus our own crawls. Headline totals come from our backlink summary table where we hold a figure for the domain, with the date it was refreshed.
Why do other tools show more backlinks?
Because no index sees the whole web, and ours is built for the expired-domain work we do rather than for exhaustive coverage. A thin or empty result means the domain is thin in our index, not that the site has no backlinks.
What is the difference between dofollow and nofollow links?
Dofollow links pass authority and count towards search rankings. Nofollow links carry a rel="nofollow" attribute that asks search engines not to pass it. Sponsored and ugc are narrower versions of the same signal. All of them can still send referral traffic.
Read next
Browse expired domains with backlinks
Every domain in the directory is listed with its referring domains counted from the same web crawl, its site history and its authority, before the name is revealed.