17 Best Backlink Checker Tools for Small Business (Free and Paid)
Published June 27, 2025
What if the secret to outranking your competitors was hiding in plain sight, on their websites? Backlinks aren’t just digital handshakes; they’re trust signals Google watches closely. For small businesses, knowing who’s linking to whom can mean the difference between page 10 and position one.
But here’s the catch: not all backlink tools are created equal. In this guide, we’ve curated the 17 best backlink checkers, both free and paid, to help you uncover hidden opportunities, spy on your rivals, and boost your SEO. Ready to take control of your link strategy? Let’s dive into the tools that give you the edge.
What Makes a “Good” Link Profile
When was the last time you thoroughly examined your backlink profile, rather than just skimming it? If your answer is “never” or “last quarter,” you’re not alone. Many website owners pour their energy into creating content and chasing link-building tactics, but rarely take a hard look at what’s already pointing to their site.
Here’s the kicker: not all backlinks are created equal. Some can be harmful, others useless. Only a few drive real SEO impact.
Think of your link profile like a financial portfolio. Would you invest blindly? Probably not.
Then why let your backlinks go unchecked?
Your Reader is You: Frustrated, Curious, and Ambitious
SEO can feel like chasing smoke. You optimize, publish, tweak, and still wonder why your rankings haven’t moved. Sound familiar? That’s because backlinks, one of the most potent ranking signals, are often misunderstood.
Most site owners get stuck wondering if their links are good enough or why they lost a high-value domain. This post exists because we’ve all been there. That creeping doubt.
That question, “Am I doing this right?” This article was written for that moment, and for you. Because if you’ve ever Googled “how to check backlinks,” You’re in the right place.
Why Backlink Analysis Is Your SEO Power Move
Here’s something bold, keyword research is not enough. Your content? Not enough. Technical SEO? Also, not enough.
Without a healthy, strategic backlink profile, you’re playing chess without the queen. The truth? Backlinks are like votes of trust, but Google reads how they vote. Toxic, irrelevant, or suspicious backlinks don’t just hurt, they penalize.
A solid backlink audit gives you the blueprint to fix weaknesses, find opportunities, and benchmark against the competitionYou’re If you want real results, backlink analysis isn’t optional, it’s foundational. And we’re about to show you how to dominate it.
1. Ahrefs: The Industry Titan
Ahrefs is like having an SEO spy satellite. It doesn’t just show you who’s linking to you, it shows how everybody links to everybody. With one of the largest backlink indexes online, it’s the tool SEOs trust for competitive research, toxic link audits, and content gap analysis.
2. Semrush: The Swiss Army Knife of SEO
Semrush is an all-in-one SEO suite, but don’t sleep on its backlink toolkit. The Backlink Audit, Backlink Gap, and Link Building Tool trio makes it easy to find what you’ve got, what you’re missing, and how to get it. What makes Semrush different? It doesn’t just analyze links, it helps you build a pipeline for outreach with built-in email tools.
3. Moz Link Explorer: The Trust Builder
Moz doesn’t just tell you who links to you, it gives each link a “spam score” and trust metric called Domain Authority (DA). That alone changed the way SEOs measure link quality. With Link Explorer, you can dissect anchor text, discover new opportunities, and even see “linking domains by page authority.”
4. SEO SpyGlass (by SEO PowerSuite): The Offline Beast
Here’s a twist: SEO SpyGlass isn’t cloud-based. It runs locally, meaning no monthly subscriptions and full control over your data. You get deep backlink analysis, historical comparisons, anchor text diversity, and a helpful Penalty Risk score.
5. Ubersuggest: The Beginner’s Best Friend
If SEO tools overwhelm you, Ubersuggest is the fix. Built by Neil Patel himself, it’s designed to be simple, fast, and visual. Just enter a domain and you’ll instantly see backlinks sorted by authority, anchor text, and growth trend.
6. Majestic: The Math Nerd of Backlinks
Majestic doesn’t care much about keywords, it lives and breathes links. It gives you metrics like Trust Flow and Citation Flow that predict how strong a link actually is. It even maps out your entire link neighborhood using visual graphs.
7. LinkMiner: Visual, Focused, Affordable
LinkMiner from Mangools is all about backlink clarity. It’s laser-focused on backlinks, not bloated with unrelated SEO features. The interface is simple, showing you metrics like Citation Flow, Trust Flow, and even a preview of the linking page.
8. Monitor Backlinks: Real-Time Alerts, Real Peace of Mind
Imagine getting a Slack-style ping every time you gain (or lose) a backlink. That’s Monitor Backlinks. It’s built around automation, daily tracking, alerts, and reporting.
9. Linkody: Light, Lean, and Cloud-Based
Linkody is like a Fitbit for your backlink profile. You get email alerts, backlink status updates, and link metrics like DA and spam score. Bonus, it connects with Google Analytics to help show you which backlinks are actually driving traffic.
10. CognitiveSEO: The Link Forensics Lab
CognitiveSEO is what happens when data meets detective work. It’s especially good at identifying unnatural link patterns, risky anchors, and negative SEO threats. Its Unnatural Link Detection tool visualizes your risk exposure like a medical chart, green for healthy, red for danger.
11. BuzzSumo: Content Meets Link Intelligence
BuzzSumo is famous for content insights, but its Backlinks tool is underrated. Plug in a URL or domain and see exactly who’s linking to your top-performing content. It’s built for content marketers who care less about technical SEO and more about amplification.
12. SERanking Backlink Checker: Budget-Friendly, Feature-Rich
SE Ranking flies under the radar, but it’s surprisingly stacked. Their backlink checker gives you total link counts, anchor text breakdowns, referring domains, and even toxic link flags. The UI is clean, the price is friendly, and the reports are agency-ready.
13. Google Search Console: Free, Direct From the Source
Sometimes the best backlink tool… is the one Google gives you. Search Console won’t give you all your backlinks, but it will give you the ones Google thinks matter. That alone makes it critical.
14. Mangools (Backlink Miner + SERPChecker): Simple and Sweet
Mangools is an SEO suite with a fun, colorful interface that makes it feel less intimidating. Their LinkMiner tool (covered above) shines on backlinks, while SERPChecker helps you see which results dominate rankings, and why. You can analyze which pages have strong link profiles and which ones are ripe for disruption.
15. RankWatch: India’s Hidden Gem
RankWatch is growing fast, especially in Asian and European markets. Its backlink tool shows live, lost, and new links with helpful metrics like Alexa Rank, Citation Flow, and social shares. You can also see top linking domains by country, which is rare.
16. LRT (Link Research Tools): The Nuclear Option for Link Audits
Link Research Tools isn’t for casual users. It’s for when your site gets hit with a manual penalty, or when you’re doing serious forensic SEO. LRT combines dozens of data sources to flag risky links and unnatural patterns at scale.
17. Sistrix: German Engineering, SEO Style
Sistrix is built for precision. While it’s not as well-known in the US, it’s hugely popular in Europe, especially for enterprise and eCommerce SEO. The Link Module gives you historical data, country-level filters, and smart metrics like Visibility Index to correlate links with ranking changes.
FAQs
What is the best tool to check backlinks?
The best backlink checkers are tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz. They show who links to your website and help you grow more links.
How to build 100 backlinks in 30 days or less?
Write good content that people want to share. Then use email and tools like BuzzStream to ask websites to link to you.
Does Google have a backlink checker?
Yes! Google has a free tool called Search Console. It shows some backlinks to your site, but not all of them.
What is a Majestic tool?
Majestic is one of the 10 best backlink checkers. It helps you see links, trust scores, and how strong a website is.
What is BuzzStream used for?
BuzzStream helps you find websites and send emails to get backlinks. It’s great for link building and outreach.
Final Thoughts
Backlinks help your website grow. With the best backlink checkers, you can see who links to your site and find ways to get more links. Some tools are free, and some cost money, but all can help your website rank better on Google.
If you don’t know where to start, that’s okay. At Correct Digital, we use the 17 best backlink checkers and expert tools to help you. We’ll take care of the hard stuff so you can focus on your business.
Need help? Contact us today to grow your site the smart way.
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About The Author
Rei Bayucca has a wealth of knowledge and experience as a professional writer for multiple industries. It is her mission to ensure that her readers receive high-quality, informative content that is both entertaining and educational. Through her writing, Rei aims to educate and motivate readers.
