How to Find Backlinks to Your...

By the end of this guide, you’ll know how to analyze your own site’s backlinks (links from other websites pointing to your site), how to find competitor backlinks, and how to find new backlink opportunities. 

Why Backlinks Matter

Backlinks from reputable, relevant websites signal to search engines that your content is trustworthy. And that can improve your chances of ranking higher in search results and attracting more traffic.

In our 2024 Ranking Factors study, we found that 8 out of the top 20 factors with the strongest correlation to ranking are related to backlinks. 

And while some top-ranking pages we analyzed had thousands of backlinks, the median number of backlinks for top-ranking pages is only 13. Which means you don’t necessarily need thousands of backlinks to rank highly. 

5 Ways to Find Backlinks

The below tools help you find backlinks to your site—and some options let you find backlinks to any site.

1. Google Search Console

Google Search Console helps you find which sites link to you along with useful information like the anchor text (the clickable part of link) they use and how many links point to each page on your site.

Here’s how to find backlinks for your website with Google Search Console:

1. Sign in to your Google Search Console account
2. Click “Links” in the left-hand navigation menu
3. Review the “External links” reports 
4. Click “More >” to drill into specific reports

The specific reports you can click into are:

• Top linked pages: Shows which pages on your site have the most backlinks and how many unique domains link to each one. So you can spot which pages are most attractive and where you might need to build more links.
• Top linking sites: Lists the domains that link to your site most frequently. Which reveals your strongest backlink sources and helps you evaluate the quality and breadth of referring domains.
• Top linking text: Displays the most commonly used anchor text in backlinks to your site. So you can monitor for variety, relevance, and potential over-optimization (over-optimized anchor text is an overuse of the keywords you want to rank for, which can appear unnatural to search engines).

To export all your backlinks, click “Export External Links” and select “More sample links” to export all backlinks. Or “Latest links” to export your newest backlinks.

You can also export any of the individual reports.

Google Search Console is useful when you need a quick look at your backlinks. And it won’t lead to data overwhelm. 

2. Semrush Backlink Analytics

Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool draws on a database of more than 43 trillion links to let you find your site’s backlinks and competing sites’ backlinks. 

First, enter your domain (or a rival’s) and click “Analyze.”

You’ll then see a high-level overview of that domain’s link profile, like Authority Score—a score from 0 to 100 that measures your site’s SEO quality. Sites with higher scores have a better chance at ranking higher. 

You can also view the number of referring domains (how many domains link to at least one page on your site). And a network graph. So you can understand the relevance of your backlinks.

For a detailed look at the site’s individual backlinks, go to the “Backlinks” tab.

You’ll see insights for each link like the page’s Authority Score, anchor text, and link attributes (additional information about a link).

Backlinks from relevant sites with high Authority Scores can be more valuable than those from sites with low scores. But links from high-authority sites can also be harder to get. 

3. Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools lets you see your site’s backlinks and allows you to compare yourself with up to two other sites.

Create and configure your Bing Webmaster Tools account if you haven’t. And then head to your dashboard. 

Click “Backlinks” to see the domains that link to you, the pages that link to you, and the anchor text sites use. 

Clicking “Download all” downloads the selected report as a CSV file.

Click “Backlinks To Any Site” to view the same information for up to two other sites. 

Lastly, click “View detailed report” for one of the reports. 

Select “Add filter” to filter the data. 

For example, in the “Top Referring Domains” report, you can filter data to only show domains that link to your entered competitors and not you.

4. Backlink Audit

Semrush’s Backlink Audit tool analyzes the quality of your site’s backlinks, so you know which types of backlinks your site may need to perform better in search results.

To get started, configure an audit for the Backlink Audit tool. 

The “Overview” tab gives you information on the number of backlinks you have. Including what percentage are follow versus nofollow.

Nofollow links likely don’t pass authority to your pages. Healthy backlink profiles have both nofollow and follow links. 

To illustrate this, we reviewed the top 100 websites from Semrush Rank in June 2025. On average, we found that 71% of the backlinks were follow. And 29% were nofollow. 

If you have a large number of nofollow links, you’ll likely want to spend time getting follow links.

You can also review your backlinks’ anchor text (clickable link text). 

Scroll down to the “Backlinks by Anchor Type” and click “View full report.”

You’ll get a list of all your backlinks with their anchor text. Ideally, you’ll have a mix of different anchor text. As varied anchor text often indicates natural backlink profiles. 

5. Alternative Free Backlink Checkers

If you’re using free tools like Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools, it’s worth running your site through a few additional backlink checkers that can uncover extra data. To give you a more complete view of your backlink profile.

Here are four other free backlink checkers to explore:

1. SEO Review Tools has a backlink checker that shows you top backlinks, lost backlinks, and new backlinks 
2. Linkody has a backlink tool that shows you up to 100 referring domains with anchor text and follow/nofollow attributes
3. SEOptimer has a backlink checker that shows a summary of your backlink profile and your top 10 backlinks
4. seobility offers a tool that shows a comprehensive list of your site’s backlinks (limited to three checks per day)

3 Ways to Find New Backlinks for Your Site

After collecting data on your site’s backlinks and your competitor’s backlinks, you can focus on finding new backlink opportunities through link gap analyses, broken links, and lost backlinks.

1. Perform a Competitor Link Gap Analysis 

A competitor link gap refers to backlinks your competitors have that your site doesn’t have. And these links can be valuable opportunities—if a site is already linking to similar content, there’s a good chance they’d consider linking to yours as well.

Go to Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool, enter your domain and up to four competing domains, and click “Find prospects.”

The resulting report lets you sort domains using six tabs:

• Best: Domains pointing to all entered competitors but not to you
• Weak: Domains that point to you less than your entered competitors
• Strong: Domains that point only to you and not to any entered competitors
• Shared: Domains that point to both you and all entered competitors
• Unique: Domains that point to only one entered domain
• All: All linking domains found

Pay attention to the “Best” tab. As those are the domains that don’t currently link to you but are likely willing to.

Use the checkboxes to check off sites you’d like links from. Prioritize relevant sites with high Authority Scores. 

Then click “+ Start outreach.” 

Clicking this button sends prospects to the Link Building Tool. Where you can track your outreach efforts. (We’ll show you how to do this later.)

2. Find Broken Links

Broken link building is when you find webpages with links that don’t work and suggest a relevant page of yours to replace the broken link.

Find broken links to a competitor’s site by going to the “Indexed Pages” report in Backlink Analytics and checking the box next to “Broken Pages.” 

Then, click the number in the “Backlinks” column next to a page.

You’ll see the exact pages that link to the specified page. Including which page the link is from and the link’s anchor text.

Review the sites and see if you can reach out to them with a working page they can link to instead of your competitor’s page. Prioritize your outreach efforts by reaching out to sites with the highest Page Authority Score.

3. Find Lost Backlinks

Lost backlinks are links your site used to have that you can try to recover to maintain your site’s SEO.

In the “Backlinks” tab within Backlink Analytics, click “Lost and Vital” to get a list of high-priority backlinks to earn back.

To try recovering lost backlinks: 

1. Review the source page to understand why you lost the link (e.g., is your content outdated?)
2. See if you have any updated or relevant pieces of content the page can link to. Or even take a look to see whether the page was recently updated.
3. Contact the site owner and ask them to link to your site again

Michelle Symonds, Founder and Managing Director at SEO agency Ditto Digital, noticed a slow, steady drop in search visibility across some important blog posts when running a content audit for a client. And suspected lost backlinks were causing the drop in rankings.

“One of the best features of Backlink Analytics is seeing which links were lost due to another site’s structure changes—not removal. We found a few high-authority placements, mainly from guest posts and partner round-ups, where the linking site had redesigned or shifted content. The links weren’t deleted maliciously, they’d just broken quietly.”

She notes that based on internal data, her team is usually able to reclaim roughly 50% of lost backlinks due to site structure changes. 

To check which backlinks were likely lost to site structure changes (for example, a website removes a page that had a backlink), Michelle used the “+ Add filter” option, selected “Lost issues,” and checked the box next to “Page redirect.”

This is a great approach because losing a sizable number of backlinks over time may impact your traffic and rankings.

Streamline Building Backlinks by Automating Your Outreach

Automating your outreach helps you secure more backlinks in less time.

Semrush’s Link Building Tool has built-in workflows to simplify finding contacts and sending outreach emails—so you can stay organized and work more efficiently.

Open your project after configuring the Link Building Tool and click “Prospects” to see a list of potential backlink opportunities. 

Go through the list and click “To In Progress” next to any link you’d like to acquire. 

When you’re done, click the “In Progress” tab to see the full list of websites you’d like backlinks from. 

Click the blue “Contact” button next to a given prospect to draft and send your outreach email.

An email editor will open where you can ask for a backlink. Which works best when you:

• Offer a high-quality, relevant piece of content
• Keep your email brief and polite
• Tailor your email to the recipient so it doesn’t sound like you’re using a template for mass outreach

Then, you can easily send your emails and monitor your progress within the tool.

Want to try building backlinks to your site?

Try Semrush’s Link Building Tool today.