User Guide
Enter your domain
Type the domain your backlinks should point to — example.com. Any link to that domain counts, whichever page it lands on, and the exact destination URL is reported for each one so you can see if it goes where you expected.
Paste the pages to check
One URL per line, up to 100 per run. Get the list free from Google Search Console → Links → Top linking sites for your own verified site, or from the “referring page” column of any report an agency or guest-post vendor sent you.
Read the six counters
Live, lost, dofollow, nofollow, unique linking domains and pages with issues. “Issues” is the one to look at first — it counts source pages that are noindex or canonicalised elsewhere, where the link exists but passes nothing.
Filter, then export
Tabs isolate live, lost, dofollow, nofollow or problem pages. CSV gives one row per link with every field, ready for a spreadsheet or a vendor conversation; JSON suits a script.
About the Backlink Checker
This tool answers one question properly: are the backlinks you think you have actually there, and are they worth anything? You give it your domain and a list of pages that are supposed to link to you, and it fetches each of those pages live and reports what it finds — the link itself, its anchor text, whether it passes ranking equity, where on the page it sits, and whether the page carrying it is even eligible to pass value in the first place.
It is free, needs no account and no API key, and checks up to 100 pages per run. Everything it reports is read from the live page at the moment you press the button, so there is no index to be out of date and no quota to run out.
What it checks, and why each field matters
Is the link still there? The blunt one. Links get removed — an editor rewrites a post, a site migrates, a vendor quietly drops a link once the invoice clears. Nothing tells you; it simply stops existing.
Dofollow or not. The tool reads the rel attribute and reports nofollow, sponsored and ugc separately, because Google treats all three the same way for ranking purposes: they pass nothing. A link switched from dofollow to nofollow looks identical to a human and is worth a fraction as much.
Anchor text. Reported exactly as it appears, including image links, which show as [image: alt text] or [image, no alt text]. If a link you negotiated with a specific anchor now reads “click here”, you want to know.
Where on the page it sits. Each link is traced up through its parent elements and labelled content, sidebar, footer, navigation, header or comments. This matters more than most people expect: a link in the body of an article carries real weight, the same link repeated in a site-wide footer carries little, and a link in a comment thread usually carries none at all. A vendor selling “a link on a DR60 site” who puts it in the footer has sold you very little.
Is the source page indexable? If it carries a noindex tag, Google leaves it out of the index entirely — and a link on a page Google ignores passes nothing. This is invisible in a browser and is one of the more common ways a paid link turns out to be worthless.
Does the source canonical elsewhere? If the page declares a canonical URL pointing at a different page on the same site, search engines credit that page instead. The link is real, the page is real, and the value goes somewhere else.
How many outbound links the page carries. Flagged above 100. A page linking out to two hundred sites spreads whatever equity it has very thinly — a classic signature of a link directory or a paid-links page.
Whether the source page is alive at all. A 404 or a dead domain is reported with its HTTP status. The link cannot be worth anything if the page carrying it no longer loads.
Why this is not a backlink discovery tool
It will not tell you who links to you. Doing that requires a web-wide crawl index — a continuously updated record of which pages link to which, across the entire web. Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz and Semrush each spend millions of dollars maintaining one, and they sell access to it by subscription. There is no free or open equivalent, and there is not going to be.
So any free tool claiming to show your complete backlink profile is doing one of two things: reselling a small quota of paid API access, or generating plausible-looking numbers from nothing. From the outside you cannot tell which, and the second is more common than most people realise.
We would rather do one job properly than fake a bigger one. Verification is the half of backlink work that genuinely needs doing repeatedly — a profile you pulled six months ago is a historical document, and the only way to know what is true today is to look.
Where to get your list free: Google Search Console, under Links → Top linking sites, lists the pages Google itself has recorded as linking to your verified site. Export it, paste the referring pages into the box above, and you have a full verification pass without paying anyone.
What it cannot see
It reads the HTML the server sends, and does not run JavaScript. A link injected by a script after page load is not in that HTML and will not be found. This is close to what a search crawler sees on its first pass, so a link that is invisible here may well be invisible to Google too — worth investigating rather than dismissing.
Placement detection is a best-effort reading of page structure. It follows HTML5 landmark elements and common class naming, which covers most sites well but cannot be perfect on a page built entirely from unlabelled div elements.
It confirms a link exists, not that Google has counted it. Indexing and crediting are Google’s decisions and no third-party tool can see them. What this tool proves is that the link is present, followable and on an indexable page — the necessary conditions, not the guarantee.
Private and local addresses are refused, by design, so a staging site behind a private IP has to be checked from inside that network.
Reading the results
Work top down. Lost links are the immediate loss — decide whether to ask for reinstatement or write them off. Pages with issues are the quiet ones: the link is there, you may well have paid for it, and it is doing nothing because the page is noindex or canonicalised away. Those are worth raising with whoever placed them.
Nofollow links are not failures. A nofollow from a major publication still sends real visitors and still signals that people reference you. Just do not count them as ranking equity, and do not pay dofollow prices for them.
Then re-run it periodically. Link decay is gradual and silent, and a quarterly check on the links that matter costs a couple of minutes.
Where this fits with the other tools
Verification is one part of a link audit. The Broken Link Checker works in the opposite direction — it tests the links going out from your own pages, so nothing you point at has died. The SEO Site Audit covers the page itself: indexability, meta tags, headings, structured data, security headers and speed, in one pass. Website Speed Test returns genuine Core Web Vitals from Google PageSpeed Insights, and Keyword Density Checker checks whether a page is really about what you think it is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this backlink checker free?
Yes — no account, no email, no credit card and no daily limit. Up to 100 pages per run, with the full report on screen and CSV and JSON exports available immediately.
Can it show me all the websites linking to me?
No, and no free tool can. Discovering every page on the web that links to a site requires a web-wide crawl index, which Ahrefs, Majestic, Moz and Semrush spend millions maintaining and sell by subscription. This tool verifies backlinks you already know about, which is the part that needs re-checking regularly.
Where do I get the list of pages to check?
Free, from Google Search Console: open Links → Top linking sites for a verified site and export the referring pages. Reports from link-building agencies and guest-post vendors also list them, usually in a “referring page” column.
How do I know if a link is dofollow or nofollow?
Every link found is labelled. The tool reads the rel attribute and reports nofollow, sponsored and ugc individually — Google treats all three as passing no ranking value, so any of them means the link is not doing what a dofollow link would.
Why does it matter where on the page the link sits?
Because search engines weight links by context. A link inside the body of an article carries real value; the same link repeated in a site-wide footer carries much less; a link in a comment thread usually carries none. Each link is labelled content, sidebar, footer, navigation, header or comments so you can see what you actually bought.
What does “page is noindex” mean for my link?
It means the page carrying your link has told search engines not to index it, so Google leaves it out of its index — and a link on a page Google ignores passes nothing. It looks completely normal in a browser, which is why it goes unnoticed. It is one of the most common ways a paid link turns out to be worthless.
What does “canonical points elsewhere” mean?
The page declares a different URL as the authoritative version of itself, so search engines credit that other page instead. Your link exists on a real page, and the value goes somewhere you did not pay for.
My link is there but shows as “Not found” — why?
Almost always because the link is added by JavaScript after the page loads. This tool reads the HTML the server sends and does not run scripts, which is roughly what a crawler sees on its first pass — so if the link is missing here, it may be missing for Google too. It is worth checking rather than assuming the tool is wrong.
Can I check a competitor’s backlinks?
You can verify any page you already have a URL for — it only reads publicly served HTML. What you cannot do is discover a competitor’s backlink profile, since that needs the crawl index described above.
Does a nofollow backlink have any value?
Yes, just not ranking equity. A nofollow link from a well-read publication still sends real visitors, still builds recognition, and still signals that people reference you. The mistake is paying dofollow prices for it, or counting it toward a link-building target that was meant to move rankings.
How often should I re-check my backlinks?
Quarterly is enough for most sites, and monthly if you are actively buying or building links. Decay is gradual and silent — posts get edited, sites migrate, vendors drop links once invoices clear — and nothing notifies you when a link disappears.
Why does a page come back as unreachable when it opens fine in my browser?
Some sites accept ordinary visitors while blocking automated requests, typically through Cloudflare or a bot filter, and answer with a 403 or nothing at all. If the page opens for you, the link is fine — the block is on the checking request, not on the page.