Backlink Checker

Backlink Checker returns the backlinks of any domain, subdomain or page URL as a flat table: one row per link with the linking page URL, anchor text and the text around it, dofollow / nofollow, the domain rank and page rank of the linking site (0–100), a spam score, first seen and last seen dates, and new / lost / broken flags. The same Actor also lists referring domains, the anchor text profile, and runs a link gap analysis: domains that link to your competitors but not to you.

The data comes from a licensed, continuously crawled backlink index read through its API — no scraping of Ahrefs, Moz or Semrush, so there is no login wall, no captcha and nothing that breaks when those sites change their pages. $0.008 per row on the free plan, $0.0072 on Bronze and $0.0056 on Gold. Error rows are free, and there is no fee per run.

What is Backlink Checker?

It is a backlinks API and Ahrefs alternative for link builders, SEO agencies and anyone who needs a website's link profile in a spreadsheet or a pipeline. You enter a domain (example.com), a subdomain (blog.example.com) or a single page (https://example.com/blog/post), choose what you want back, and get rows you can sort, filter and export:

• 🔗 Backlinks — one row per link (or the best link of each linking domain), sorted strongest first.
• 🌍 Referring domains — one row per domain that links to the target, with its backlink count, dofollow/nofollow split and first-seen date.
• 🏷️ Anchors — one row per anchor text, with the number of linking domains and backlinks behind it and a computed anchor type (branded, URL, generic, keyword, empty).
• 🥊 Link gap — one row per domain that links to your competitors and not to you, flagged with which competitors it links to. These are your warmest outreach prospects.

What it is not: the ranks are not Moz Domain Authority or Ahrefs Domain Rating. They are a PageRank-style 0–100 score computed by the backlink index this Actor reads. They sort sites in a similar order (in our test run the strongest linking domains of ahrefs.com were sites.google.com, iubenda.com and podcasts.apple.com at 100), but the exact numbers differ from Moz or Ahrefs, as those also differ from each other.

What data can Backlink Checker extract?

🔗 Backlinks (mode backlinks, the default)

Real values from the default run on ahrefs.com (one link per referring domain, dofollow only):

Field	Example	Meaning
target	ahrefs.com	The domain or page you checked
urlFrom	https://www.adobe.com/express/learn/blog/target-audience	Page that contains the link
domainFrom	www.adobe.com	Domain of the linking page
urlTo	https://ahrefs.com/	URL the link points to
anchor	Ahrefs	Anchor text (alt text for image links)
anchorType	branded	Computed: branded, url, generic, keyword or empty
textPre / textPost	…tools you can use to check a competitor's website traffic, like / and Semrush…	Text around the link
dofollow	true	false = nofollow
linkType	anchor	anchor, image, redirect, canonical, alternate, meta
domainFromRank	79	Domain rank of the linking site, 0–100
pageFromRank	33	Page rank of the linking page, 0–100
linkRank	20	Rank this link passes to the target, 0–100
spamScore	0	Spam score of the link, 0–100 (higher = spammier)
isNew / isLost / isBroken	false / false / false	New on the last crawl / removed / points to a 4xx–5xx page
firstSeen / lastSeen	2023-11-13T03:45:13.000Z / 2026-09-01T22:03:58.000Z	When the crawler first and last saw the link
linksFromDomain	10	All links from this domain to the target
linksOnPage	1	Identical links on the linking page
pageFromTitle	How to identify your target audience in 5 steps	Title of the linking page
pageFromExternalLinks	7	Outgoing links on the page (hundreds = link-farm signal)
pageFromKeywordsTop10	179	Google top-10 keywords of the linking page — a real-traffic signal
domainFromCountry, domainFromIp, domainFromPlatform, pageFromLanguage	WW, 23.76.204.156, …	Where and on what platform the linking site runs
semanticLocation	main	HTML element the link sits in (main, article, footer, …)
attributes	noopener	rel attributes: nofollow, ugc, sponsored, …
imageUrl, imageAlt, isIndirect, urlToStatusCode	null, null, false, 200	Image links, links through redirects, status of the linked page

🌍 Referring domains (mode referring-domains)

domain, rankPassed (rank the domain passes to the target, 0–100), backlinks, dofollowBacklinks, nofollowBacklinks, referringPages, spamScore, brokenBacklinks, topLinkType, country, firstSeen, lostDate, isLost.

🏷️ Anchors (mode anchors)

anchor, anchorType, referringDomains, referringMainDomains, backlinks, dofollowBacklinks, nofollowBacklinks, referringPages, rankPassed, spamScore, firstSeen, lostDate, isLost. Sorted by the number of linking domains, so the first rows show what the anchor profile is made of — and whether it looks natural (mostly branded and URL anchors) or over-optimised (many exact-match keyword anchors).

🥊 Link gap (mode link-gap)

Real values from a link gap of scrapingbee.com and zenrows.com against apify.com:

Field	Example	Meaning
domain	proxyplox.com	Domain that links to competitors but not to your sites
competitorsLinked	2	How many competitors it links to
linksToCompetitors	["scrapingbee.com","zenrows.com"]	Which ones
missingCompetitors	[]	Competitors it does not link to (match = any)
notLinkingTo	["apify.com"]	Your sites it does not link to
bestRankPassed	32	Highest rank it passes to any competitor, 0–100
backlinksToCompetitors	286	Its backlinks to all competitors combined
dofollowBacklinksToCompetitors	286	Dofollow part of them
firstSeen	2026-07-15T…	Earliest link to a competitor
competitorDetails	[{competitor, backlinks, dofollowBacklinks, rankPassed, firstSeen, spamScore}]	Per-competitor numbers

How much does it cost to check backlinks?

Backlink Checker uses pay-per-event pricing with one event, backlink: one charge per delivered row, in any mode — a backlink, a referring domain, an anchor or a link-gap domain. The free plan is 20% below the most-used backlink checker in Apify Store ($0.01 per backlink plus $0.015 per domain checked, Store price on 10 October 2026); paid plans are 28–44% below it.

Apify plan	Price per row	1,000 rows	Rows per $1
Free	$0.008	$8.00	125
Bronze	$0.0072	$7.20	138
Silver	$0.0064	$6.40	156
Gold / Platinum / Diamond	$0.0056	$5.60	178

• The default run (30 backlinks of one domain) costs $0.24 on the free plan and $0.22 on Bronze. Apify's free plan includes $5 of monthly credit.
• Not charged: invalid entries, targets the index has no links for, requests that fail, and anything over Max rows. These come back as free type: "error" rows that say why.
• No fee per run. Platform compute is tiny: a 30-row run uses well under a cent of compute, because the Actor sends one HTTP request per 1,000 rows and does no browsing.
• Set Max rows per target to cap a run, or set Apify's maximum cost per run — the Actor stops at that budget.

Why 30 rows by default? Each data request has a fixed cost on our side. Below roughly 30 rows per target that fixed part outweighs the row price on paid plans, so a built-in guard may stop very small multi-target runs early (with a free note that says so). One target with 30+ rows, or a few targets with 100 rows each, always runs in full.

How to check backlinks with Backlink Checker

1. Open the Actor and click Try for free (or Start).
2. Pick What to get: Backlinks, Referring domains, Anchors or Link gap.
3. Enter one or more Targets — a domain like example.com, a subdomain, or a page URL.
4. For Link gap, put your own site in Targets and your competitors in Competitors.
5. Set Max rows per target and, if you like, the filters: dofollow only, minimum domain rank, only new in the last N days, live links only.
6. Click Start. A 30-row run finishes in seconds.
7. Download the table as CSV, Excel, JSON or HTML, or read it through the API.

⬇️ Input

The default input — the strongest dofollow link of each of the 30 strongest referring domains of ahrefs.com:

{
  "mode": "backlinks",
  "targets": ["ahrefs.com"],
  "maxRows": 30,
  "grouping": "one_per_domain",
  "dofollowOnly": true
}

Field	Default	What it does
mode	backlinks	backlinks, referring-domains, anchors or link-gap
targets	["ahrefs.com"]	Domains, subdomains or page URLs. In link gap: your own sites (up to 10)
competitors	—	Link gap only: competitor domains or URLs
maxRows	30	Rows per target (in link gap with match = any: per competitor), up to 10,000
grouping	one_per_domain	Backlinks only: one_per_domain, as_is (every link) or one_per_anchor
dofollowOnly	true	Only dofollow links are returned or counted
minDomainRank	—	Only links from domains ranked at least this (0–100)
onlyNewDays	—	Only links first seen in the last N days
excludeLost	true	Only live links; switch off to include lost links
linkGapMatch	any	any = links to at least one competitor; all = links to every competitor
sortBy	strongest	strongest (rank) or newest (first seen)
includeSubdomains	true	Count links to every subdomain of a domain target

Target formats

example.com, www.example.com and https://example.com/ are all checked as the whole domain. blog.example.com is checked as that subdomain. https://example.com/pricing is checked as that exact page. Duplicates are checked once.

Link gap input

{
  "mode": "link-gap",
  "targets": ["yoursite.com"],
  "competitors": ["competitor-one.com", "competitor-two.com", "competitor-three.com"],
  "linkGapMatch": "any",
  "maxRows": 100
}

With any, the Actor sends one data request per competitor (up to 10) and merges the results, so each donor domain gets flags for every competitor it links to; rows linking to the most competitors come first. With all, one request returns only the domains that link to every competitor (up to 20).

⬆️ Output

Each mode returns one row type, so every table view is clean. A backlink row from the default run:

{
  "type": "backlink",
  "target": "ahrefs.com",
  "urlFrom": "https://www.adobe.com/express/learn/blog/target-audience",
  "domainFrom": "www.adobe.com",
  "urlTo": "https://ahrefs.com/",
  "anchor": "Ahrefs",
  "anchorType": "branded",
  "dofollow": true,
  "linkType": "anchor",
  "domainFromRank": 79,
  "pageFromRank": 33,
  "linkRank": 20,
  "spamScore": 0,
  "isNew": false,
  "isLost": false,
  "isBroken": false,
  "firstSeen": "2023-11-13T03:45:13.000Z",
  "lastSeen": "2026-09-01T22:03:58.000Z",
  "linksFromDomain": 10,
  "pageFromTitle": "How to identify your target audience in 5 steps",
  "pageFromKeywordsTop10": 179,
  "semanticLocation": "main",
  "urlToStatusCode": 200
}

The dataset has six views: Backlinks, Backlinks in detail, Referring domains, Anchors, Link gap and Errors (free).

Error rows

{ "type": "error", "target": null, "input": "not a domain", "error": "Target: \"not a domain\" is not a domain or URL (expected something like example.com). Not charged." }

An empty answer for a real site (brand-new domain, a page that redirects, or filters that are too strict) also comes back as a free error row explaining it, never as a silent empty run.

Use cases for backlink data

Link building and outreach

Run Link gap with three to five competitors. Every row is a site that already links to businesses like yours, so it is likely to link to you too. Sort by competitorsLinked and bestRankPassed, drop rows with a high spamScore, and you have a prospect list.

Competitor backlink analysis

Check a competitor's backlinks with sortBy: newest and onlyNewDays: 30 to see the links they won this month — the guest posts, round-ups and directories that are working right now in your niche.

Backlink audit and anchor text analysis

Run Anchors on your own domain. A natural profile is dominated by branded and url anchors; a high share of keyword anchors is an over-optimisation risk. Then run Backlinks with excludeLost: false to see lost and broken links worth reclaiming.

Monitoring

Schedule a weekly run with onlyNewDays: 7 on your domain and send the new rows to Slack or a Google Sheet.

AI agents and SEO automation

Rows are flat, typed and consistent, so an agent can call the Actor with one target and read the table without post-processing.

Integrations

• Apify API: start a run and read the dataset with GET https://api.apify.com/v2/datasets/{datasetId}/items?format=csv.
• JavaScript / Python clients: apify-client (npm, PyPI).
• n8n, Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, Slack, Airbyte via Apify's integrations.
• MCP server: AI assistants (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor) can call this Actor as a tool through https://mcp.apify.com.
• Webhooks when a run finishes; schedules for weekly monitoring.

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("lergassy/backlink-checker").call(run_input={
    "mode": "link-gap",
    "targets": ["yoursite.com"],
    "competitors": ["competitor-one.com", "competitor-two.com"],
    "maxRows": 100,
})
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(row["domain"], row["competitorsLinked"], row["bestRankPassed"])

🤖 For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Compact reference for agents calling lergassy/backlink-checker through the Apify MCP server or API.

Purpose: backlinks, referring domains, anchor texts or link-gap prospects for a domain, subdomain or page URL, from a licensed backlink index.

Minimal input: {"targets": ["example.com"]} (backlinks, 30 rows). Link gap: {"mode": "link-gap", "targets": ["mysite.com"], "competitors": ["rival.com"]}.

Output: one row type per mode — backlink, referring-domain, anchor or link-gap — in the type column; errors are type: "error" with an error text.

Behaviors an agent should know:

• maxRows is per target (per competitor in link gap with match = any); default 30.
• Filters are applied by the data source, not after the fact: dofollowOnly, minDomainRank, onlyNewDays, excludeLost.
• Ranks are the index's own 0–100 scores, not Moz DA or Ahrefs DR.
• competitorDetails is the only nested field (array of objects); linksToCompetitors, missingCompetitors, notLinkingTo are string arrays.
• Billing: one backlink event per delivered row; error rows are free.

❓ FAQ

Is it legal to check backlinks?

Yes. Backlink data describes public links between public web pages, and this Actor reads it from a licensed data provider rather than scraping any SEO tool. How you use the results (for example cold outreach) is subject to the laws that apply to you, such as anti-spam and data protection rules — consult a lawyer if unsure.

Is this an Ahrefs alternative?

For the core backlink questions — who links to a site, with what anchor, how strong, since when, and who links to competitors but not to you — yes, without a monthly seat. It is not a copy of Ahrefs: the index and the rank scale are different, and the numbers will not match Ahrefs exactly.

How fresh is the data?

The index is crawled continuously; every row carries lastSeen, the date the crawler last saw the link. Results of identical requests are cached for up to 7 days (24 hours when "Only new in the last N days" is set), so repeating the same run the same week returns the same rows.

Why are some fields empty?

Not every link has every attribute: image links have no anchor text, redirects have no surrounding text, and the crawler does not detect a language or platform for every page. Empty values are null, never invented.

How many backlinks can I get?

Up to 10,000 rows per target per run (1,000 per data request, paged automatically). For very large sites, use grouping: one_per_domain and filters to get the links that matter.

Can I use Backlink Checker with the Apify API?

Yes — every run is an API call, and the dataset can be read as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML. See Integrations above.

Can I use it through an MCP server?

Yes. Add https://mcp.apify.com to your AI assistant and it can find and call lergassy/backlink-checker as a tool.

Can I integrate it with other apps?

Yes: n8n, Make, Zapier, Google Sheets, Slack, webhooks and schedules all work out of the box.

How much does a run cost?

$0.008 per row on the free plan, $0.0072 on Bronze, $0.0056 on Gold and above. The default 30-row run is $0.24 on the free plan. Errors and empty results are free.

Your feedback

Found a bug, missing a field or need another mode? Open an issue on the Issues tab — we reply quickly. If the Actor saved you time, a short review helps other people find it.

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Also known as: backlinks checker, backlink analyzer, backlink API, link checker, referring domains checker, anchor text checker, link gap analysis, link intersect, backlink gap tool, free Ahrefs alternative, competitor backlinks.