12 Backlink Monitoring Tools

A solid backlink profile is one of the most critical aspects of your SEO campaign. The best backlink monitoring tools can help you keep track of who's linking to your website and what types of links they are. They can be helpful when it comes to optimizing your site or tracking your site's popularity for ranking purposes.

Building a Robust Backlinks Strategy

Before you decide what backlink monitoring tools work best for you, it’s best to know a little bit about backlinks, strategy, analysis, and monitoring.

Backlink Strategy

Backlinks serve as a kind of "trust seal" for your website. They strongly indicate that other sites trust you and find your content valuable enough to link to it themselves.

Since search engines measure trust, backlinks could help boost your rankings. High-quality backlinks increase the likelihood that Google will know where to find your content and consider it worthwhile.

Backlinks also inform search engines that other sites consider you an authority on a topic. This aspect is what a search engine optimization expert would call "PageRank transfer." If there are lots of backlinks pointing at your site from more authoritative sources, Google will assume that you are the leading authority on the subject.

Backlink Analysis

Backlink analysis helps to understand the quality, several backlinks, and anchor text distribution.

High-quality links can boost your search engine rankings and help you get more traffic.

Thankfully, several tools are available to help monitor this activity to ensure that you keep everything in check at all times!

Backlink Monitoring

Backlink monitoring is the process of keeping track of your backlinks. Knowing how many links you have, where they come from, and what kind of value they bring to your site is essential.

You need to know how your competitors are doing, how you're doing, and what kind of content you should create to get more backlinks. A good backlink monitoring tool will help you keep track of all the sites that link to yours so that you can build even more links.

If there is a problem with one or more of your backlinks, it will be easy to see what links are causing this problem so that you can fix it immediately!

The Best Backlink Monitoring Tools

Backlink monitoring tools can help track how many incoming links are pointing at each page on our website. You get to see which pages need more attention (and possibly more content) to become fully optimized for SEO purposes.

1. Monitor Backlinks

Monitor Backlinks is a popular solution for tracking the backlinks of your website. It scans your URL and provides a list of backlinks and broken links for further analysis.

You can recover lost links using the "Lost Links" feature or importing your list of URLs from Google Analytics. Monitor Backlinks also provides a list of nofollow links on your site.

The free version of Monitor Backlinks has some limitations but still gives you enough functionality to get a good idea of where your website stands in terms of SEO.

2. Majestic SEO

Majestic SEO is another leading backlink analysis tool. It tracks your website's backlinks and provides you with valuable insights that include:

• Which websites are linking to your website
• Where are they coming from
• How much traffic are they driving

This tool can show you what anchor text your backlinks use. Anchor text analysis may prove helpful when you want to optimize your content to match the keywords used by other sites linking to you.

Majestic SEO is popular because it provides expansive information about your backlinks in an easy-to-read format. It maps the web to return a massive range of data on any website or URL you enter.

3. Ahrefs

You can choose Ahrefs to analyze your backlinks and check where they're coming from. This tool has a domain rating feature that helps you find domains worth your time and effort. There is also an internal link analysis tool, which tells you how many links are pointing to internal pages on your website.

Charts

Ahrefs offers a graphical presentation of the life of the referring domains. The charts help you see how long the links were built and how many links remain active today.

Competition

You can also use Ahrefs' backlink checker to keep an eye on your competitors' links strategy to stay ahead.

Backlink Profile

Beyond providing essential visibility into your backlinks performance, Ahrefs helps you:

• Check the number of referring links
• Identify and track dofollow and nofollow links
• Find out the domain rating of sites linking to you
• Estimate the SEO traffic for each back link

4. SEMRush

SEMRush is another feature-packed backlinks tool for SEO and PPC professionals. You can use its Backlink Audit feature to check the status and quality of your backlinks. SEMRush also allows you to analyze how toxic these links are for your website.

Backlink Profile

SEMRush will show you all of the backlinks pointing to your site and give you information about each one, such as:

• The type of link (followed/nofollow)
• The referring domain name (who's linking)
• The anchor text used in the link (what keyword)
• The number of links from each domain (how many different sites are linking to you)

Location Tracking

You can view the IP address that belongs to each link by clicking on the "IPs" tab when viewing your report. The tool shows how many links belong to one IP address.

Location tracking can help you determine if certain sites use automated link-building tools or methods like private blog networks (PBNs). Avoid these blackhat techniques.

5. Raven Tools

Raven Tools is a web-based SEO tool that offers a limitless number of monitoring tools for your backlinks. The platform is handy for identifying link-building opportunities.

Backlink Audit

Raven Tools Backlink Audit allows you to check backlinks from a fresh or historic index. You can also export the results of your scan and create backlink reports.

Competition

Raven Tools allows you to identify who links to your competitors. You can use this data to improve your SEO campaign by finding new link opportunities and analyzing existing ones.

Reports

You can also create detailed reports on the backlinks found in any Raven Tools Index. You can generate PDF or CSV files with all the details or copy/paste them into Excel or Google Sheets for further analysis.

6. LinkResearchTools

LinkResearch Tools’s most popular feature by far is their Link Audit tool which allows you to analyze your backlink profile over time and gives suggestions on how to improve it. LinkResearch Tools has a variety of helpful features listed below.

Link Discovery

Link discovery helps you to find new websites that link to your website or blog. If you want more traffic from social media sites, this feature can also help you find new ways to share your blog posts on their social media profiles.

Sorting

You can categorize backlinks based on their types, like organic, dofollow, etc. It then becomes easier to track them and take necessary actions to increase the number of valuable links for your website or blog posts.

Reports

LinkResearchTools also offers a URL report that includes information about:

• Domains linking to yours
• Anchor text distribution across those domains
• Related keywords they rank well for (this might help inform your content strategy)
• Location distribution of referring sites

You can export the report into CSV format if needed for further analysis in Excel or Google Sheets.

7. CognitiveSEO

CognitiveSEO lets you see your backlinks (good and bad) all in one place. The tool enables you to scan your website for any links pointing to it. It gives you information about how many pages have this link, its location on those pages, and if it's indexed by Google or not.

Competition

You can see all the websites that link to your competitors and their links, including nofollow and dofollow. This information can help you identify new link-building opportunities and plan your link-building strategy accordingly.

Historical Data

With CogntiveSEO, you get to see the evolution of your backlinks over time. The reports break down what links still work and which ones have lost value.

Rank Juice

The tool provides rank juice analysis for every backlink pointing to your website. You will see which link sources offer the most value for ranking purposes.

8. SEO SpyGlass

SEO SpyGlass is a web app that helps you find backlinks pointing to your site and identify toxic backlinks. It also provides extensive insights into critical backlink factors, including anchor texts and domain reputation.

SEO Value

SEO SpyGlass automatically analyzes every link to determine its value based on link placement, anchor text, reputation, etc.

Toxic Backlinks

Toxic links can damage your site's reputation or even penalize it by search engines. SEO SpyGlass shows you which links are toxic, so you can take action to remove them.

Performance Over Time

You can track how your backlink profile changes over time with backlinks reports. The reports show the number of new links added each month, the links that remain active, and those that don't.

Interactive Data

Cognitive SEO displays user-friendly data through interactive charts and graphs, allowing you to analyze different aspects of your backlink profile quickly.

9. Backlink Watch

Backlink Watch gives you a list of your site's backlinks. Additionally, it provides you with a list of the backlinks not indexed by Google and those not followed by any website. The platform has many other features, such as the ones listed below.

Backlinks Discovery

Backlink Watch has a feature that allows you to discover new backlinks, monitor their status, and assess their impact on your website. You can also see the number of links that mention your brand name or page and the number of unique domains linking to each page.

Competition

You can see how many backlinks your competitors have for each page of their site, how many visitors they get from those pages, and where they're coming from (keywords).

This data can help you understand what works best for them and what doesn't so that you can copy and improve.

Tracking

You can monitor the status of existing backlinks and get notified in real-time when they change. Real-time alerts can help ensure that your link-building efforts are paying off.

10. SE Ranking

SE Ranking helps you find both new and lost backlinks. You may find it useful in helping you to identify which pages get the most inbound links to optimize your content strategy.

Gap Analysis

This feature gives you an overview of your website's backlinks and allows you to find out which ones are no longer active. It shows how many links are missing and how many new links you need to build.

Profile Analysis

SE ranking allows you to see your backlink profile in-depth, including:

• Domain Trust
•  Referring domains
•  Dofollow/Nofollow ratio

This data can make it possible to discover which links are doing well and which ones need attention.

11. Linkio

Linkio promises more than a backlink analysis tool. The software aims to help users check their backlink popularity metrics automatically. Competitor backlink analysis is enabled on this platform as well.

Indexing Status

Linkio can check the Google indexing status of links. This feature is helpful because missing or outdated links can decrease your rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

New & Lost Links

New links are an essential thing in the SEO world. Linkio checks new and lost links daily to ensure you don't miss opportunities for higher rankings.

Backlink Profile

Linkio checks DA (Domain Authority), PA (Page Authority), DR (Domain Rating), UR (URL Rating), and Spam Score for every new link found. These metrics help you know how valuable a backlink is for SEO purposes.

Anchor Text Analysis

In Linkio, you can filter and sort your backlinks by anchor text. You can also view the most popular keywords and phrases used as anchor text for your links.

12. Moz

When you sign up, Moz gives you a free account that lets you monitor up to 10,000 keywords or URLs.

Here are some features you can use:

Backlink Discovery

The first thing you can do with this tool sees all the links pointing to any website or page. You need to enter the URL and see all the links pointing to your website or page.

Competition

To keep up with your competitors, you need to know where they get their backlinks. With Moz, you can easily find out where they get theirs and create an SEO campaign based on what works for them!

Broken Links

When people link to your website or blog post, it's important that those links still work when someone clicks on them. If not, then Google may treat this as spammy content and not count it towards your rankings.

Moz lets you know which of your links aren't working anymore so that you can fix them!

For each backlink, Moz provides a comprehensive analysis for each URL, including:

• Domain Authority (DA) - A measure of the importance of the domain the link resides on.
• Page Authority (PA) - A measure of the importance of the page the link resides on.
• Links to your page - The number of external links pointing at your page's URL.

Choosing the Right Tool for Your Needs

Below are the key features to look for when choosing a backlink monitoring tool.

Price

The price is one of the most important factors when choosing a backlink monitoring solution. You can use free solutions if you are a small business or have a limited budget. However, if you want more advanced features and accurate data, it's better to use paid services.

You can also try out several different solutions before choosing one that best suits your needs.

Link Quality Information

The best backlink monitoring tools provide detailed information about the links in their reports. The report should tell you exactly:

• The location of each link on the site (URL)
• Who owns the website where the link appears (domain)
• How many links are pointing at this domain from other domains (PageRank)
• How trusted this domain is by search engines (TrustRank)

Visual Reporting

A good backlink monitoring tool should allow users to explore results visually using different charts and graphs. It should be easy to spot suspicious activity quickly and take action accordingly.

Alerts and Notifications

In our experience, alerts are the most critical feature of a backlink monitoring tool. There are many different types of alerts. For example, you may want to get notifications when a new link is added to a page or when a competitor changes its SEO strategy.

Integration With Analytics

One of the critical things to look for in a backlink monitoring tool is integration with your favorite analytics platform. You want to see the same data from your backlink monitoring solution as from Google Analytics and other platforms.

Integration makes it easier for you to understand what's going on with your website's performance and where you need to focus your efforts.

Conclusion

Backlink Monitoring Tools are a great way to keep an eye on your link profile and know if you've lost any backlinks. They can also give you an aggregate score of how much traffic your website receives from the links you have. If you lose links, they'll tell you quickly and easily!

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