Backlinks are also known as inbound links, incoming links, or one-way links. They are links from websites that lead to your website or a specific page on your site. It is necessary to monitor backlinks so that you can make use of various strategies for your website.
Google and other search engines acknowledge quality backlinks as a vote of approval for a specific page. A general rule of thumb to remember is that a high number of high-quality backlinks will result in ranking higher in search engines.
With that in mind, here are the best tools to monitor backlinks. We will then follow up the discussion with industry best practices in monitoring backlinks.
- 5 Best Tools to Monitor Backlinks
- Best Practices to Monitor Backlinks
- FAQs
- Cultivating a Healthy Backlink Profile
- Related Reads
5 Best Tools to Monitor Backlinks
Backlinks are signs of approval that tell search engines that your content is valuable, credible, and helpful. Because of this, it’s important to monitor them to make sure that you’re only getting high-quality backlinks. You also have to ensure that you keep the good ones that you already have. Here are the best tools you can use to monitor backlinks well.
1. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the gold standards in the SEO industry. They have a top-tier keyword research tool that will help you get an in-depth understanding of your target keywords. It will help you level up your keyword research instantly!
Ahrefs has the second most active web crawler, right after Google itself. This means that Ahrefs has the best backlink database in the industry.
Aside from that, Ahrefs also has one of the best SEO tools to monitor backlinks in the industry. You’ll be able to monitor the growth and decline of your backlink profiles in a specific time period.
You’ll also get a complete breakdown of the target’s backlink profile. You’ll be able to see every page linking to your target in the detailed backlinks report. This includes powerful filters to help you dive in deeper.
In addition, you’ll also be able to do the following:
- See estimated organic traffic to each linking page and referring domain.
- See all websites linking to your target with domain-wide metrics.
- See the most linked-to pages.
- See a complete breakdown of all outbound links.
- In-depth link analysis features.
You can try out their backlink tool for 14 days to help you decide if it fits your needs or not.
2. SE Ranking
SE Ranking offers another high-quality backlink tracking tool. With their tool, you’ll be able to measure the value of your backlinks in-depth. Here are the following key backlinks metrics that you can measure:
- If your backlinks are placed in texts or images.
- Anchor texts that lead to your website.
- Which of your web pages benefit from the backlink.
- Dofollow / Nofollow.
- Backlinks parameters that have been recently introduced by Google.
In addition to that, you’ll be able to check if your backlinks come from an authoritative domain. You’ll also be able to check page-specific metrics that help you assess linking page popularity. This includes:
- Page trust
- External links
- Social shares
As for your backlink profile, you’ll be able to get a bird’s eye view of the growth of your backlink. Here are the following metrics that you can observe:
- Backlink profile growth dynamics.
- The ratio of backlinks that lead to your homepage and other pages.
- Referring domains distribution by countries.
- Dynamics of new and lost backlinks.
- Dofollow / Nofollow ratio.
- Top-level domains distribution.
Finally, the tool also helps you disavow bad backlinks. It helps generate a ready-to-go disavow file that you can use to send to Google.
You can try out their tool for free but after that expires, you’ll need a subscription to keep using it. They offer 3 paid plans. Their Essential plan is $39 per month, their Pro plan is $89 per month, and their Business plan is $189 per month. They have flexible pricing plans so you can choose which one will best suit your needs.
3. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is another relatively popular backlink tracking tool. It is used by various industry leaders like HubSpot, Digitas, BuzzFeed, The Telegraph, etc. Not only does it allow you to track the backlinks of your website, but it also helps you track those of your competitors.
What’s great about BuzzSumo is that it makes monitoring backlinks as simple as it can be. You can enjoy the following features with BuzzSumo’s tool:
- Social engagement – You can filter through the social engagements you have and find which links are relevant to your campaign.
- Instant alerts – Get immediately notified when you get new links so you can respond to them accordingly.
- Real-time updates – You can track all the backlinks you receive in real-time. This allows you to monitor backlink profile closely.
- Export your files – You can export the reports you have into Excel files so you can keep them for your records.
As your website grows, you may be receiving lots of backlinks from other websites. This makes it hard to monitor the ones that really matter to your campaign. BuzzSumo allows you to specify which backlinks you want to monitor. You can choose from the 3 options:
- Links to your exact URL
- Links to any page on your domain
- Links to any page on the sub-domain only
This will help you filter out which backlinks really matter to your campaign.
4. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is another extremely helpful tool for keeping your backlink profile healthy at all times. It’s a fast and accurate way to find key metrics like the following:
- Domain Score – This measures the strength of your website on a scale from 1 to 100, with 100 being the perfect score.
- Number of Backlinks – This is the overall number of backlinks to your website. You’ll also see a number of nofollow backlinks.
- Referring Domains – This is where your backlinks are coming from. You’ll also get a number of websites that are .gov and .edu domains that are linking to your website.
- Backlinks over time – This shows a growth chart of your backlinks so you can monitor how well your website is performing over time.
You will also get updates on new and lost backlinks daily. You’ll get an overview of the new and lost dofollow and nofollow backlinks.
Finally, you’ll get a list of every backlink to your website. You’ll find important information:
- Source page title and URL
- Domain score
- Page score
- Link type (Text or Image)
- Anchor text
- The date the link was first and last detected by Ubersuggest robots
5. Linkody
What makes Linkody one of the best tools to monitor backlinks is that it automates the process for you. This makes it easier for you to monitor backlinks that truly matter to your campaign.
With Linkody, you’ll be able to do the following:
- Get notified when you gain or lose links.
- Gain insight into your competitors’ linkbuilding strategies.
- Track tons of key metrics that will help you analyze your backlink profile. This includes Mozrank, Domain Authority, Spam score, Total number of backlinks, Shares, etc.
- Quickly identify and disavow bad links.
- Easily manage your backlinks and domains in one place.
Linkody will track your links 24/7 so you can focus on building links instead of spending all your time tracking them. You will get notifications via email reports about new links or any change of status of your current links.
Best Practices to Monitor Backlinks
Now that we’ve identified the best tools to monitor backlinks, let’s discuss the best practices for doing so. Cultivating a strong and healthy backlink profile is one of the keys to ranking better on search engine result pages (SERPs). Here are industry best practices to help you do just that.
Identify the Quality of Your Backlinks
It’s technically impossible to monitor all of your backlinks. There will be thousands, if not tens to hundreds of thousands of backlinks to your website. This is why a tool for monitoring backlinks is important because it lets you identify which backlinks are worth taking care of.
First, identify which backlinks are coming from high-quality domains. These are the backlinks worth taking care of especially if they’re from domains that are industry leaders.
This can happen because you reached out to them and offered to guest-post to get a backlink. This may also happen because you have high-quality content that provides value to a lot of users. No matter how you got these high-quality backlinks, it’s important that you monitor them in case they disappear.
When they do disappear, reach out to the domain to ask what happened. You can also ask for new opportunities for a new backlink.
Second, monitor backlinks that are from low-quality domains. These backlinks will cause harm to your backlink profile. Take care of them immediately by reaching out to the domain where it came from or disavowing the links to Google.
Check Your Competitor’s Backlinks
Monitoring your competitor’s backlinks can be quite time-consuming. It can be hard to sift through thousands of backlinks to find which ones are of high value. It’s one thing to monitor your own backlinks so monitoring your competitor’s backlinks can be quite the stretch.
Be that as it may, monitoring your competitor’s backlinks can give you insight into what you can work on for your own backlink profile. You can try to get a backlink of your own from high-quality domains that have your competitor’s backlinks. You can also try looking for similar domains to get backlinks from.
Another advantage you have is when your competitor is running a campaign and their links are nofollow. You can find domains in similar niches and work with them to get dofollow links. With diligence, you may be able to pull off what your competitors are doing but only better.
FAQs
1. What is a nofollow link?
If a link contains a rel=”nofollow” attribute in its HTML code, then it’s a nofollow link. This tells search engines not to pass link equity or “link juice” from the linking page to the destination page. As a result, nofollow links offer little SEO value.
2. What is a dofollow link?
If a link passes the link equity or authority from the linking page to the destination page, then it’s a dofollow link. But technically speaking, this name is incorrect because there is no rel=”dofollow” attribute in HTML codes.
3. What is a backlink profile?
This is a portfolio of links from all the other websites that link back to your own website. This is an important aspect of SEO because it helps boost your credibility in the eyes of search engines.
4. What makes a strong or healthy backlink profile?
For you to build a strong or healthy backlink profile, your backlinks must come from a variety of authoritative sources that are related to your niche or business.
Cultivating a Healthy Backlink Profile
Backlinks are an important part of your SEO strategy. It is part of ensuring that your website or web pages are relevant, credible, and helpful. This helps you rank higher in search engine result pages. The higher your ranking in SERPs, the more you’ll gain organic traffic.
Using the best tools for monitoring backlinks will help you make sure that the backlinks you get are high-quality and helpful. These tools also help you disavow links that are not that helpful for your backlink profile. Finally, follow the best industry practices in monitoring backlinks to solidify your success in backlink management.
