How To Find and Analyze Backlinks to Any Website (Tools & Methods)

Backlinks can tell you a lot about a website’s authority, connections, and SEO strategy. Checking your own links helps you improve rankings while analyzing competitors’ backlinks can uncover new opportunities. 

In this guide, I’ll show you how to find and analyze backlinks to any website using simple tools and methods.

---

Types of Backlinks and Their Impact

Before we dive in, let’s break down the different types of backlinks and what they mean for your site. Understanding them will help you make smarter SEO choices and avoid common pitfalls.

There are many backlink types depending on the context, but here are the main ones:

🔵 Do-follow vs. No-follow Backlinks

• Do-follow: Pass SEO value (link juice), helping improve your site’s authority and rankings.
• No-follow: Don’t directly transfer SEO value but can still drive traffic and improve brand visibility.

🔵 Editorial vs. UGC (User-Generated Content) Backlinks

• Editorial: Created naturally by the website owner, editor, or content creator, often because your content is relevant and worth referencing. These links appear in articles, blog posts, or other content without you requesting or placing them.
• UGC: Generated by users on platforms like forums, blog comments, or community-driven sites. These often have the “UGC” attribute, signaling that the source website may not fully endorse them.

🔵 High-Authority vs. Low-Authority Backlinks

• High-authority: Links from well-established, credible websites that positively impact rankings.
• Low-authority: Links from less reputable or low-quality sites, which may have little impact or could harm your SEO if spammy.

🔵 Toxic Backlinks

• Spammy, irrelevant, or harmful links that can damage your site’s reputation and lead to search engine penalties. It’s essential to monitor, disavow, and remove these when necessary.

🔵 Internal vs. External Backlinks

• Internal: Links between pages on your own website, helping improve site structure, navigation, and distributing link equity.
• External: Links from other websites pointing to your site, which improve authority and bring referral traffic.

🔵 Contextual vs. Non-contextual Backlinks

• Contextual: Placed within the main content of a page, surrounded by relevant text, making them more valuable for SEO.
• Non-contextual: Found outside the main content, such as in footers, sidebars, or comments, with less SEO impact.

---

How To Find Backlinks to Your Site 

You can find backlinks to your website or any other site using different methods. Some require manual searches, while others use specialized tools to gather data quickly. 

---

1. Backlink Checker Tools (The Easiest Method)

This is the quickest and simplest way to find backlinks. I prefer this method because it’s fast, requires minimal effort, and provides detailed backlink data instantly compared to other manual approaches.

There are both free and premium tools that can help, depending on how deep you want to go. If you’re just getting started, free methods like Google Search Console can give you basic insights. But if you want a more detailed view, SEO tools like Semrush provide powerful backlink data.

Here is a step-by-step process to help you find backlinks using Semrush:

➡️ Step 1: Create a Free Semrush Account

Go to Semrush and sign up for a free account. What I like here is that, unlike Google Search Console, there’s no need to verify domain ownership. This makes it much easier if you need a team member to check backlinks without dealing with verification steps.

➡️ Step 2: Open the Backlink Analytics Tool

In the Semrush dashboard, go to Backlink Analytics. Enter your website’s domain (e.g., yourwebsite.com) and hit Analyze.

➡️ Step 3: Check Your Backlink Overview

Once the report loads, you’ll see key backlink data, including:

• Total backlinks – The number of links pointing to your site.
• Referring domains – The number of unique websites linking to you.
• Authority Score – A metric that estimates the quality of your backlinks.

(Free accounts may see limited data, but it’s enough for a basic analysis.)

➡️ Step 4: Explore Your Backlink Profile

Go to the “Backlinks” tab to see a list of websites linking to you. Here, you’ll find a general breakdown of backlink types, including text links, image links, and form links, along with their attributes like Follow, No-follow, Sponsored, or UGC (User-Generated Content). This helps you understand the nature of your backlink profile at a glance.

You can also apply filters to focus on specific types, such as Follow or No-follow links, lost links, or new backlinks. This helps you analyze which links are passing SEO value and which may need further attention.

➡️ Step 5: Export and Track Your Backlinks

If you want to save your backlink data, click “Export” to download the list as a CSV file. Set up a Backlink Audit (paid feature) to monitor your links over time.

In addition, with AI tools evolving rapidly, SEO platforms are also integrating AI-powered solutions to make backlink analysis easier. Semrush also uses AI-driven features, and you can use Copilot to easily identify lost backlinks and track them for better SEO insights.

---

---

2. Manually Checking Referral Traffic in Google Analytics

If you have Google Analytics set up, you can check referral traffic to see which external websites are linking to you.

• Go to Google Analytics > Acquisition > All Traffic > Referrals.
• This will show which sites are sending visitors to your website, often indicating backlinks.

---

3. Checking Social Media & Forums

Sometimes, backlinks come from social media posts, forums, and community discussions rather than traditional websites.

• Look for your domain being shared on platforms like Reddit, Quora, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
• Search for “yourwebsite.com” in each platform’s search bar to find mentions.

---

4. Reverse Image Search for Backlinks

If you’ve created infographics, original images, or product photos, other websites may be using them without linking back to your site. You can track these uncredited image usages and request backlinks.

To check where your images are being used:

• Go to Google Reverse Image Search or TinEye and upload your image or paste its URL.
• Look at the results to see which websites are displaying your image.
• Visit these pages and check if they have linked back to your website.

I prefer TinEye for this task since it provides a clean interface without distracting ads, unlike Google Reverse Image Search.

---

5. Google Search Operators

You can use Google search operators to find backlinks and mentions of your website without using any paid tools. The link: operator is not always accurate and doesn’t show a complete list of backlinks, but it can still help find some links to your site, which is why we’re sharing this tip—it might still be useful.

A better alternative that often works more effectively is using the “site:” operator. Here are some search queries to try:

• link:yourwebsite.com → May show some backlinks to your site, but results are limited.
• “yourwebsite.com” -site:yourwebsite.com” → Finds mentions of your domain on external sites that might include backlinks.

---

How To Analyze Backlinks for Quality & Relevance

Not all backlinks are equally valuable—some can improve your SEO, while others might be low-quality or even harmful. To determine whether a backlink is helping or hurting your site, consider these key factors.

---

1. Key Metrics To Evaluate

Domain Authority (DA) / Domain Rating (DR)

Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR) are scores from tools like Moz and Ahrefs that measure the strength and credibility of a website. 

Backlinks from high-DA/DR sites tend to pass more SEO value, while links from low-rated sites may have little impact or even be harmful. 

For example, a backlink from a DA 80 news site carries much more weight than one from a DA 10 personal blog.

Relevance of the Linking Site

A backlink from a website within your niche is far more valuable than one from an unrelated industry. Google favors links that come from topically relevant sites because they signal genuine authority. 

If you run a fitness blog, a backlink from a health website will contribute more to your SEO than a link from a car dealership website.

Anchor Text Analysis

The anchor text, or the clickable text of a backlink, plays a role in how search engines interpret the link. Branded and natural anchor texts, such as “Nike,” are safe, while excessive keyword-stuffed anchors, like “best running shoes cheap,” can trigger Google penalties. 

A link with the text “Check out Nike’s latest collection” appears more natural than one that reads “Buy cheap shoes online Nike discount.”

Traffic from the Referring Domain

A good backlink should come from a site that attracts real visitors, not just one with a high DA/DR score. Backlinks from websites with actual traffic can drive referral visitors to your site, improving both SEO and conversions. 

A link from a popular news site that sends hundreds of visitors is significantly more valuable than one from a dormant blog with no audience.

---

2. Identifying Toxic or Harmful Backlinks

Signs of Low-Quality or Spam Backlinks

Some backlinks originate from private blog networks (PBNs), link farms, or paid directories, which Google considers manipulative. Others come from irrelevant or foreign-language sites that have no connection to your niche. 

Additionally, backlinks from websites with duplicate, auto-generated, or extremely low-quality content can indicate spammy link-building practices.

Checking for Security Risks & Malware

Certain backlinks come from hacked or malicious websites, which can harm your site’s reputation and SEO. To check if a referring domain is safe, you can use a URL checker from websites like NordVPN. These tools analyze website URLs for malware, phishing threats, and other security risks.

Additionally, Google Safe Browsing helps identify potentially harmful sites. If a backlink comes from a suspicious or flagged website, it may be best to disavow it.

Google Penalties & Algorithmic Filters

Toxic backlinks can lead to penalties from Google, either manually or through its algorithms. Manual actions occur when Google detects unnatural or spammy backlinks and issues a penalty. 

Algorithmic penalties, such as those from Google’s Penguin update, devalue or ignore low-quality backlinks, which can negatively impact rankings over time. A sudden drop in organic traffic or a notification in Google Search Console may indicate a penalty caused by bad backlinks.

Using Disavow Tools (When & How to Submit a Disavow File)

If you have toxic backlinks that you cannot remove manually, Google’s Disavow Tool allows you to tell the search engine to ignore them. However, disavowing links should only be done if you are certain they are harmful, as incorrectly disavowing good backlinks can negatively affect your rankings.

---

Final Words

Backlinks change over time, so it’s important to track and monitor them regularly. Set up alerts for new and lost links, do backlink audits, and keep an eye on your link-building progress to protect your SEO.

I hope my guide helped you understand how to find, analyze, and manage your backlinks. In case of difficulties, you can also explore professional SEO Services by Siteefy to get expert help with backlink analysis and strategy.

If you’ve tried other tools or methods that worked well, feel free to share—I’d love to hear your experience! 🚀