Backlink Scraper — Backlink Analysis, Audit & Anchor Text

Get the backlinks of any website — every linking page, its anchor text, dofollow, dates, spam score and strength. For SEO audits, link building and competitor research. Filter by dofollow, strength and spam before you pay, and switch to lost links or one link per referring domain in one click.

🆓 Free to start: 5 domains a month on the free plan · the first 20 backlinks of each in full · the next 25 shown with their strength, dofollow and dates.

🎯 What it does

You give one or more domains (example.com), subdomains (blog.example.com) or pages (https://example.com/pricing), one per line.

You get one row per backlink: the linking page and its title, the anchor text and the words around it, which of your pages it points to, dofollow or not, when it was first and last seen, and how strong and how spammy it is. Every row also says how many backlinks the domain has in total.

What you won't get numbers from another SEO tool. Strength and spam scores are this index's own 0–100 scales, and totals can differ from other tools that crawl the web differently.

Filters narrow the list before anything is charged: dofollow only, a minimum strength of the linking site, a maximum spam score, live or lost links, and one link per referring domain or per anchor text.

📦 Output sample

Every backlink is one row. Here is what a row holds:

• The link — sourceUrl, sourceTitle, sourceDomain, targetUrl, anchor, textBefore, textAfter, linkType, dofollow, relAttributes, linkLocation, linksFromPage; imageUrl and imageAlt for image links.
• When — firstSeen, lastSeen, previousSeen, isNew, isLost.
• How good it is — backlinkRank, sourcePageRank, sourceDomainRank, spamScore, isBroken, sourceKeywordsTop3, sourceKeywordsTop10, sourceKeywordsTop100, sourceExternalLinks, sourceInternalLinks.
• The linking site, your page and the row — sourceCountry, sourceLanguage, sourceTld, sourceIp, sourcePlatformTypes; targetStatusCode, targetRedirectUrl, targetSpamScore, isIndirect, indirectPath when known; target, totalBacklinks, position, rowStatus, note, scrapedAt.

A real row for mediakix.com, with the defaults:

{
  "target": "mediakix.com",
  "totalBacklinks": 27247,
  "position": 1,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.calendar.com/blog/7-time-wasters-taking-away-from-your-productivity/",
  "sourceDomain": "www.calendar.com",
  "sourceTitle": "7 Time Wasters Taking Away From Your Productivity - Calendar",
  "targetUrl": "http://mediakix.com/2016/12/how-much-time-is-spent-on-social-media-lifetime/",
  "anchor": "study",
  "linkType": "anchor",
  "dofollow": true,
  "relAttributes": null,
  "linkLocation": "article",
  "textBefore": "According to a",
  "textAfter": "by influencer marketing agency Mediakix, the average person spends 40 minutes per day on YouTube...",
  "imageUrl": null,
  "imageAlt": null,
  "linksFromPage": 1,
  "firstSeen": "2023-07-28T23:40:00.000Z",
  "lastSeen": "2026-08-29T10:28:21.000Z",
  "previousSeen": "2026-04-13T21:29:48.000Z",
  "isNew": false,
  "isLost": false,
  "backlinkRank": 40,
  "sourcePageRank": 65,
  "sourceDomainRank": 61,
  "spamScore": 0,
  "isBroken": false,
  "sourceCountry": "US",
  "sourceLanguage": "en",
  "sourceTld": "com",
  "sourceIp": "172.67.75.35",
  "sourcePlatformTypes": ["unknown"],
  "sourceExternalLinks": 26,
  "sourceInternalLinks": 53,
  "sourceKeywordsTop3": 0,
  "sourceKeywordsTop10": 0,
  "sourceKeywordsTop100": 4,
  "targetStatusCode": null,
  "targetRedirectUrl": null,
  "targetSpamScore": null,
  "isIndirect": false,
  "indirectPath": null,
  "rowStatus": "ok",
  "note": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-05T19:20:00.000Z"
}

A value the index does not have is null, and every row carries every key. The three target… status columns are filled for some domains and empty for others.

Views — 2 ways to look at the same rows, in the Storage → Dataset tab:

View	What each row is	Best for
Backlinks (default)	One backlink, trimmed to the link, its anchor, dofollow, strength, spam score and dates	Link building and competitor research
Backlink audit	The same rows, trimmed to dofollow, rel attributes, spam score, lost and broken flags and your page's status	Cleaning up a link profile

The full per-field schema is published in .actor/dataset_schema.json — that's also what AI agents see when they call the actor through Apify's MCP server.

⚡ Quick start

A minimal input that works on the free plan:

{
  "targets": ["mediakix.com"]
}

Run it once and open the Storage → Dataset tab: you'll see the domain's strongest backlinks first. Add filters to narrow the list.

🧭 When to use it

• Audit your own backlinks — find spammy, lost and broken links before they hurt your rankings.
• Study a competitor — see who links to them, with which anchor text, and pitch the same sites.
• Find link-building targets — keep dofollow links from strong, clean sites with one link per referring domain.
• Track link building work — sort by newest to see which links a campaign earned, or by recently seen to watch them stick.
• Check a domain before you buy it — an expired or for-sale domain's backlinks show whether it is worth the price.

🛠 Input

The input form has two sections:

Section	Purpose
🎯 Which site	The domains or pages to check, and how many backlinks to return for each
🔬 Filters	Which backlinks come back: live or lost, dofollow, strength, spam, grouping and order

Highlights of the most useful fields:

• targets — one domain, subdomain or page URL per line. A home-page URL counts as the whole domain.
• maxBacklinksPerTarget — how many backlinks each domain returns, strongest first. Default 100, up to 20,000.
• backlinkMode — all backlinks, one per linking domain (a referring-domains list), or one per anchor text.
• linkStatus — live links, lost links, or both.
• dofollowOnly, minDomainRank, maxSpamScore — keep only links worth having.
• sortBy — strongest first, newest first, or recently seen first. It decides which backlinks a limit keeps.

💰 How much will scraping backlinks cost?

You pay per backlink delivered and per domain looked up, with Apify's Pay Per Event model:

Event	Free	Bronze	Silver	Gold and up	Charged when
Backlink	$0.0045	$0.0036	$0.0032	$0.0029	A backlink lands in your dataset in full
Domain lookup	$0.05	$0.04	$0.035	$0.031	A domain or page is checked — also when it has no backlinks

Filters work before you pay: a backlink they drop is never charged. A lookup that could not be completed is not charged either.

Pricing math

You check	Plan	Approx cost
1 domain × 100 backlinks (the default)	Bronze	$0.40
1 domain × 1,000 backlinks	Bronze	$3.64
10 domains × 100 backlinks	Bronze	$4.00
1 domain with no backlinks	Bronze	$0.04
5 domains on the free plan	Free	up to $0.70 of your free credit

Set Maximum cost per run in the run options to cap any run; the actor stops exactly there and says so.

🆓 Free vs paid plan

	Free plan	Paid plan
Domains per month	5	Unlimited
Backlinks per domain in full	20	Up to 20,000
More backlinks shown locked	The next 25 — strength, dofollow and dates visible, the linking page hidden	—
Filters, lost links, grouping	✓	✓

Upgrade to a paid plan to see every backlink in full and check as many domains as you like.

🧪 Filter recipes

Copy-paste inputs for the most common jobs:

Link-building targets: one strong, clean dofollow link per site

{
  "targets": ["competitor.com"],
  "maxBacklinksPerTarget": 500,
  "backlinkMode": "onePerDomain",
  "dofollowOnly": true,
  "minDomainRank": 30,
  "maxSpamScore": 10
}

Backlink audit: the spammiest links first in view

{
  "targets": ["example.com"],
  "maxBacklinksPerTarget": 1000,
  "linkStatus": "all"
}

Open the Backlink audit view and sort by spamScore.

Lost links: what disappeared recently

{
  "targets": ["example.com"],
  "linkStatus": "lost",
  "sortBy": "recentlySeen"
}

📡 Live status & storage records

While the run is in progress, the actor exposes:

Storage key	Type	What it holds
status.html	HTML page	Live progress, backlinks saved and cost so far. Open it from the run's Storage tab.
RUN_SUMMARY	JSON	Per domain: total backlinks in the index, backlinks delivered and shown locked; lookups, prices and the stop reason.
USER_MESSAGE	JSON	What happened and what to change — written on every run that returned no backlinks.
FREE_LIMITS_APPLIED	JSON	The free-plan limits that applied to this run. Empty on paid plans.

These are stable, machine-readable surfaces — pull them through the Apify API for dashboards or post-processing.

🤖 Programmatic / API use

Run the actor from your own code or AI agent:

REST API (start a run, poll for completion):

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/afanasenko~backlink-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"targets": ["mediakix.com"], "maxBacklinksPerTarget": 100}'

MCP / agentic clients (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Mastra, …):

The actor is automatically exposed as a tool through Apify's MCP server at mcp.apify.com. Once your MCP client is connected to your Apify token, an LLM can run it with instructions like "List the dofollow backlinks of competitor.com from sites with rank above 30".

💡 Tips & Best Practices

Getting maximum results

• Check a competitor's whole domain, not its home page: a home-page URL already counts as the domain.
• Use one link per referring domain to see how many sites link, not how many pages.
• Switch on lost links to find sites that linked before — they are often happy to link again.

Cost optimization

• Put filters in the input, not in your spreadsheet: a backlink a filter drops is never charged.
• Start with the default 100 per domain. Raise the limit only for the domains that matter.
• Remove typos before a big run: a domain with no backlinks still costs one lookup.

Performance

• A page of up to 1,000 backlinks comes back in about a second.
• Domains are checked one after another when a run has a cost limit, so a long list adds about a second per domain.
• 20,000 backlinks for one domain are 20 pages of 1,000 — about a second each.

Data quality

• Spot-check five links in a browser before you act on a big list.
• Read spamScore together with sourceDomainRank: a strong site with a high spam score is rare and worth a look.

❓ FAQ

Q: How do I check the backlinks of a website? A: Put the domain in Domains or URLs and click Start. The dataset lists its backlinks, strongest first.

Q: Is there a free backlink checker? A: Yes. The free plan checks 5 domains a month and shows the first 20 backlinks of each in full — see Free vs paid plan.

Q: How do I find the referring domains of a site? A: Set Backlinks to return to One per linking domain. You get one row per site that links, with its strongest link.

Q: What are the best backlink checker alternatives? A: Large SEO suites sell this data by monthly subscription. Here you pay per backlink, so a one-off audit costs cents and lands in a spreadsheet.

Q: Is "domain rank" the same as Domain Rating or Domain Authority? A: No. It is this index's own 0–100 strength score. It ranks sites in a similar way, but the number will not match other tools.

Q: Why did a domain with no backlinks cost a lookup? A: The check itself is the work, whether it finds links or not. A lookup that could not be completed is not charged.

Q: Why do I see null in some columns? A: null means the index has no value for that link — for example no anchor on an image link. Every row carries every key, so a spreadsheet keeps its columns.

Q: What do the locked rows on the free plan mean? A: They are real backlinks of the same domain. Their strength, dofollow and dates are shown; the linking page is hidden until you upgrade.

Q: Can I check a single page instead of a whole domain? A: Yes — paste the full URL, for example https://example.com/pricing. You get only the links that point to that page.

Q: How fast is it? A: About a second for a page of up to 1,000 backlinks, so a run of 10 domains with the defaults spends about 10 seconds on lookups.

Q: What if a domain cannot be checked? A: The run retries, then moves on. The domain is named in the run's message and is not charged; run it again in a few minutes.

🔗 Other related actors (same author)

You start with…	You want to find…	Use this actor
A domain or a page	Its backlinks, anchor text and referring domains	This actor
A company that links to you	The people to contact there, by job title	LinkedIn People Search

Use this actor to find the sites; use LinkedIn People Search to find who runs them.

🛟 Support & feedback

• Open an issue in the actor's Issues tab — the fastest way to get a fix shipped.
• Feature requests go in the same tab; we read every one.
• Ratings & reviews on the Apify Store page help other users find the actor.

⚖️ Is it legal to scrape backlinks?

Yes — a backlink is a public link on a public web page, and this actor reports only what anyone can see by visiting those pages. It does not log in anywhere or touch private content. Courts in the US have upheld collecting public web data (hiQ Labs v. LinkedIn); see Apify's guide on whether web scraping is legal. Use the data in line with your local laws.

📋 Changelog

See ./CHANGELOG.md.