Best Backlink Checker Tools in 2026: Tested and Compared

A backlink checker only earns its place in your toolkit if it answers one question fast: who links to this site, and is that link helping or hurting? We pulled current pricing directly from ten vendors’ own pricing pages, checked what each free tier actually includes, and lined them up side by side so you can pick a tool without opening ten browser tabs yourself.

Why Checking Your Backlinks Matters (Before You Pick a Tool)

Your backlink profile changes constantly. Sites link to you, sites stop linking to you, and every so often a spammy directory or scraped site adds a link you never asked for. A backlink checker gives you visibility into all three of those events, plus the metrics (referring domains, link authority, anchor text patterns) that tell you whether a link is worth having. If you have not looked at your backlink profile in a while, or you have never run a full backlink analysis, the tools below are where that work starts.

Quick Comparison: The 10 Best Backlink Checker Tools

Prices below are what each vendor listed on its own pricing page as of September 3, 2026, in the currency that page displayed. SaaS pricing changes often, so treat this as a snapshot and confirm the current number before you buy.

How We Evaluated These Backlink Checkers

We looked at five things for every tool on this list:

• Index size and freshness: how many backlinks the tool tracks and how often that index updates
• Metric depth: whether the tool goes beyond a raw link count into authority scores, spam signals, or link-quality flags
• Free-tier depth: whether the free option is genuinely useful or just a marketing teaser
• Ease of use: how much setup or learning curve stands between you and a usable report
• Price-to-value: whether the paid tiers make sense for a solo site owner, a growing team, or an agency managing multiple clients

No tool wins on all five. That is exactly why this list has ten entries instead of one recommendation.

The 10 Best Backlink Checker Tools, Reviewed

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is best for competitor research and raw index depth, with paid plans starting at €119/month for the Lite tier. It runs one of the most active web crawlers in the industry next to Google’s own, and its index refreshes roughly every 15 minutes, so newly built or newly lost links tend to show up faster here than on most competitors. Ahrefs organizes backlinks by Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR), two metrics that have become an informal industry shorthand even outside Ahrefs itself. The free Ahrefs Backlink Checker gives a capped sample of a site’s top backlinks and its DR score, enough for a quick gut check but not a full audit.

Pros:

• Fastest index refresh of any tool on this list
• DR/UR metrics are widely recognized and easy to explain to clients or stakeholders
• Strong competitor-gap and content-gap features layered on top of the core backlink data

Cons:

• Highest entry price on this list at the Standard and Advanced tiers
• Free tier is capped tightly enough that it only works for a quick spot check

Semrush

Semrush is best for toxic link detection and full-profile audits, with its SEO plan starting at $117.33/month when billed annually ($139/month month-to-month). Its backlink database is one of the largest in the category, and the platform pairs raw link data with a toxicity score that flags links worth disavowing, a feature that goes further than most competitors on this list. Semrush also runs a free tier at $0/month with 10 reports per day across its tools, which is enough for occasional checks on your own site or a competitor’s.

Pros:

• Toxicity scoring is more developed than most competing tools
• Free tier ($0/month, 10 reports/day) is more usable than most “free trial” alternatives
• One platform covers backlinks, keyword research, and site auditing together

Cons:

• Full-featured plans get expensive quickly at the Pro+ and Advanced tiers
• Free tier’s daily report cap makes it impractical for regular monitoring

SE Ranking

SE Ranking is best for teams that want a full SEO suite without Ahrefs- or Semrush-level pricing, with its Core plan starting at €87.20/month billed annually. It bundles backlink research into a broader toolkit that also covers rank tracking and site auditing, which makes it a reasonable single-subscription option for a small team that does not want to pay for three separate tools. SE Ranking does not publish a standalone free backlink checker the way Ahrefs or Semrush do.

Pros:

• Lower entry price than the two biggest names in the category
• Backlink data sits inside the same dashboard as rank tracking and site audits
• Interface is generally considered easier to learn than Ahrefs or Semrush

Cons:

• No standing free tier for backlink checks specifically
• Backlink database is smaller than Ahrefs or Semrush, which matters for large-scale competitor research

Majestic

Majestic is best for readers who want Trust Flow and Citation Flow, its own proprietary link-quality metrics, with the Lite plan starting at €46.99/month. Majestic was built as a dedicated backlink tool, not a bolt-on feature of a broader SEO suite. Its metric pair (Trust Flow measures link quality, Citation Flow measures link quantity) gives you a quick way to spot a site with lots of links but weak quality, or the reverse. Majestic also offers a free backlink checker for quick lookups.

Pros:

• Trust Flow/Citation Flow is a genuinely different way to evaluate link quality, not just a rebrand of DR/DA
• Lowest entry price among the dedicated (non-suite) backlink tools on this list
• Historic Index (on the Pro plan) shows link data going back years, useful for long-term trend analysis

Cons:

• Interface feels dated next to Ahrefs, Semrush, or SE Ranking
• Does not include the keyword research or site-audit features bundled into the all-in-one suites

Moz Pro

Moz Pro is best for teams already anchored on Domain Authority as a metric, with an entry single-site plan at $49/month and the Standard plan at $99/month. Moz popularized Domain Authority (DA) years before “authority score” became a category-wide concept, and plenty of clients and stakeholders still ask for DA by name. Moz Pro’s Link Explorer gives a capped free look at any domain’s backlink profile and Spam Score, a metric that flags links likely to hurt your rankings instead of help them.

Pros:

• Domain Authority is still one of the most widely recognized SEO metrics outside the SEO industry itself
• Spam Score adds a specific, actionable link-quality signal beyond a generic authority number
• Entry-level single-site plan is priced for a solo site owner, not just agencies

Cons:

• Backlink index is smaller than Ahrefs or Semrush by most third-party comparisons
• Higher tiers (Medium, Large) get expensive fast if you need more than a handful of tracked sites

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is best for the lowest-cost full SEO suite on this list, with the Individual plan starting at €29/month. Built by Neil Patel’s team, it bundles backlink checking with keyword research, site auditing, and rank tracking at a price point noticeably below SE Ranking or Serpstat. The trade-off is depth: Ubersuggest’s backlink database and reporting are less detailed than the tools built specifically around backlink analysis.

Pros:

• Cheapest full-suite entry price on this list
• Reasonable for a solo blogger or small business that needs basic backlink visibility, not enterprise-grade depth
• Same subscription covers keyword research and site auditing

Cons:

• Backlink data is shallower than Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic, or Moz
• Less useful for agencies managing backlink profiles across many client sites

Serpstat

Serpstat is best for teams that want unlimited projects without paying agency-tier prices, with the Individual plan starting at $50/month. Unlike several competitors that cap the number of sites or projects you can track even on paid plans, Serpstat’s Individual tier already allows unlimited projects, just with daily search limits. It offers a 7-day free trial (with a small refundable verification charge) instead of a standing free tier.

Pros:

• Unlimited projects even on the entry paid plan, unusual at this price point
• Backlink analysis sits alongside rank tracking, site auditing, and keyword research in one subscription
• 7-day trial gives a real hands-on test before paying

Cons:

• No standing free backlink checker, only a time-limited trial
• Daily search caps on lower tiers can feel restrictive for heavy competitor research

Linkody

Linkody is best for ongoing backlink monitoring and disavow workflows, not one-off lookups, with the Webmaster plan starting at €13.90/month, the cheapest paid entry on this list. It is built around tracking changes to a known backlink profile over time (new links, lost links, and disavow-list management), not exploring a site’s entire link history the way Ahrefs or Majestic do. Linkody offers a 30-day free trial with no credit card required, which is one of the more generous trial windows in this category.

Pros:

• Cheapest paid entry point on this list
• Purpose-built for ongoing monitoring, not just point-in-time checks
• 30-day trial with no card required is long enough for a real evaluation

Cons:

• Not built for large-scale competitor backlink research the way Ahrefs or Semrush are
• Smaller feature set outside of monitoring and disavow management

SEO SpyGlass

SEO SpyGlass is best for anyone who wants a genuinely free, offline backlink checker, since its desktop version is free to download and use, capped at analyzing up to 1,100 backlinks per site and comparing two competitors at a time. It is part of the SEO PowerSuite bundle and runs on Windows, Mac, or Linux instead of through a browser dashboard, which some users prefer for data control or for working without a constant internet connection. Paid licenses remove the backlink cap and add bulk analysis features.

Pros:

• The only fully free, no-time-limit option on this list beyond Google Search Console
• Desktop application means your data stays local, not stored on a vendor’s servers
• No recurring subscription required for the free version

Cons:

• 1,100-backlink cap on the free version is limiting for sites with a large link profile
• Desktop-only workflow lacks the collaboration features of cloud-based tools

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is best for checking your own site’s backlinks with zero cost and zero third-party estimation, since it is completely free and shows the links Google itself has indexed and treats as ranking signals. Because the data comes directly from Google rather than from a third-party crawler, it filters out a lot of the noise that shows up in commercial tools, at the cost of only working for domains you own and have verified. It will not show you a competitor’s backlinks.

Pros:

• Completely free, no tier, no trial, no cap
• First-party data straight from Google, not a third-party crawler’s estimate
• Already part of most sites’ existing SEO toolkit, no new signup required

Cons:

• Own-site only, cannot be used to research competitor backlink profiles
• Interface and export options are far more limited than any paid tool on this list

Free vs Paid Backlink Checkers: What You Actually Get

Yes, there are completely free backlink checkers, but the free options split into two different categories, and mixing them up leads to disappointment. Google Search Console is fully free and unlimited, but only for domains you own and have verified in the tool. SEO SpyGlass’s desktop version is also genuinely free with no time limit, capped at 1,100 backlinks per site, which is enough for most small to mid-sized sites but not for auditing a large, established domain.

The rest of the “free” options on this list are free tiers of paid platforms, not standalone free products:

• Semrush: $0/month, 10 reports per day across its tools
• Ahrefs: free checker limited to a capped sample of top backlinks and a DR score
• Moz Pro: capped free lookups through Link Explorer, plus a Spam Score
• Ubersuggest: limited free searches per day before the paywall appears

If you only need to check your own site occasionally, Google Search Console covers that for free indefinitely. If you need to research competitors, expect to hit a paywall within your first few lookups on every tool above, by design.

How to Choose the Right Backlink Checker for Your Situation

• If you run one small site and mostly want to keep an eye on your own backlink health: start with Google Search Console. It is free, first-party, and already available if you have verified your site with Google.
• If you are a solo blogger or small business that wants competitor visibility on a tight budget: Ubersuggest or SEO SpyGlass’s free desktop version give you real, if limited, competitor data without a subscription.
• If you manage SEO for one growing business and need deeper competitor research: Ahrefs, Semrush, or SE Ranking are built for this, with SE Ranking as the lower-cost entry point among the three.
• If you are cleaning up a toxic or spammy backlink profile: Semrush’s toxicity scoring or Moz’s Spam Score are the most purpose-built features for this specific job.
• If you need ongoing monitoring instead of one-off audits, including disavow tracking over time: Linkody is built around that workflow, at the lowest paid entry price on this list.
• If you manage backlinks across many client sites: Serpstat’s unlimited-projects entry tier or an agency-tier Ahrefs or Semrush plan will scale better than tools priced per single site.
• If you want to run everything on your own machine without a subscription or browser dashboard: SEO SpyGlass is the only desktop-native option here.

What to Do After You Find Your Backlink Gaps

A backlink checker tells you where you stand. It does not close the gap between where you stand and where your competitors stand, and none of the tools above are built to. Once you have a report in hand, the next steps usually fall into three buckets:

• Clean up what is hurting you. If a tool flags toxic or spammy links, work through a proper backlink audit before you disavow anything, since disavowing a link you did not need to remove can do more harm than the link itself.
• Reclaim what should already be yours. Tools like Ahrefs can also surface unlinked brand mentions, sites that already mention your brand without linking to it. Turning those into real links is usually faster than earning a link from scratch, a process generally called link reclamation.
• Close the gap with competitors. Once you know which sites link to your competitors and not to you, the work shifts from checking to outreach. That is a different skill set and a different kind of software, one built around finding the right contact, sending a real pitch, and tracking replies at scale, which is exactly what link building software like LinkForce is built to do once you already know where your gaps are.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which backlink checker tool is the most accurate?

It depends on what you are checking. For your own site, Google Search Console is the most accurate option because it shows exactly what Google itself has indexed, with no third-party estimation involved. For competitor research and raw index depth, Ahrefs is widely cited as one of the most accurate and comprehensive commercial databases, thanks to its roughly 15-minute index refresh. Semrush is a strong alternative when toxic-link detection matters more than raw index size, and Moz remains a common choice specifically for Domain Authority scoring.

Is there a completely free backlink checker?

Yes. Google Search Console is completely free for any site you own and have verified, with no cap. SEO SpyGlass’s desktop version is also free with no time limit, capped at 1,100 backlinks per site. Beyond those two, most other “free” backlink checkers are limited free tiers of paid platforms (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, Ubersuggest), useful for the occasional lookup but not for regular monitoring.

How often should you check your backlinks?

Once a month is a reasonable baseline for most sites, enough to catch new links, lost links, and spammy additions before they pile up. If your site is large, high-traffic, or in the middle of an active link-building campaign, checking weekly or biweekly makes sense. A small, mostly static site that is not actively building new links can usually get away with a quarterly check.

Do I need a paid tool, or is a free backlink checker enough?

For occasional spot checks on your own site, a free tool is enough, especially Google Search Console. Once you need to research competitors regularly, track changes over time, or get toxicity and spam scoring, a paid plan pays for itself in the time it saves versus manually cross-checking free tools.