Google considers backlink as a signal that your content is valuable enough to link to. When it comes to SEO, managing and finding new backlinks for your website is vital. Using the best backlink checker tool will be helpful.

You will learn:

• The necessities of backlinks.
• The top 7 best backlink checker tools.
• 4 tips to get more backlinks with “linkbait” content.
• what you need to know to get more backlinks.

The easiest way to think of backlinks would be as conversations among websites.

While the algorithms in Google have changed over the years, backlinks still remain as one of the most important ranking factors.

However, SEO details like building backlinks can be complicated most of the time. The good news is that you don’t have to worry about it because there are a variety of tools available to help users do most of the “heavy-lifting”.

After reading this article, you will know the ultimate best backlink checker tools to create a successful backlink strategy.

Why do you need backlinks?

A backlink is a link from one website to a page on another website. It is also known as a one-way link, inbound link, an incoming link. 

You can think of backlinks as  “votes” for a specific page. Search engines use these votes to decide their ranking. So a high number of backlinks will help a page rank high on the SERP. 

Backlinks play an important role in search engine algorithm, SEO planning, and your overall strategy for growing your website. However, 65% of digital marketers state that link building is the hardest part of SEO.

To be specific, content pieces and backlinks are the top two most important factors for ranking on Google for target keywords. As mentioned, backlinks are “votes” from other websites. When more websites link to your page, they are essentially telling the search engines that your content is valuable, useful, and credible. The search engines will then absorb this information and rank your site higher on the search engine results page.

In addition, more backlinks can bring more traffic and authority to your sites.

Let’s picture Alex as a blogger, and he writes a very interesting article about a sports event.

Another blogger, Roma, links to Alex’s article when sharing her perspective. Since she writes about the topic on her well-known online magazine site, this creates a backlink to Alex’s post.

Because the online magazine is popular, many other sites will link back to her article. This increases the online magazine’s authority, while Alex’s article will also gain a valuable backlink from a reputable site.

Top 7 best backlink checker tools

BacklinkGap

BacklinkGap is a free backlink checker tool. It is very simple to use the tool. The way to use it is very simple. You just need to enter your domain or URL and wait for this backlink checker to generate your results.

With free access, you can discover your backlink profile fully. Thus, you can see a number of useful data that is ready for you in the dashboard, such as the number of backlinks, total referring domain, new & lost backlinks, new & lost referring domain, etc.

When you see more details on the dashboard, BacklinkGap also provides you with information about link attributes, link types, platform types, and semantic elements.

With the monitoring feature, you can keep your eye on your backlinks profile anytime. You will not need to sit and track your backlinks manually. The feature can keep data daily, weekly, or monthly. BacklinkGap can also help you If you want to get the CSV files or export the report for your backlink profiles.

SEMrush

An ‘all-in-one marketing toolkit’, Semrush combines several different digital marketing tools to help boost your SEO strategy. 

With one of the best backlink checkers available, SEMrush makes it easy for you to understand and analyze your backlinks to boost your rankings. 

Like other similar tools, you first need to enter the domain into the Backlink Analysis section. 

SEMrush will then pull up lots of relevant information about the domain and its backlinks. To uncover more in-depth information, the platform will generate detailed reports about each of the domains. 

Mangools LinkMiner

Unlike the other backlink checkers mentioned on this list, Link Miner is purely a backlink checker tool without any additional SEO features. 

LinkMiner has some pretty extensive backlink-related features. You can filter your backlinks by new, noFollow, lost, and deleted links. 

This is particularly helpful if you want to keep a list of deleted or lost links that you want to recover for your site. It’s also a handy way of seeing new backlinks straight away as they appear. 

To help you target competitors’ backlinks, LinkMiner allows you to create a list of favorite backlinks so you remember which ones are the most important ones to target. 

Ahrefs

It’ll come as no surprise that Ahrefs has one of the best backlink checkers. Enter any site, your own or a competitor’s, and view all the backlinks that refer to that specific site. Once a list appears with all the links, take a look at metrics like the domain authority and the exact location of the referring website. 

Ahrefs allows you to see new, broken and lost links to a site as well. With new links, you can start generating a repertoire with those sites to earn more links in the future. With broken and lost links, you can work on contacting the websites that initially linked to you and get those links back.

Their own ‘Domain Rating’ shows you the value of each site that is linking to you, displaying the number of backlinks and Dofollow links. 

Ahrefs is also great for showing you any backlinks you’ve lost. These may be links that are broken or link that the website owner has deleted from their page. 

Majestic Site Explorer

Majestic Site Explorer is the best backlink checker for understanding where your current link profile stands. 

With this tool providing standard metrics like the total number of external backlinks, you can also review other key stats like referring domains, referring subnets, and referring IPs. These technical bits of information are essential for having a strong understanding of your current link strategy. 

More in-depth data is also presented in innovative charts and graphs to help you visualize how your site is doing. The backlink history chart will give you a clear picture of whether you are gaining or losing links over any given period of time.

Monitor Backlinks

Monitor Backlinks is a great tool for snooping on your competitors’ backlink strategy.

If you want to discover more about which links are boosting your competitors’ rankings and which backlinks are pulling down your SEO efforts, Monitor Backlinks could be the best backlink checker for you. 

The link checker tool will tell you when you receive a valuable backlink, when a blogger reviews your product or when competing sites are racing ahead with their link-building strategy. 

You can also view a ton of useful backlink-related metrics to keep your strategy streamlined. See the number of referring traffic per backlink, external link count as well as page or domain authority for each backlink.

Linkody

One of the simplest and cheapest backlink checkers, Linkody will give you a full picture of your backlink profile while helping guide your future backlink building strategy. 

Instead of having to worry about manually checking your backlinks, Linkody automates the whole process to be faster and more efficient. 

All relevant backlink data is displayed on a user-friendly dashboard making it easy to understand the comprehensive backlink metrics. 

Your backlink profile is always changing so it’s important to know in real-time what’s happening. 

Tips to Get Backlinks With “Linkbait” content

“Linkbait” is content that’s specifically formulated to attract links. It’s something so cool, valuable, and unique that any industry blogger/influencer would be hard-pressed not to link to it. These links then help to improve the site’s rankings in search engines.

#1. Understand What Site Owners Are Looking For: 

Some sites get links just because they pitch themselves well. On the flip side, sites with amazing content that can’t pitch themselves well will not get backlinks.

More often than not, people will look for content that is trending, entertaining, or something out of the ordinary.

Besides, you can also analyze your competitors’ backlinks profiles. As the name suggests, this strategy focuses on analyzing your competitors’ best work and, most of all, understanding why and what worked for them. You can then take these learnings and create a better piece. 

#2. Emphasize What Benefits the Site Gets: 

Most sites are looking for the same benefits, such as content relevant to their site, detailed content, well-written content, a legitimate site. Be wary of the fact that not all educational guides, news, etc. get links.

#3. Write Relevant and Competitive Content:  

If you don’t have any content worth linking to, no one will link to you. At the heart of generating backlinks is creating great content, and it needs to be better than other content in your industry.

You can follow up with these tactics in your article:

• Include higher quality images than any of the competition.
• Have a higher word count on your blog post—or at least make every word matter.
• Write a more compelling title.
• Use an interesting featured image.
• Write a title tag and meta description that is more focused.

#4. Comment on Other Relevant Blog Posts

While you might occasionally have an opportunity to tactfully include a backlink in your comment, more often than not, the comment needs to be for the primary purpose of building a mutual relationship with the author. Being a regular reader and commenter on other blogs of your niche is a great way to build your brand and bring traffic over to your own blog. 

What you need to know to increase your backlinks

Great content is the first thing, but it’s not the only thing you need for acquiring backlinks. For that, you’ll need to actively target high authority websites with content that they’re interested to link to.

With an abundance of low-quality links or excessive activity in building the link mass, the site can suffer from filters and search engine penalties. If there are a lot of low-quality links or if the speed of link building is too high, the site may suffer from search engine penalties, and it will be impossible to promote it.

Google can penalize your site if:

• there was a sharp increase in the number of backlinks;
• commercial links are abundant;
• low-quality donor sites are prevalent.

Google has become more scrupulous in analyzing backlinks. So, it is in your best interest to regularly monitor backlinks directed to your site and leave only those that come from relevant and reliable resources. 

TL;DR

Businesses can create great links with the right approach without spending a lot of money. Regular monitoring of backlinks will help you realistically assess the situation and quickly adapt to changes. The best backlink checker tool will help you with this work. 

There are a lot of tools in the industry; however, we recommend Backlink Gap as one of the best tools that provide the most value. The free access can support you to discover your backlink profiles and get informed of the changes in your backlinks.