Thread: What is the best tool for checking backlinks?

Originally Posted by Wim Verhoef

In fact SEOMoz backlinkchecker can be used Free for a limited amount (5) per day and gives nice information like Anchortexts used and the authority of the site.

Thank you but I mentioned SEOmoz (Open Site Explorer) in my opening post and it has been suggested and commented on a number times since. Registering increases the information given (and removes the limit of 5 searches per day) but the results are still limited.

Originally Posted by Wim Verhoef

Very reliable results are also provided by Alexa. As you may know, you also get a pretty good idea of Traffic to your own site as well ( important) the Traffic to sites of competitors.

I am not sure about Alexa at all, the traffic results are only gathered from those who have their toolbar and the number of sites Alexa monitors is only about 9% of the total sites on the internet. When I looked at the backlinks for my own site it showed 352 linking domains whereas GWT shows 730.

Originally Posted by Altinkum Homes

I tried SEMrush as a free member, it only showed 23 backlinks for me.

Yeah I used SEMrush before and they will only show limtied number of backlinks and other reports when it is for free. Even when you are using a promo code account.

When you are a paid user with a paid account, you can make use of their other tools which is very helpful in mostly keyword research and competitor analysis.

I use majestic SEO and SEO Powersuite.

Originally Posted by manhattanscout

What is "Backlink"? What are you using Rank Checker? For useless PR checking?

It is a little frustrating when answers are not explained properly I think that for Rank Checker they mean Spyglass as it is part of that software package, and for backlink it is probably backlinkwatch. (Rank Checker by the way if for checking SERP not PR.)
But both these have been suggested already anyway.

Use SEO elite to check backlinks of your competitors. You can also use iwebtool.

Usually I always use a combination of OSE and Majestic SEO. Previous to SEOmoz's latest funding (before they really beefed up OSE) I had always used Majestic SEO only.

The reason Majestic is fantastic is the sheer amount of links they are able to find. OSE only seems to find the really high quality links that alot of competitors aren't able to match. However, Majestic SEO shows you a huge amount of links that you could easily copy. Majestic also has a great historical link index that shows how links have been built over time to a domain. In the free version they will show you a few links. Although I think the lowest paid version is worth every penny if you are trying to perform SEO. If you aren't performing SEO and you simply want to see your links you could pay for a month and then cancel.