zaDojoHow to check backlinks to any website
How to check backlinks to your site or a competitor's, what to look at in the results, and what to do next. Free methods first.
To check backlinks to your own site, open the Links report in Google Search Console, which is free and shows the sites Google has found linking to you. To check backlinks to any other site, such as a competitor, use a backlink checker: enter the domain and it lists the linking sites, the pages they link to and the anchor text. Our free backlink checker does this with no account.
Below is what to look for once you have the list, and how to go further when the free view is not enough.
Check your own backlinks for free
Google Search Console: open Links in the left menu. You get top linking sites, top linked pages and top anchor text. You can export the lists. It only works for sites you have verified, and Google shows a sample rather than every link.
Bing Webmaster Tools: has its own Backlinks report for verified sites. Its index differs from Google's, so it can show links Search Console leaves out.
Check any site's backlinks for free
Search Console cannot show a competitor's links. For that you need a tool with its own link index. The free backlink checker returns four summary numbers (domain rank, total backlinks, referring domains and broken links) plus the 15 strongest linking sites, one link from each, with the linking page, anchor text, target page and follow status. No signup, one free search a day across the free tools.
What to look at
| Signal | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Referring domains | How many separate sites link in. Matters more than total backlinks, because one site can link thousands of times from a footer. |
| Follow or nofollow | Followed links pass ranking value. Nofollow links still bring visits and are normal in any profile. |
| Anchor text | The clickable words. Mostly brand names and URLs is natural. Lots of exact keyword anchors can look manipulated. |
| Linked pages | Which pages attract links. Often the homepage, tools, data and guides. |
| Lost and broken links | Links that disappeared, or point to pages that now return an error. Both are worth fixing. |
| Trend | A sudden drop can mean a sitewide link was removed or a page moved without a redirect. |
What to do with the results
- On your own site: redirect linked pages that now return 404, ask sites with broken or lost links to update them, and note which of your pages earn links so you make more like them.
- On a competitor's site: list sites that link to two or more competitors but not to you. They already link in your topic and are the most likely to link to you too. The Link Prospecting skill turns this into an outreach list.
- Before targeting a keyword: check the links behind the pages ranking for it. It is part of finding competitor keywords you can actually win.
If a profile looks spammy, the spam score checker gives a quick second opinion. Open the linking pages yourself before you act on any score.
Doing it in zaDojo
The free checker stops at a summary and 15 sites. In a zaDojo project:
- Open Domains, then Backlinks.
- Enter a domain, subfolder or URL and choose the scope.
- Read the 12-month charts (backlinks and referring domains over time, new against lost links), then open the Backlinks, Referring Domains or Top Pages tab.
- Filter by follow status or words in the URL or domain, hide lost or broken links, or show one link per domain.
- Export to CSV or Google Sheets.
A backlink overview with 12 months of history costs about €0.10, and each further page of detailed link rows about €0.03. Exports use no credits. Twenty checks a month come to roughly €2 of the €10 in usage included with the €10 monthly plan. New accounts get €0.10 of trial credits with no card. More on the backlinks feature page.
With the zaDojo MCP server connected, an agent can do the comparison for you: "List sites that link to competitor-a.com and competitor-b.com but not to mysite.com, and skip anything with a high spam score."
Limits to know
- No tool sees every link on the web. Counts come from each provider's own crawl, so they differ between tools and from Google. Compare sites inside one tool.
- Authority and spam scores are third-party estimates, not Google metrics.
- Trend charts need a whole hostname. For a single page or folder you get totals without history.
Questions people ask
Why does my backlink checker show fewer links than I expected? Each tool has crawled only part of the web, and new links take time to be found. Search Console is the best source for your own site.
Can I see who links to a competitor? Yes. Backlinks are public, so you can check any domain without owning it.
Should I disavow bad backlinks? Usually not. Google says it ignores most spammy links on its own. Disavowing is for links you or a past agency built that broke Google's rules, or after a manual action in Search Console.
To decide which pages deserve links in the first place, start with keyword research.