Backlink Checker & Monitor

Get the backlink profile of a domain, subdomain or single page: summary counts, the list of backlinks with anchor text and the rank of the linking page and domain, the referring domains and the most used anchors. In monitor mode the Actor compares each run with the previous one and outputs only the links that are new or lost.

Typical uses are checking the links of a competitor or a prospect, auditing your own link profile, finding broken or nofollow links, and getting a weekly list of new and lost links for a client site.

What you get

For every target there is one summary row: domain rank (0 to 100), number of backlinks, referring domains, referring pages, broken backlinks and pages, spam risk values, and counts per link type, link attribute, referring TLD, country and position on the page.

Optional lists, each up to the limit you set:

• Backlinks, strongest first, with the source URL and domain, target URL, anchor text, dofollow or nofollow, link type (text, image, redirect, canonical), where on the page the link sits, link score, source page score and source domain score (all on the same 0 to 100 rank scale), spam risk, and first, previous and last seen dates.
• Referring domains, strongest first, with the domain rank, number of backlinks from it, spam risk and first seen date.
• Anchors, most used first, with the number of backlinks, referring domains and pages.

The domain rank comes from the link graph of the data source. It is a link-based rank: a page ranks higher when more pages, and stronger pages, link to it. It is not the metric of any SEO tool vendor, so numbers will not match other tools. The link, source page and source domain scores use the same scale.

The text around a link on the source page is not included.

Monitor mode

With monitor on, the Actor keeps a baseline of the backlinks and referring domains lists for each target and settings in a named key-value store in your account. The first run saves the baseline and outputs the full lists with change: "baseline". Later runs output only the changes.

A row with change set to new is a link that is in the current list but was not in the baseline. firstSeenAfterBaseline is true when the data source first saw the link after the baseline was saved. When it is false, the link existed before but was not in the baseline, usually because it moved into the top of a list that was cut at your limit.

A row with change set to lost is a link that was in the baseline and is no longer in the current list. Lost rows are built from the baseline, so they carry fewer fields.

Lost links are detected only when the full list fits under the row limit. If a target has more backlinks than maxBacklinks, or more referring domains than maxReferringDomains, the Actor reports no lost links for that list. It reports only links that are new to the top N, where N is your limit, and sets lostDetection to skipped_list_truncated in the run summary. On large sites this is the normal case. crawlee.dev, for example, has about 590,000 entries in its backlinks list, so a monitor run with maxBacklinks: 20 compares only its 20 strongest links and cannot see links that disappear. The list totals are in the run summary (total for each list). To get lost links, set the limit above that total, up to 10,000.

The baseline moves forward after each run. If the maximum charge per run stops the Actor before all changes are delivered, the baseline for that list is kept, so the next run reports the same changes again. Changing any list setting starts a new baseline. Anchors are not compared and are delivered in full.

Input

Field	Default	Notes
targets	example	Up to 100 domains, subdomains or page URLs. A value with a path is checked as that page only. Duplicates are dropped, invalid entries are listed in the summary and not charged. Without this field the Actor runs a small example (apify.com, 10 backlinks).
maxBacklinks	100	Backlinks per target, up to 10,000. 0 skips the list.
maxReferringDomains	0	Referring domains per target, up to 10,000.
maxAnchors	0	Anchors per target, up to 1,000.
backlinkMode	as_is	as_is (every backlink), one_per_domain (one link from each referring domain) or one_per_anchor (one link for each anchor text; Web scraping and web scraping count as two anchors).
dofollowOnly	false	Only backlinks without a nofollow attribute.
includeSubdomains	true	For a domain target, include links to its subdomains.
monitor	false	Output only new and lost links compared with the previous monitor run.
useCache	true	Reuse results from earlier runs with the same target and settings. Ignored in monitor mode.
cacheTtlDays	7	Maximum age of cached results, 1 to 30 days.
pushSummaryToDataset	false	Append the run summary to the dataset.

Example:

{
    "targets": ["apify.com", "https://crawlee.dev/"],
    "maxBacklinks": 500,
    "maxReferringDomains": 200,
    "dofollowOnly": true
}

An empty targets list, or a list with only invalid entries, is invalid input. Invalid input ends the run as SUCCEEDED with a clear error message and no charge ($0).

Output

All rows go to one dataset. type is targetSummary, backlink, referringDomain or anchor, and the dataset has a table view for each.

A backlink row:

{
    "type": "backlink",
    "target": "apify.com",
    "sourceUrl": "https://crawlee.dev/",
    "sourceDomain": "crawlee.dev",
    "sourceTld": "dev",
    "sourceCountry": "US",
    "sourcePageTitle": "Crawlee · Build reliable crawlers. Fast.",
    "sourcePageLanguage": "en",
    "sourcePlatformTypes": ["unknown"],
    "targetUrl": "https://console.apify.com/actors/...",
    "targetDomain": "console.apify.com",
    "targetStatusCode": null,
    "anchor": "Run on",
    "linkType": "anchor",
    "dofollow": true,
    "attributes": [],
    "location": "section",
    "isBroken": false,
    "imageUrl": null,
    "linkScore": 81,
    "sourcePageScore": 92,
    "sourceDomainScore": 77,
    "linkSpamRisk": 0,
    "firstSeen": "2023-12-01T23:45:00.000Z",
    "previousSeen": "2026-08-07T15:01:33.000Z",
    "lastSeen": "2026-10-06T17:24:45.000Z",
    "flaggedNew": false,
    "flaggedLost": false,
    "source": "live",
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-22T07:43:41.000Z"
}

flaggedNew and flaggedLost are the data source's own flags for links found or lost since its previous crawl of the source page. They are independent of monitor mode. location is the part of the page the link sits in (main, article, footer, nav and so on), or null when unknown.

A target without any known backlinks gets a summary row with hasData: false and no lists. Only the $0.05 per target is charged for it.

Run summary

Every run saves a SUMMARY record in the default key-value store: valid, invalid and duplicate targets, per target the number of rows fetched and the list totals, whether each list was complete, new and lost counts and the lost detection status in monitor mode, cache hits, charged events and the run status. If the input has nothing the Actor can use (no valid targets, every target rejected by the data source, or a maximum charge per run too low for one target), the run ends as succeeded with an empty dataset, nothing is charged, and the status message says what was wrong and how to fix it; the summary status is then invalid_input.

Pricing

Pay per event:

• $0.05 per target, charged after its summary lookup succeeds, also when the target has no known backlinks. Invalid targets and failed lookups are free.
• $0.035 per list page, one live request of up to 1,000 rows of backlinks, referring domains or anchors. Not charged for cached results.
• $0.002 per delivered row of backlinks, referring domains or anchors ($2 per 1,000 rows), fresh or from the cache. In monitor mode, each new or lost link.
• $0.0002 per compared row in monitor mode: a fetched link that matches the baseline and is not delivered.

Examples:

• 1 target, summary only (maxBacklinks: 0): $0.05.
• 1 target with 100 backlinks: $0.05 plus $0.035 plus $0.20, $0.285 in total.
• 10 targets with 100 backlinks each: $2.85.
• 1 target with 1,000 backlinks, 1,000 referring domains and 100 anchors: $0.05 plus 3 pages at $0.035 plus 2,100 rows ($4.20), $4.355 in total.
• Monitor run for 1 target with 1,000 backlinks tracked, 6 new and 6 lost: $0.05 plus $0.035 plus 994 compared rows ($0.1988) plus 12 rows ($0.024), $0.3078 in total.

If you set a maximum charge per run, the Actor requests only as many rows as that limit can pay for and stops cleanly when it is reached. Skipped targets are listed in the summary.

Run time and limits

Each list page is one request, so a target with 10,000 backlinks takes 10 requests. Requests to the data source are rate limited per account. The Actor spaces its requests, waits and retries when a limit is hit, and records the waiting time in the summary.

Apify free plan limit

Users on the Apify free plan get up to 20 dataset rows per run, counting the summary row of each target and the backlink, referring domain and anchor rows. Targets are handled in the order you list them, and targets left over are named under freePlanLimit.skipped in the run summary. In monitor mode a list cut short by the limit is not saved as the baseline. The run still finishes as succeeded, and its status message says that the free plan limit was reached.

This limit was set by the developer of this Actor, not by Apify. The link data is paid per request, and runs by free plan users bring the developer no revenue. Any paid Apify plan removes the limit, and nothing else about the run changes.

Notes

• The link index is crawled continuously. New links can take days or weeks to appear and lost links to disappear, so monitor runs once a week or less often give the clearest results.
• Only live backlinks are listed. Internal links of the target are excluded.
• If a run is migrated in the middle of a target, that target's rows can be delivered twice. Targets that were finished before the migration are not repeated.
• Page targets must match the URL that is linked to. https://example.com/page and https://example.com/page/ are different pages.

API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/datapulsehq~backlink-checker/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"targets": ["apify.com"], "maxBacklinks": 50}'

This Actor is an independent tool. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any search engine or SEO software vendor, and its rank and spam risk values are not the metrics of any such vendor. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.