Monitoring Backlinks: Why, How, And The Tools To Use

By Sabahat Ali – Link building expert since 2009 – 668+ clients served

Spending up to $193K for building backlinks is a HUGE investment. And DEFINITELY, you expect returns. For that, you MUST monitor your campaigns.

You MUST know if your link building campaigns are successful. If not, why? What caused the issue? And where did it start?

In short, monitoring your backlinks is critical to enjoying the benefits of link building. In the process, you’ll have answers to these quintessential questions:

• What links are broken?
• Are your links now spammy?
• More importantly, what links are active?

BONUS: you get to spy on your competitors’ backlinks.

So, monitor your backlinks. Don’t know how?

This article will guide you!

Before Monitoring Backlinks: Do You Have Any?

Without an active link building campaign, monitoring backlinks is futile. It’s even impossible.

BTW, ACTIVELY build links to your site — especially your money websites. That is the way to gain visibility online.

At Serpreach, we advise businesses and individuals to invest in link building. When done using SAFE strategies, the results are AMAZING.

Our clients are testimonies — so we know!

Without an active link building campaign, you could earn links if you have linkable assets. In this case, you have backlinks.

Whether passive or active backlinks, below are the tools for monitoring them.

9 Tools For Monitoring Backlinks

A little head start: we’ll discuss the how-to of the best tool. You can easily replicate the guides and monitor the progress of your backlinks live.

The BEST Tool For Monitoring Backlinks

Ahrefs

In the world of SEO, Ahrefs need no introduction. It is one of the best anywhere — and that rule still applies for monitoring backlinks.

So, how can you monitor your backlinks with Ahrefs?

• Visit Backlink Checker

Unfortunately, you’ll see the backlinks but be unable to explore them.

With a $99 monthly subscription, on the other hand, you can explore all the metrics.

Do you have a subscription? Yes?

• Go to Site Explorer
• Type your URL into the search bar
• You’ll get a snapshot of your backlink profile. You can then dig deep into your referring domains, broken links, anchors or competitors’ pages.

In the backlink profile, for example, you can filter the results as you see fit. Also, you can filter your search by “new or lost,” or “dofollow or nofollow” links.

Alternative tools: Semrush, Moz, and SE Ranking; they offer the same value as Ahrefs.

The Others

Google Search Console + SEO SpyGlass

GSC, Google Search Console, by itself, can only do so much when it comes to monitoring backlinks. And that’s okay since the tool is designed to improve websites’ overall performance.

However, all the limitation narrative changes when GSC is combined with SEO SpyGlass. The two used together can be a super-effective backlink management tool.

So, how does the setup work?

• First, inspect your website on GSC.
• Check the “top linked pages – externally” > “top target pages.” You’ll find the pages on your site with the most backlinks.
• Also, you will see the number of “incoming links” and “linking sites” for the pages.

Unfortunately, the list is limited to the 1000 results and just the “number” metrics. That is where SEO SpyGlass comes in!

• Click the “export” tab to further analyse the data from GSC on SEO SpyGlass.

Outside the GSC and Google Analytics integration, SEO SpyGlass has several other features for monitoring backlinks. For example, the “domain comparison” tool can help close the backlink gap between you and your competitors.

OpenLinkProfiler

Compared to SEO SpyGlass, OpenLinkProfiler is a more robust tool for backlink management. It has a backlink checker and link diagnosis.

The link diagnosis, in particular, can be life-saving. With it, you can check your backlinks by page or the entire website.

Furthermore, OpenLinkProfiler can tell you how much influence a backlink (or backlinks) has on a ranking. It ranks the “influences” using the “link influence score.”

More importantly, OpenLinkProfiler can generate several reports. With it, you can:

• Compile a list of your recently-acquired backlinks — up to 1000 links
• Export your backlinks per domain — up to 200K links per domain

BTW, this tool is also FREE — like GSC and SEOSpyGlass.

Monitor Backlinks

Compared to OpenLinkProfiler, GSC and SEO SpyGlass, “Monitor Backlinks” is not free. Nevertheless, it is still affordable at a $20 monthly subscription.

Before the subscription, you can test the tool for 30 days for FREE. Within that time, you will know if your $20 will be well spent.

Here’s a sneak peek, regardless:

Simple yet robust, Monitor Backlinks does more than manage your links. It can perform other functions — advanced.

Below are the top ones:

• Spying on competitors for link building opportunities and loopholes
• Setting up alerts when backlinks are lost
• Creating and uploading disavow files to Google

Also, you can monitor black hat links using this tool. Even better, you can disavow such links before they tank your rankings on search results.

Lastly, and most importantly, “Monitor Backlinks” has a “ranking tracker.” With it, you can track your or competitors’ rankings for “select keywords.”

Seobility

Seobility is almost similar to OpenLinkProfiler but with more features. It has a user-friendly dashboard, does competitors’ backlink analysis, measures “link influences”, and can also generate several reports.

However, Seobility reveals more. With it, you will explore details such as:

• The dofollow/nofollow state of your backlinks
• The anchor texts used to house the links
• The link type — text, images, or videos

Beyond the detailed reporting, you can audit and manage your content with Seobility.

However, there are a few limitations.

Unfortunately, you can only inspect your backlinks thrice daily. The maximum result for each inspection is 400 links — the best of the lot.

Linkio

Linkio has a standout capacity — unlike the other tools on this list. While Linkio can manage and monitor 10K backlinks monthly, it is first an outreach tool.

With Linkio, you can set your link building campaign and cold outreach on autopilot. It can build and reach out to prospects.

What about the backlink monitoring function?

Linkio is just as robust in monitoring backlinks as in outreach. In fact, it has a separate segment just for that — with its crawlers.

Linkio backlink monitoring is as detailed as “the top 3s.” It can:

• Check and notify you if your backlinks are altered or removed
• Reveal the index status of your links
• Reveal the nature of your anchor texts — if they are URL, keyword, branded, or hybrid
• Confirm if your backlink is a dofollow or nofollow
• Integrate metrics from third-party tools like Ahrefs and Moz.

Despite the many juicy features on Linkio, it only costs $19.99. The price is almost FREE.

Linkody

Linkody is like Linkio; it is also a dedicated tool. The only difference is that Linkody is built for monitoring backlinks.

As a result, Linkody is a robust backlink management tool “through and through.

Plus, Linkody is relatively affordable. The subscription is $14.90 for 2 domains monthly per user.

So, what will the $14.90 get you?

Below are the top features of Linkody.

• Track new and lost backlinks.
• Alert systems for new backlinks.
• Integration with third-party tools like Moz and Majestic.
• Check the spam scores, domain authority, and anchor of your backlink source and disavow the links if they are shady.

Since we mentioned “domain authority,” how great is your site’s DA? Need help?

Read this article on how to increase domain authority!

Majestic

Majestic provides a top-notch tracking and management system for backlinks. The tool uses a 4-rating system to check the quality of backlinks.

• Citation Flow — the number of links pointing to a site
• Visibility Flow — the number of high-quality editorial links pointing to a site
• Trust Flow — the quality of the backlinks
• Topical Trust Flow — the relevancy of the backlinks to your site

With the 4-rating system, Majestic can help you tell a quality link from a spammy type in seconds. With it, you can predict your links’ best anchor.

Also, Majestic reveals if a link is dofollow or nofollow. More importantly, it shows the ratio.

However, all the GREAT features on Majestic come at a cost. The monthly subscription is $49.99.

What’s New?

Backlink Monitoring Tool in Google Sheet

In March 2023, Sunny Kumar [SEO & Digital Marketing Guru] said he made $547 selling a backlink monitoring sheet.

Now, we have not tested this tool. But according to its description on Product Hunt, “Backlink Monitoring Tool in Google Sheet” is a GPT-4 intervention.

You only need to input your links into the Sheet, and monitoring will be straightforward.

On the product’s landing page, here are listed features:

Monitoring Your Backlinks Is Crucial To The Success Of Your SEO

The capital and energy investment in link building aside, monitoring your backlinks is crucial to any successful SEO campaign. Without monitoring, you won’t know what methods work and how to fix issues.

In essence, be as intentional with monitoring your backlinks as creating them. And fortunately, you have all the tools you need to track and manage the links.

So, start it today; check and track your backlinks!