Looking for a backlink checker free of charge usually ends in a sign-up wall or a list cut off after a few rows. Free options do exist, and some are good, but each stops at a different point. Below is our pick for checking any site at a small, fixed price per run, then what you can do without paying at all. Nothing to install; all of it works in a browser tab.
Our pick: one run, one price
seogeoaeo.ai is our pick for checking any site, because you pay for each check instead of a big monthly suite. Its Backlink Finder takes any public domain and costs 70 credits per run. The price shows before you click.
For each run you get the 100 strongest sites linking to the domain, each with:
- a link rank from 0 to 1,000
- its number of links and the day its first link was seen
- the share of its linking pages that are followed
- a spam score, with 40 or more out of 100 marked likely spam
You also get 50 link texts, grouped into brand name, web address, generic words, no text and other, and the total number of sites that link in. If nothing is found, the credits come back.
Plans start at $29 a month for 2,000 credits. Top-up packs ($19 for 1,000 credits and up) only work on top of an active plan, but they never expire. There is a free preview on the home page, but it covers your home page's crawl, indexing, on-page and structured data health, not backlinks.
Where it stops: whole domains only, no page-level lookups, no link history and no alerts. Scores come from a data provider and are estimates.
The free options, one by one
1. Google Search Console, for a site you own
If you run the site, this is the best free source there is, because the data comes from Google itself. Verify the site, open Links, and you get three tables: your most linked pages, the domains linking to you, and the text used in those links. Click any row to see the pages behind it.
Where it stops: your own verified sites only. Tables show up to 1,000 rows, and Google says the report is a sample, not every link. It can still list links that were removed, and it doesn't mark nofollow links. The two exports, "Latest links" and "More sample links", reach 100,000 rows each.
2. Bing Webmaster Tools, for a second opinion on your own site
Bing's free webmaster console has its own backlinks view for verified sites. It is a different crawler from Google's, so it may surface links Search Console skips.
Where it stops: again, only sites you can verify.
3. Ahrefs Free, for your own site with filters
Ahrefs' free tier (once called Ahrefs Webmaster Tools) lets you see up to 1,000 backlinks at a time for sites you verify, with sorting and filters. Ahrefs also has a free version of its public Backlink Checker, which it describes as a glimpse of the paid tool.
Where it stops: the full view is for verified sites; the public checker is a preview. Paid Ahrefs plans start at $29 a month for Starter and $129 for Lite.
4. Moz Link Explorer, for any site, ten times a month
A free Moz Community account gives you 10 Link Explorer queries a month on any domain. You get linking domains, link text, spam score, followed versus nofollow links, and recently found and lost linking domains.
Where it stops: ten queries. Fine for a curious look at one fan site or a rival's page; tight if you check several domains every month.
How the options compare
| Option | Any site? | Free limit | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| seogeoaeo.ai Backlink Finder | Yes | No free lookups; 70 credits a run | Quick, priced checks on any domain |
| Google Search Console | Own only | Free; 1,000-row tables | Google's view of your site |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Own only | Free | A second crawler's view |
| Ahrefs Free | Own only (full view) | Free; 1,000 backlinks at once | Filtering your own links |
| Moz Link Explorer | Yes | 10 queries a month | Occasional free lookups |
Tips that cost nothing
- Count linking sites, not links. One forum linking from a thousand threads is one site.
- Don't mix numbers from two tools. Each has its own index, so totals never agree.
- Ignore scary scores on random scraper sites. Google's disavow help says most sites never need to disavow anything.
- Check the pages people link to still load. A link to a deleted page is wasted; a redirect brings it back.
If you just want to know who links to a site, start with Search Console for your own and a single Backlink Finder run for anyone else.