Backlinks remain one of the most influential ranking signals in search. Every link pointing to your site acts as a vote of confidence, telling Google and increasingly AI search engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity that your content is worth referencing.
But here's the challenge: many marketers, founders, and agency teams don't have a reliable process for actually checking which backlinks point to their domains, which ones are helping, and which might be hurting. Without this visibility, you're essentially flying blind on a core pillar of your SEO strategy.
This guide walks you through exactly how to check backlinks in Google using free and paid tools, starting with Google's own Search Console, and then how to analyze, audit, and act on what you find. Whether you're a solo founder monitoring a single domain or an agency managing dozens of client sites, you'll leave with a repeatable, step-by-step workflow you can run monthly.
There's also a dimension here that goes beyond traditional search. As AI models increasingly pull from authoritative, well-linked sources to generate answers, understanding your backlink profile is becoming essential for AI visibility too. A strong backlink profile doesn't just help you rank on Google. It signals to AI engines that your brand is a trustworthy source worth citing in their responses.
Let's get into it.
Step 1: Pull Your Backlink Data from Google Search Console
Google Search Console is the only free, first-party source of backlink data that comes directly from Google itself. If you're not starting here, you're missing the most authoritative signal available to you at no cost.
To access your backlink data, log into Search Console and navigate to Links in the left sidebar. You'll see two main categories: External Links and Internal Links. For backlink analysis, focus on External Links. This section breaks down into three views you'll want to review.
Top Linked Pages: This shows which pages on your site receive the most external links. Pay attention to whether your highest-priority pages, like your homepage, product pages, or cornerstone content, are actually earning the most links. If a random blog post from three years ago is your most-linked page, that's worth investigating.
Top Linking Sites: This lists the domains sending the most links to your site. Scan for recognizable, authoritative names. You should also look for anything unfamiliar, which may warrant further investigation in later steps.
Top Linking Text: This shows the anchor text most commonly used when other sites link to you. This data feeds directly into your anchor text audit in Step 4.
To do a thorough analysis, export this data. Click the "Export External Links" option to download a CSV or open it in Google Sheets. Export all three views: top linked pages, top linking sites, and top linking text. This becomes your working dataset for the rest of the workflow.
One critical thing to understand before moving forward: GSC provides a sampled dataset. It does not show every backlink Google has indexed. It shows a representative subset that Google has chosen to surface. This means you may have links that GSC isn't reporting, and the absence of a link in GSC doesn't mean Google hasn't discovered it.
If you haven't verified your property in Search Console yet, do that first. You have two options: URL prefix verification (covers a specific URL like https://yoursite.com) and domain verification (covers all URLs and subdomains across your entire domain). For most backlink analysis purposes, domain verification gives you a more complete picture. Google provides several verification methods including HTML file upload, DNS record addition, and Google Analytics or Tag Manager integration. Choose whichever fits your technical setup.
Once your property is verified and your exports are ready, you have your baseline. For a deeper walkthrough on finding backlinks using Google's tools, see our guide on how to find backlinks in Google Search. Now let's fill in the gaps GSC leaves behind.
Step 2: Cross-Reference with Third-Party Backlink Tools
GSC is essential, but it's not the whole picture. Because it only surfaces a sample of your backlinks, relying on it alone means you're making decisions with incomplete data. Third-party tools crawl the web independently and often surface links that GSC doesn't report, giving you a more complete view of your backlink profile.
The most widely used options are Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz. Each maintains its own link index, and the size and freshness of those indexes vary. Beyond raw link counts, these tools layer on useful metrics like Domain Rating or Domain Authority (depending on the tool), which give you a quick signal of how authoritative a linking domain is. They also show you anchor text distribution, link type (dofollow vs. nofollow), and whether links are new or lost.
Here's how to run the cross-reference:
1. Pull your full backlink report from your chosen third-party tool and export it as a CSV.
2. Open both your GSC export and the third-party export side by side in Google Sheets or Excel.
3. Compare the top linking domains in each. You'll likely find overlap, but you'll also find domains that appear in one list but not the other. Links that appear in the third-party tool but not GSC may still be influencing your site's authority, even if Google hasn't surfaced them in your console view.
4. Flag any domains in the third-party report that look unfamiliar or suspicious. These become candidates for quality review in Step 3.
If you're not ready to invest in a paid tool, there are free alternatives worth knowing about. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is free for verified site owners and provides genuine backlink data, including referring domains, anchor text, and link metrics. It's one of the most valuable free tools available for this purpose. Ubersuggest offers a free tier with limited backlink data, which can be useful for quick spot checks. You can also use Google's site: operator in search (for example, site:yourcompetitor.com) for a rough sense of indexed pages, though this doesn't show you who links to a site.
You can also explore dedicated tools to view backlinks in Google for additional options that complement your third-party data.
Step 3: Analyze Link Quality and Spot Red Flags
Not all backlinks are created equal. A single link from a highly relevant, authoritative publication can carry more weight than hundreds of links from low-quality directories. This step is about separating the valuable from the neutral, and the neutral from the genuinely harmful.
When evaluating link quality, focus on these signals:
Relevance of the linking domain: A link from a marketing blog to your marketing SaaS is relevant. A link from a cryptocurrency forum to the same site is not. Relevance signals to both Google and AI engines that the link is editorially earned rather than artificially placed.
Domain authority: Use the Domain Rating (Ahrefs) or Domain Authority (Moz) score as a quick proxy for how authoritative the linking site is. Higher scores generally indicate more established, trusted domains. Use this as a directional signal, not an absolute rule.
Link placement: An editorial link embedded naturally within the body content of an article carries significantly more weight than a link stuffed in a footer, sidebar, or author byline. When reviewing links, check where on the page they appear.
Anchor text diversity: We'll go deeper on this in Step 4, but at this stage, flag any linking domain that uses the exact same keyword-rich anchor text every time it links to you. That pattern is unnatural.
Red flags to watch for include sudden spikes in new links from unrelated or low-quality domains, which can indicate a negative SEO attack or a legacy link-building campaign catching up with you. Over-optimized anchor text, where many links use the exact same keyword phrase, is another warning sign. Links from private blog networks (PBNs) or obvious link farms, characterized by thin content, no real traffic, and links pointing to many unrelated sites, should be flagged as potentially toxic.
Create a simple three-tier classification in your spreadsheet:
High-value: Relevant, authoritative domain, editorial placement, natural anchor text.
Neutral: Low authority but not harmful, or relevant but with minimal SEO impact.
Toxic: Spammy domain, irrelevant, suspicious patterns, or links from known link farms.
This classification also matters beyond traditional search. AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity tend to reference brands and sources that appear frequently in high-quality, well-linked content. A backlink profile full of authoritative, relevant links signals trustworthiness to these systems, making it more likely your brand gets cited in AI-generated responses. Understanding how to improve organic search ranking starts with getting this quality assessment right.
Step 4: Audit Your Anchor Text Profile
Your anchor text profile tells a story about how your backlinks were earned. A natural story looks varied and organic. An unnatural one looks engineered, and Google's Penguin algorithm is specifically designed to identify and penalize that pattern.
Start by pulling your anchor text data from both GSC (the Top Linking Text view) and your third-party tool. Combine them into a single sheet and group anchors into categories:
Branded anchors: Your company name, domain name, or product name. For example, "Sight AI" or "trysight.ai".
Naked URLs: Links where the anchor text is just the URL itself, like "https://yoursite.com".
Generic anchors: Phrases like "click here", "read more", "this article", or "visit this page".
Keyword-rich anchors: Anchors that include your target keywords, like "how to check backlinks in Google".
A healthy backlink profile contains all four types. The concern arises when keyword-rich anchors dominate the distribution. If a large proportion of your links use exact-match keyword anchors, that pattern is widely recognized across the SEO industry as a potential trigger for algorithmic scrutiny, particularly since the Penguin algorithm update.
If your audit reveals that your anchor text is skewed heavily toward exact-match keywords, the fix isn't to remove links. It's to shift your future link-earning strategy. Prioritize earning links with branded or natural anchors through PR campaigns, guest contributions to relevant publications, and content marketing that naturally earns citations. Knowing how many keywords to use for SEO on each page also helps you avoid over-optimization across your entire site.
Document your current anchor text breakdown as a percentage of total links, and track how it shifts month over month. This gives you a measurable signal that your link-earning efforts are moving in the right direction.
Step 5: Disavow Toxic Links (When Necessary)
Here's the honest truth about the disavow tool: most sites don't need it. Google's own John Mueller has stated in multiple Search Central office hours sessions that Google is generally effective at ignoring low-quality links on its own. The algorithm is sophisticated enough to discount obvious spam without you needing to manually intervene.
That said, there are specific situations where disavowing makes sense. If you've identified a significant volume of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links, particularly from a legacy link-building campaign that used manipulative tactics, or if you believe you're the target of a negative SEO attack, the disavow tool gives you a mechanism to tell Google to ignore those links when assessing your site.
Before you touch the disavow tool, try manual removal first. Reach out to the webmaster of the linking site and request that the link be removed. Document your outreach attempts. This is Google's recommended first step, and it sometimes works, particularly for smaller sites that are responsive to contact requests.
If manual outreach fails, here's how to create and submit a disavow file:
1. Create a plain text file (.txt) listing the domains or specific URLs you want to disavow. To disavow an entire domain, use the format: domain:spammydomain.com. To disavow a specific URL, list it directly.
2. Navigate to the Google Search Console Disavow Tool (search for it directly, as it's not prominently linked within the main GSC interface).
3. Select your property and upload the disavow file.
The most common mistake in this process is being too aggressive. Disavowing links from domains that are actually neutral or even beneficial can remove positive signals from your profile. Only disavow links you've classified as genuinely toxic after a careful review. If your site still isn't performing well after cleaning up toxic links, it may be worth checking whether your pages are properly indexed in Google as well.
Step 6: Build a Monthly Backlink Monitoring Workflow
Checking your backlinks once is useful. Checking them monthly is what actually moves the needle. Backlink profiles are dynamic: links are gained, lost, and changed constantly. A recurring workflow ensures you catch problems early, capitalize on new opportunities, and track the real impact of your link-building efforts over time.
Here's how to structure your monthly review:
Set up alerts in your backlink tool. Both Ahrefs and Semrush allow you to configure email notifications for new and lost links. Enable these so you're not waiting until your monthly review to learn about significant changes. A sudden spike in new links or a large batch of lost links is worth knowing about immediately.
Run your monthly GSC pull. Export the External Links data from Search Console and compare it to your previous month's export. Note any new top linking sites and any that have dropped off. This doesn't need to be exhaustive. A 20-minute review is enough to spot meaningful changes.
Review new links for quality. Any new linking domains that appeared this month should go through the quality classification from Step 3. Flag anything suspicious early rather than letting a toxic link sit unreviewed for months.
Track link velocity trends. How many new referring domains did you gain this month compared to last month? A steady, gradual increase is healthy. A sudden, massive spike can raise algorithmic flags, even if the links appear legitimate. Track this number month over month in a simple spreadsheet.
Correlate with rankings and traffic. Layer your backlink growth data alongside your keyword rankings and organic traffic trends. Using a reliable method to track your Google ranking makes this correlation much easier to identify. If you earned ten high-quality links this month and organic traffic increased two months later, that's a signal worth documenting.
This is also where platforms like Sight AI become a natural complement to your workflow. While your backlink tools tell you who's linking to your site on the traditional web, Sight AI tracks how AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity are referencing and mentioning your brand in their responses. Since AI engines tend to cite well-linked, authoritative sources, your backlink authority and your AI visibility are increasingly connected. Monitoring both gives you a complete picture of how your brand appears across the full search landscape, not just Google. You can also generate a website ranking report for Google to consolidate your performance data in one place.
Your Monthly Backlink Audit Checklist
Building a backlink monitoring habit is what separates teams that consistently grow organic traffic from those who treat SEO as a one-time project. Here's your quick-reference checklist to run every month:
1. Log into Google Search Console and export your External Links data: top linked pages, top linking sites, and top linking text.
2. Pull your full backlink report from your third-party tool (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, or Ahrefs Webmaster Tools if you're on the free tier) and compare it against your GSC export.
3. Classify new linking domains as high-value, neutral, or toxic using the quality signals from Step 3: relevance, domain authority, link placement, and anchor text patterns.
4. Review your anchor text distribution and check whether the ratio of branded, naked URL, generic, and keyword-rich anchors is shifting in a healthy direction.
5. If toxic links have accumulated, attempt manual removal outreach first. Use the disavow tool only for confirmed toxic links where outreach has failed.
6. Track your referring domain count month over month and correlate link growth with changes in keyword rankings and organic traffic.
7. Check your AI visibility alongside your backlink data to understand how your brand is being referenced across AI platforms, not just traditional search.
Backlink authority has always mattered for Google rankings. But as AI-powered search continues to grow, that same authority increasingly determines whether AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity mention your brand in their responses. The two are more connected than most marketers realize.
Stop guessing how AI models talk about your brand. Start tracking your AI visibility today and see exactly where your brand appears across top AI platforms, alongside the traditional backlink monitoring workflow you've just built. Together, they give you the complete picture of how your brand shows up across every channel that matters in 2026.
