The backlink analysis shows you how many links from other websites point to your domain, how trustworthy they are and which of them no longer work.
What are backlinks?
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. For search engines it's a kind of recommendation, and many links from reputable pages on similar topics speak for your content. A few poor or abandoned links, on the other hand, don't help, and in the worst case they hurt.
Prerequisites
You need an account you're signed in with and a project with a stored domain (see Account: domain and password). The analysis always runs against the domain of your active project. If the project or domain is missing, a notice appears with the link "Set up project".
Open the analysis
Open Backlink Analysis in the navigation. The figures are there right away, you don't have to click anything.
The metrics
| Metric | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Total Backlinks | All links pointing to your domain |
| Referring Domains | How many different websites these links come from |
| Domain Rank | Authority score of your domain from 0 to 100: the higher, the better |
| Spam Score | Probability of spam backlinks in percent: the lower, the better |
| Broken Backlinks | Links that are no longer reachable |
| Internal Links | Internal links on your domain |
| External Links | Links leading from your domain to the outside |
The number of referring domains usually says more than the number of backlinks: 1,000 links from a single site are worth less than 50 links from 50 different sites.
The charts
- Link profile: a ring shows all backlinks, split into Reachable and Broken, with the total in the middle.
- Authority and quality: domain rank and spam score side by side. Both run from 0 to 100, but in opposite directions. For domain rank high is good, for the spam score low is.
Age of the figures
Below the figures is the status line. The values are cached for up to 24 hours, and "just retrieved" means they are completely fresh. If a refresh doesn't work, you see "Last known state" with a date, and the values are no longer current.
Retrieve backlink details
For the particulars there is Backlink Details. These queries only run on click, because each one costs money at the data provider:
| Button | Result |
|---|---|
| Referring Domains | The websites that link to you |
| Total Backlinks | The individual links with source and target |
| Pages | Which of your pages receive how many links |
In the Rows field you choose how many entries to fetch. More rows cost more.
How to use the results
- Fix broken links: if a backlink points to a page of yours that no longer exists, redirect it with a 301 to a suitable other page. Then the link's value isn't lost.
- Keep an eye on the spam score: a high value points to many low-quality links. Look at the sources in the details.
- Recognize strong pages: the pages overview shows which content attracts links. It's worth doing more on those topics.
- Build on sources: the referring domains reveal where people write about you. Similar sites are candidates for further links.
- Don't check daily: referring domains and domain rank tell you something over weeks, not days.
Frequently asked questions
The page shows "Set up project"
Your account is missing a project or its domain. Enter it in the account and open the backlink analysis once more.
Why do the values not change?
The values are cached for 24 hours. New links also only appear once the data provider has found them, and that often takes a few days.
Why does the number differ from other tools?
Every provider has its own data set and calculates differently. Compare the development inside one tool rather than absolute numbers between different tools.
Why can I not analyze another domain?
The analysis only exists for the domain of your own project.