9 Best Free Backlink Checkers and Monitoring Tools in 2026

Backlinks are one of the strongest ranking signals in both SEO and AEO — but building them is only half the job. Checking and monitoring them is the other half, and it's just as important.

The good news? You don't need an expensive tool to stay on top of it. The bad news? Most "free" backlink checkers aren't as free as they look.

That's why, for this article, we tested 9 of the best free backlink checker tools to give you an honest overview of:

• What metrics can you access on the free tier
• What limitations each tool has
• How to choose the best tool for your needs

Let’s start with the main question first.

Most of the tools on our list are backlink checkers: you type in a domain, get a snapshot of its backlink profile, and that's it. The data doesn't update on its own. If you want to see what's changed, you have to run the check again and compare manually.

A monitoring tool does that comparison for you. It tracks a domain over time and flags new and lost backlinks automatically, sometimes through email alerts or dashboards. Here’s how you could approach both:

Use a backlink checker when you need to:

1. Research a competitor's link profile
2. Vet a potential link partner before reaching out
3. Run a one-off audit or quick sanity check

Use a backlink monitoring tool when you need to:

1. Track an active link-building campaign over time
2. Get alerted automatically when you gain or lose links
3. Report on link-building progress week over week

Before diving into the list, here's what matters when evaluating a backlink checker tool:

• Data freshness. Outdated backlink data is worse than no data. Look for tools that crawl and update their index regularly.
• Depth of free access. Some tools show you 10 backlinks for free, others show 100. Know the ceiling before you commit to a workflow.
• Key metrics included. At minimum, a good free checker should show you dofollow/nofollow status, anchor text, and some form of domain authority metric.
• Competitor analysis. The ability to check any domain, not just your own, is what makes a backlink checker useful for research.
• No sign-up required (or low friction). The best free tools let you run at least a basic check without creating an account.

Here are the nine tools we reviewed, including how much you can use them for free and what backlink data they provide:

Collaborator's Free Backlink Checker is powered by SE Ranking data and built around one idea: not just showing you backlinks, but helping you act on them.

You can run up to 5 checks per day without signing up, and 20 per day with a free account. No credit card required.

What you get for free:

• Up to 50 strongest backlinks and 50 most recent backlinks
• Domain and Page InLink Rank for each link
• Anchor text and dofollow/nofollow attributes
• Newest backlinks to track fresh link activity

What makes it stand out: If a referring domain is listed in the Collaborator marketplace, the tool flags it instantly. So you're not just seeing who links to a competitor, you're seeing which of those links you can go and acquire right now, without leaving the page.

Limitations:

• The free tier caps you at 100 backlinks per search (50 strongest + 50 newest)
• Data is refreshed on a 90-day cycle for 58% of the index
• Not a replacement for a full SEO suite if you need deep historical analysis

Ahrefs' free backlink checker is backed by one of the largest backlink databases in the industry (493 billion pages indexed, updated every 15 minutes). It's handy for quick competitor checks or getting a fast read on a domain's authority. That said, the free tool is openly positioned as a teaser.

What you get for free:

• Domain Rating (DR) of the checked domain
• Total backlink count and number of linking websites
• Dofollow percentage breakdown
• Up to 20 backlinks with referring page and anchor text

Limitations:

• Twenty backlinks is enough to get a feel for a site's profile, but not enough to do any real analysis.
• No dofollow/nofollow column, no filtering, and no historical data.
• URL Rating is only available via their browser extension, not in the free checker itself.
• For more advanced metrics, paid plans start at €27/month.

SEOptimer is an SEO audit and reporting tool, and the Backlink Checker is one of their free tools available alongside the main product. No sign-up needed, just drop in a URL and you're looking at results in seconds.

What you get for free:

• Domain Strength and Page Strength scores
• Total Backlinks and Referring Domains
• Nofollow vs. Dofollow split, plus Edu and Gov backlink counts
• Top 8 Backlinks with domain strength, referring page, and anchor text
• Top 10 Pages by Backlinks
• Top Anchors by Backlinks
• Top Referring Domain Geographies (TLDs and countries)

Limitations:

• No way to see the full backlink list, just the top 8 results
• Ongoing backlink monitoring (email alerts, change tracking) lives in paid plans starting at $39/month.

Moz Link Explorer is an SEO tool for conducting backlink monitoring. It does require a free account to use Link Explorer, but no credit card is needed. You can also download the reports on each of the metrics for your convenience.

What you get for free (with an account):

• 10 searches per month, with up to 50 rows of data per query
• Domain Authority for the overall domain, and Page Authority on top pages and top followed links
• Top anchor text and follow/nofollow breakdown
• Lost link tracking, useful for finding links you've lost over time
• Top Pages report (limited to the 5 pages on the free tier)

Limitations:

• You'll need to create a free account to use it
• Capped at 10 queries and 50 rows per query, per month, resets monthly
• Full access requires Moz Pro, starting at $99/month

SEO Review Tools offers one of the more generous free backlink checkers on this list. It displays up to 100 backlinks per search without requiring an account, making it useful for quick website checks and competitor research.

What you get for free:

• External backlinks, Domain Authority, Referring Domains, and Referring IPs as headline numbers
• Up to 100 backlinks, sorted by Domain Authority score
• Anchor text and follow/nofollow status for each link
• Most popular anchor text and most popular linked URLs tabs

Limitations:

• Capped at 100 backlinks per check, with no way to see the full list for free
• Backlink data isn't real-time since new links need to be crawled and indexed first

Seobility runs its own backlink crawler and has its own metric called Link Rating, a percentage score calculated for each individual backlink. No account or sign-up is needed, but you're limited to 3 checks per day.

What you get for free:

• Domain Rating, total backlinks, and referring domains as headline metrics
• Access to a large number of backlinks per check, paginated 10 per page (around 600 backlinks for a site like HubSpot in our test)
• Link Rating (percentage score) for each individual backlink
• Link source (referring page title and URL) and link anchor with target URL
• Follow/nofollow and text/link type tags per backlink

Limitations:

• Only 3 checks per day without an account
• The "free trial" upsell auto-renews into a $50/month Premium plan unless cancelled

Semrush runs one of the largest backlink databases out there — 43 trillion backlinks and 390 million referring domains, refreshed at least hourly. Their free backlink checker works without creating an account, but it's limited to 3 checks per day.

What you get for free:

• Authority Score
• Total backlinks and referring domains count
• Dofollow backlinks percentage
• A list of 5 individual backlinks with anchor text and target URL

Limitations:

• Only 3 checks per day without an account
• Just a few backlinks visible per check, not the full list
• Competitor comparison and deeper data are locked behind "See what other sites are doing"
• For full access, you'll need Backlink Analytics, which requires a paid plan starting at $199.95/month (One Starter)

Backlink checker from NP Digital is a free tool offered by Neil Patel, and it runs on his own backlink index. You can run a check without an account, but you only get 1 free search a day. After that, it'll ask you to sign up before you can check another domain.

What you get for free:

• Domain Authority, Referring Domains, and total Backlinks (with nofollow count) as headline metrics
• Up to 100 backlinks in the table, each with Domain Authority, Page Authority, Spam Score, anchor text, first seen, and last seen dates
• Filters for Follow/ No Follow/One Link Per Domain
• Advanced filtering by region, anchor text, domain score, page score, and URL
• Competitive analysis to find links pointing to competitors but not to you
• CSV export

Limitations:

• Only 1 free search per day without an account
• Capped at 100 backlinks per check
• Historical trend charts (backlinks and referring domains over time) are locked behind "Unlock Your Free Access"

SE Ranking's backlink checker is often listed among free tools, but it's worth knowing upfront: it's free for first-time users only, with a 14-day trial. So, think of it as a generous trial rather than a permanently free tool — but with a database of 2.9 trillion backlinks and 411 million referring domains, it's well worth trying if you haven't already.

What you get for free (during the trial):

• Total backlink count and referring domains
• Domain and Page Trust scores
• Dofollow/nofollow ratio
• Anchor text breakdown
• Lost and gained backlinks
• Competitor backlink analysis

Limitations:

• Not permanently free — returning users will be redirected to a paid plan
• Free trial lasts 14 days only
• Full access starts at $65/month after the trial ends

Now that you've seen all 9 free backlink analysis tools in action, here's how to narrow it down to the right one for you. Ask yourself:

• How many backlinks do you need visibility into? If you're checking a small or new site, a 50-100 backlink cap from tools like Collaborator, SEO Review Tools, or Ubersuggest is plenty. For an established domain with thousands of links, you'll hit that ceiling fast and want something with deeper access, like Seobility's paginated results or Moz's exportable reports.
• Do you mind creating an account? Ahrefs, Semrush, SEO Review Tools, Ubersuggest, and Collaborator all work without signing up. SE Ranking and Moz require a free account, and SE Ranking's free access only applies if you've never signed up before.
• How often do you need fresh data? If you're actively building links and want to catch changes quickly, look at tools that surface gains and losses directly, like Moz's discovered/lost domains or SE Ranking's near-real-time index. For an occasional audit, any of the others will do.
• Do you need page-level detail, or just a domain overview? Ubersuggest and Neil Patel's checker give you Spam Score and Page Authority per individual link, useful for disavow decisions. SEOptimer and SEO Review Tools lean more toward domain-level summaries with a handful of standout backlinks.
• Are you checking your own site, competitors, or both? Every tool on this list works for any domain, so this one's covered no matter which you pick.

Match these against the comparison table above, and the right tool for your workflow should be clear. And if you're looking for a broader set of software, we also have a list of 12 best link building tools covering prospecting, outreach, and digital PR, too, not just backlink checking.

As you can see, there are plenty of free backlink checker tools out there, but “free” can mean very different things depending on the platform. Some tools give you a quick snapshot, others show more backlink rows, and a few include useful monitoring or competitor analysis features.

Hopefully, our comparison gave you a clearer understanding of what metrics, limits, and account requirements to expect before you start testing them yourself.