7 Best Backlink Checker Tools – Free & Paid Options (Compared)

Backlinks can make or break your website’s search rankings. We learned this lesson early in our journey when we noticed some of our competitor sites ranking higher despite having what seemed like lower-quality content. The secret? They had stronger backlink profiles.

We now do regular backlink audits at WPBeginner as part of our marketing strategy, and it’s become one of our most valuable SEO practices.

The problem is that managing backlinks without proper tools is like trying to navigate in the dark. You need to monitor your existing links, find new link-building opportunities, and keep an eye on what your competitors are doing.

All of this requires access to comprehensive backlink data that most free tools can’t provide.

After years of using various backlink analysis tools and testing new ones as they emerge, we’ve narrowed down the field to the most reliable and effective options. We evaluated each tool based on database size, data accuracy, user interface, and overall value.

Here are the seven best backlink checker tools that will give you the insights you need to dominate search results.

The Best Backlink Checker Tools

If you are in a hurry, you can use the backlink checker tool comparison chart below to see the best tools at a glance.

#	Tool	Best For	Pricing	Free Version
🥇	Semrush	Best overall	$129.95/month	❌
🥈	All in One SEO	Link Assistant in WordPress admin	$174.65/year	❌
🥉	LinkMiner	Dedicated backlink tool	$29/month	✅
4	Ubersuggest	Keyword research + backlinks	$290/year	✅
5	Ahrefs	Keyword research + backlinks	$129/month	❌
6	Moz Pro	Detailed link profile	$99/month	❌
7	BuzzSumo	Keyword research + backlinks	$199/month	❌

What Are Backlinks and Why Are They Important?

A backlink is a link from another website that points to your site. Think of backlinks as recommendations in the digital world.

When a reputable website links to your content, it’s essentially telling search engines like Google that your site has valuable information worth sharing.

Search engines use backlinks as one of their primary ranking signals. Websites with more high-quality backlinks typically rank higher in search results because these links signal authority and trustworthiness.

However, quality matters far more than quantity. A single backlink from a trusted site like Forbes or BBC can be worth more than dozens of links from low-quality websites.

Here’s what makes a backlink valuable:

• Links from established, reputable websites carry more weight
• Links from sites in your industry or niche are more valuable than random links
• The clickable text of the link should be natural and relevant
• Links within the main content perform better than footer or sidebar links

But backlinks can also hurt your rankings. Low-quality links from spam sites, link farms, or irrelevant websites can trigger Google penalties. That’s why we regularly audit our backlink profile to identify and disavow harmful links.

Whether you’re just starting out or managing an established website, understanding your backlink profile is crucial for SEO success. Before you can build new links or clean up bad ones, you need to know exactly what links are currently pointing to your site.

That’s where backlink checker tools become essential for any serious SEO strategy.

How We Test & Review Backlink Checker Tools

We’ve carefully chosen these backlink checker tools based on the following considerations:

• We used and tested each plugin: We use a variety of tools to audit our backlinks on WPBeginner. We also tested other popular tools because your backlink needs may be different from ours.
• Different use cases: Not all tools are perfect for every situation. That’s why we included tools that cater to various needs, such as more comprehensive SEO and link research tools, dedicated backlink tools, and WordPress plugins.
• We considered customer reviews: We also review feedback and satisfaction ratings from real users to make sure the tools we recommend are reliable.
• Ease of use: Since backlink checker tools often display long lists of links, we prioritized user-friendly tools with a straightforward interface.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best tools to track backlinks of any website.

1. Semrush

Semrush is our top recommendation for a backlink checker. It’s one of the best keyword research tools on the market and offers many powerful tools for analyzing backlinks.

Semrush is one of the SEO tools we use in our business to track our backlinks, find low-quality backlinks, and much more. You can learn about our experiences using and testing the tool in our detailed Semrush review.

To use the backlink features, log in to Semrush, select ‘Backlink Analytics,’ and type in the name of the domain you want to investigate. You’ll then see lots of information about the domain and its backlinks.

We love how easy it is to dig into more details of the overview and view a full report by simply clicking the link beneath any section.

You can use Semrush to check your site’s links, which could help you pinpoint any issues, such as low-quality links. In fact, Semrush makes this easy for you by letting you see how many total links a page linking to you has. If the page has hundreds of links, that can indicate a spammy website.

When it comes to competitors’ backlinks, you can use Semrush to see which high-authority sites are linking to them, what keywords they are ranking for, and so much more. This can give you a whole list of sites to target for your own backlink building.

Pros of Semrush:

• Has a massive backlink database that identifies backlinks other tools miss
• Offers detailed metrics for each backlink
• Tracks backlink history so you can see how your backlink profile changes over time
• Easily compares your backlink profile to your competitors
• Integrated with other SEO tools

Cons of Semrush:

• High subscription price
• The number of features can be overwhelming for beginners

Why we recommend Semrush: Semrush is a powerful keyword research tool that offers a backlink checker tool with valuable features for in-depth link analysis and competitor research.

Pricing: Semrush plans cost $129.95 and $249.95 per month. Large agencies and enterprises can contact the company for business pricing.

You can get an exclusive 7-day free trial by going through our link to Semrush. If you want step-by-step instructions on how to get this deal, check out our Semrush coupon code page.

2. All in One SEO (AIOSEO)

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO plugin for WordPress, and it offers a Link Assistant feature that helps you check internal backlinks on your website. Internal backlinks, or internal links, help connect one post or page with another.

We use AIOSEO Link Assistant on our own websites to create better internal links and boost our WordPress SEO score.

It helps identify orphan pages with no internal links and offers recommendations for creating internal links. We love its option to bulk-add internal links automatically with just one click.

Plus, the Link Assistant shows linking opportunities from different blog posts and pages. We find this saves time and ensures you don’t miss out on creating an internal link that could benefit your site.

Other than that, AIOSEO also lets you audit outbound links on your website and ensure that there are no broken links.

Pros of All in One SEO:

• Offers a suite of SEO tools
• Its Link Assistant feature helps you manage links on your website
• Integrates with Google Search Console and Semrush to display backlink data from the WordPress dashboard

Cons of All in One SEO:

• Not a dedicated backlink checker
• The free version does not include the Link Assistant feature

Why we recommend All in One SEO: AIOSEO is a popular WordPress SEO plugin that can be easily accessed from the WordPress dashboard. It helps you avoid broken links, and its Link Assistant feature helps check internal backlinks.

Pricing: AIOSEO pricing plans start from $49.60 per year. However, the Internal Link Assistant feature is available in the Pro version and will cost you $174.65 per year.

Each premium plan comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee. There’s also an AIOSEO Lite version, which you can use for free.

Note: AIOSEO recently released a free Broken Link Checker plugin. It automatically scans all of your internal links to ensure they’re working correctly. If broken links are found, you can fix them on the spot with easy inline editing.

With Broken Link Checker Pro, which starts at $4.99 per month, you can find and fix internal and external links. To learn more, see our Broken Link Checker review.

3. LinkMiner

LinkMiner is a tool that is explicitly designed to let you check backlinks. It lets you filter links by nofollow, deleted, new, and lost. One feature we find handy is its ability to ‘favorite’ backlinks so that you can easily return to them. This is a great way to make a shortlist of competitors’ backlinks to target.

You can also use this feature to keep track of any of your own backlinks that you want to fix. For instance, you could create a list of lost backlinks that you want to concentrate on recovering.

In our testing, LinkMiner didn’t have as many features as Semrush. However, it is a great option if you’re on a tight budget.

You’ll likely want to use it together with Mangools’ SiteProfiler to view details like a site’s total backlinks and top referring domains.

Pros of LinkMiner:

• Specifically designed for backlink analysis
• Provides essential backlink metrics that help assess link quality
• Shows the historical backlink profile of each URL
• Clean, intuitive interface that’s easy to navigate
• Budget-friendly pricing structure

Cons of LinkMiner:

• Has a smaller backlink database than other tools like Semrush and Ahrefs
• Historical data is more limited than some other tools

Why we recommend LinkMiner: LinkMiner is an affordable and user-friendly backlink checker tool. Its clean interface, essential metrics, and integration with other Mangools SEO tools make it a valuable option.

Pricing: A limited free plan is available. Paid plans start at $29/month and go up to $129/month.

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is an SEO tool with keyword research features, but there’s also a Backlinks tool that you can use to view details of your site’s backlinks. When we tested Ubersuggest, we found that it has similar features to the other tools we’ve been looking at. However, its interface makes performing these tasks very easy and straightforward.

For instance, it can quickly show you new backlinks, backlinks you’ve lost, which backlinks are marked as nofollow, and more.

We found that the free version only provides details of a small number of backlinks for each domain. If you want to see your full history, you need to upgrade to the paid version of Ubersuggest.

We also appreciate how Ubersuggest’s other tools make it easy to analyze traffic and help you come up with keyword and content ideas.

Pros of Ubersuggest:

• The backlink checker is straightforward and easy to use, even for beginners
• Links backlinks with basic metrics
• Provides useful metrics about the referring domain, including its Domain Score
• Tracks new and lost backlinks
• Accessible pricing

Cons of Ubersuggest:

• Provides less comprehensive data than some other tools
• Smaller backlink index than some other tools

Why we recommend Ubersuggest: Ubersuggest’s backlink checker is easy to use and affordable, making it suitable for users who need basic backlink analysis and are on a tight budget.

Pricing: Ubersuggest’s free version can give you a good sense of what the tool can do. To do any serious backlink analysis, you’ll want the Pro version, which costs $29/month or $290/year if you pay upfront.

There’s a 30-day “no questions asked” money-back guarantee.

5. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another powerful keyword research tool. Like Semrush, it’s easy to use but maintains a much larger and more frequently updated database of backlinks. It also lets you track the growth of backlinks over time and provides in-depth metrics and insights.

When we tested Ahrefs, we enjoyed how easily you can find backlinks that you’ve lost. These are links you once had that have now vanished. Perhaps the website owner deleted the page that linked to you, for instance.

You can also identify broken backlinks. These links point to your site but use a broken URL that lands on your 404 page. You might need to contact the site owner to fix them.

We also found Ahrefs useful for examining internal links. For example, you can filter these to check for internal links you’ve accidentally nofollowed, so you can fix those.

Pros of Ahrefs:

• Has the largest and most frequently updated backlinks database
• Provides detailed metrics on each backlink, including Domain Rating
• Offers powerful filtering and sorting options
• Offers excellent competitor analysis features

Cons of Ahrefs:

• High subscription cost
• Has a steep learning curve for beginners

Why we recommend Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a powerful and comprehensive backlink checker tool with a massive index, detailed metrics, and advanced features. It is most suitable for SEO professionals.

Pricing: You can start out with the Starter plan for just $29/month. This gives limited access to Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Site Audit. take a 7-day trial of Ahrefs’ Site Explorer for just $7. Full plans are priced from $129/month. If you pay for the year upfront, it’s $107.50/month.

6. Moz Pro

Moz Pro, the suite of SEO tools from Moz, includes their Link Explorer tool. Link Explorer can give you a detailed link profile of your site, which you can compare with the profiles of up to 4 competitors. This lets you figure out what they might be doing differently from you.

It also has a handy tool called Link Intersect, where you can see which sites are linking to your competitors but not to you. These sites are great ones to target for building links.

Like the other tools we’ve looked at, Moz also lets you see what backlinks you’ve lost. This gives you the chance to try to get those links replaced.

As well as the backlink tools, you’ll also get access to all of Moz’s other SEO tools. These include Campaigns to track and analyze your site, Rank Checker to evaluate your search engine performance, and more.

Pros of Moz Pro:

• Lets you easily compare your backlink profile with your competitors
• Offers useful metrics on the referring website’s strength and authority
• Spam score identifies low-quality or spammy backlinks
• Includes rank tracking features

Cons of Moz Pro:

• While its interface is user-friendly, it can take time to master its features
• While its backlink database is large, it is smaller than Semrush’s and Ahref’s

Why we recommend Moz Pro: Moz Pro’s backlink checker identifies link opportunities and assesses the quality of your backlinks. It has a good balance between features, data quality, and usability.

Pricing: Moz costs from $99/month ($79/month paid upfront annually). There’s a 30-day free trial, though, which gives you full access to all their tools.

7. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is designed to let you analyze your content and your competitors’ content. It’s a great way to come up with topic ideas, but you can also use it to help you with your backlink strategy.

You can simply type in a keyword or a domain name to see the most popular content for that keyword or the most popular content on that domain. You can then click the link icon next to any of the results to see the backlinks for that piece of content.

You can even type in the URL of a specific piece of content and see just the backlinks that point to that. This could be a great way to see which sites are linking to your competitors’ top posts.

Their straightforward Backlinks tool lets you find the pages linking to a specific URL or domain. This is an easy way to see your competitors’ backlinks at a glance.

You can easily filter the backlinks to view ones from various periods of time between the past 24 hours and the past 5 years.

Pros of BuzzSumo:

• Backlink analysis features are easy to use
• Analyze backlinks in your own content
• Helps you find popular content in your niche

Cons of BuzzSumo:

• Backlink analysis is not its primary strength
• Backlink features are not as comprehensive as many other tools in our list
• The backlink database is smaller than other tools

Why we recommend BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo offers backlink analysis features suitable for content marketers who want to understand which content attracts backlinks and identify potential influencers for outreach.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $199/month for a single user, and you can save 20% by paying annually.

There’s a 30-day free trial available, too. You don’t need to enter any credit card details for this.

Which Is the Best Backlink Checker Tool?

Any of these backlink checkers could help you build your site’s backlinks and rank more highly in search engines. Some of them offer a lot more helpful information than others.

Our top recommendation is Semrush. It is one of the best SEO tools on the market and helps you grow your business. On the other hand, if you want a detailed overview of internal backlinks and want to improve your internal linking strategy, then we recommend All in One SEO (AIOSEO).

If you’re on a tight budget, LinkMiner and Ubersuggest are also good value and suitable for small businesses.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best backlink checker tools. You might also like to take a look at our ultimate guide to WordPress SEO for beginners and our tips on how to increase your blog traffic.

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