How to Conduct a Backlink Audit: Tips, Tools, & Examples

Doing a backlink audit is important to check how well your SEO is working and how healthy your website is. It lets you see which links are helping your site and which ones might be doing harm. A good audit gives you useful information to help plan your content better.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to do a backlink audit using easy-to-use tools. We’ll also share helpful tips to improve your link profile and get better results.

Why You Should Conduct Regular Backlink Audits

Doing regular backlink audits can really help your website. You’ll be able to find both strong and weak links and see which websites are linking to you. It also helps you make sure your anchor texts (the words used in links) are varied and useful for your keywords. This makes your website look more trustworthy and can help improve your search rankings and bring in more visitors.

For example, take GoPure, a skincare brand. Their audit showed that nearly 50% of their backlinks came from images. To do better, they should try to get more text-based links that include relevant keywords.

Backlink audits also help spot problems. If you suddenly get lots of low-quality links, it can hurt your search ranking. Catching this early lets you fix it before it causes more harm. You can even find links you’ve lost and try to get them back.

These audits are also important during big changes like moving your website. SEO expert Taylor Scher did an audit after a client changed their website URLs. This change caused the loss of half their backlinks. After checking, he fixed the problem by setting up redirects to the right pages.

Lastly, backlink audits help you understand what your competitors are doing. You can see where they get their links from, what pages they link to, and what kind of anchor text they use. This gives you ideas to improve your own strategy.

Before You Begin: Pick a Backlink Audit Tool

Checking backlinks by hand takes a lot of time and effort. To save time, it’s better to use a tool made for backlink audits. Here are five tools that make the process much easier:

1. Semrush:

Semrush helps you check your backlinks using over 50 factors. It shows things like link quality, anchor text, and which websites link to you. You can connect your Google Analytics account to see how much traffic you get from each link. It also gives smart tips, like showing if your traffic has dropped recently.

With Semrush, you can send emails right from the tool. You can ask website owners to fix or remove certain links. You can also keep track of who responds, all in one place.

2. Ahrefs:

Ahrefs gives you a full list of your backlinks with helpful details. It shows each site’s rating, traffic, anchor text, and more. You can use filters to find the links you want. For example, search for pages with titles that include words like “SEO” or “link building.”

Ahrefs also lets you compare your links with your competitors’. It shows you sites that link to them but not to you. This helps you find new places to get links from.

3. Moz:

Moz gives a quick overview of your backlink profile. You can see which links you gained or lost in any time period. Its “Link Intersect” tool shows links your competitors have that you don’t.

Moz also helps you compare your backlink quality with your competitors’. You can check spam scores, link types, and page authority. This can guide you to improve your own link-building.

4. Majestic

Majestic has two backlink reports:

• One shows links found in the last 4 months
• The other shows all links ever found for your site

It gives a “Trust Flow” score to show how reliable a site is.
“Citation Flow” shows how many links a site has. If you have many links with low trust, it might mean spam.

Another feature, “Topical Trust Flow,” checks if the linking site covers similar topics to yours. This helps you see if your backlinks are relevant.

5. SE Ranking:

SE Ranking shows the trust score of your domain and pages. It checks 15 factors like anchor text and dofollow/nofollow links.

The tool gives you charts to see how your backlinks grow over time. You’ll also see how much traffic and trust each domain gives. You can track which links or domains you gain or lose in real time.

How to Do a Backlink Audit

A backlink audit is not just about fixing broken links. It helps you check your website’s health and find ways to improve your SEO.

Here is a simple step-by-step guide:

1. Look at Your Backlink Profile:

Start by checking your current backlinks. This gives you a clear picture of your site’s overall performance.

Let’s look at some key things to check:

Website and Page Authority

These scores show how well your website or pages might rank in search engines.

• Website authority tells you how strong your whole site is.
• Page authority shows how well a single page can rank.
• The higher these scores are, the better your site’s chances of ranking.
• Every backlink tool shows these scores.

You can use them to:

• See if your link-building is working.
• Check the value of new or lost backlinks.
• Link strong pages together to improve results.

Referring Domains

Search engines like links from trusted websites. They help show that your content matches what people are looking for. Tools like Semrush show 100 websites linking to you, along with what they focus on. This helps you find links from websites that don’t match your brand. Then, you can decide whether to remove those links.
Link Velocity

This shows how fast you gain or lose links. Getting too many links too quickly, especially from poor websites, can lead to search engine penalties. So, it’s important to watch how your backlinks grow over time. Tools like Ahrefs help you track this easily.

Link Placement and Link Types
Links placed in the main content of a page are stronger than ones in the footer or sidebar. Checking where your links are placed helps you understand their power.

There are also different types of links you should know:

• Dofollow: Passes value to your site
• Nofollow: Doesn’t pass value
• UGC: Made by users (like in comments)
• Sponsored: Comes from paid partnerships

Ahrefs can show you where your links are and what type they are.

2. Check Each Link One by One:

Not all backlinks are the same. Links from good, trusted websites help your SEO. But low-quality links can hurt your site.

To check link quality, start with anchor texts. Anchor text is the clickable part of a link. It tells search engines what the linked page is about.

For example, if a page about CRM tools links to Salesforce using the words “best CRM,” search engines will understand that Salesforce is related to CRM tools.

A good backlink profile has a mix of anchor text types:

• Branded (like “Salesforce”)
• Keyword-based (like “best CRM”)

But be careful: using the same keywords too often can hurt your SEO. Search engines might see it as over-optimization and lower your rankings. You should also check for toxic backlinks.

These are harmful links that can drag down your rankings. Tools like Semrush can help you spot bad links. It checks over 45 signs to tell if a link is toxic. For example, spammy forums or paid link networks can be red flags.

If you find bad links, ask the website to remove them. If they don’t, you can disavow them (tell search engines to ignore them).

Another thing to check is broken links. These are links that go to pages that no longer exist. They lead to 404 error pages, which creates a bad experience for users.

You also lose link value and traffic from broken links. SE Ranking shows which links are broken and where they come from. You can fix this by setting up redirects or asking for the links to be updated.

3. Remove or Get Back Lost Backlinks:

It’s normal to lose some backlinks over time. But if you lose a link from an important website, it’s worth trying to get it back.

Here’s how to do that:

Step 1: Find out why the link was removed. Was it due to a website update, a new design, or a change in content?

Step 2: Write a short and clear message to the site owner asking them to add your link again.

When writing your message:

• Share the exact page where your link used to be.
• Explain how your link helped the reader and fit the topic.
• If the original content is gone, suggest a new place where your link can go.

4. Check What Competitors Are Doing:

Backlink audits are also helpful to see how you compare with your competitors.

When you look at your competitors’ backlinks, you can:

• See how your link-building efforts compare
• Learn what backlink strategies your competitors use
• Find weak spots in your own backlink profile
• Discover new places where you could also get backlinks

Start by checking how fast your competitors are gaining backlinks. Are they getting more backlinks than you?

Next, look at their top pages, the ones with the most backlinks. This can show you:

• What type of content gets the most backlinks (like blog posts or research articles)
• What kind of websites are linking to them (like news sites or industry blogs)
• How do they reach out to get those links (guest posts, partnerships, etc)

Once you know what’s working for them, use similar ideas to grow your own backlinks.

5. Find New Places to Get Backlinks:

After cleaning up and studying your backlinks, the last step is finding new ways to get more.

One easy way is the broken link method. Here’s how:

• Look for websites that link to a competitor’s page that no longer exists (a 404 page)
• Reach out to those site owners and ask them to replace the broken link with a link to your page on the same topic

You can also find brand mentions that don’t link to your site.

• Search for websites that mention your brand or product but don’t include a link
• Contact them and kindly ask for a link, explaining how it will help their readers

Another smart move is to look at where your competitors are getting links from. Then, reach out to those same websites and ask them to also consider adding your brand.

Let’s say you offer an SEO tool, and you find a list on a site like Zapier that talks about the best calendar tools, but they didn’t include yours. You can send a friendly pitch asking them to add your tool and even offer to help them test it for review.

Keep Your Backlink Profile Strong

Doing backlink audits often helps you keep your website in good shape. It helps you spot problems, fix bad links, and find new chances to get better ones.

By doing this regularly, you’ll build a stronger backlink profile that supports your SEO and helps your website perform better.