Backlink Checker API - Majestic Trust Flow and Citation Flow

Check backlinks, Trust Flow and Citation Flow for any domain, subdomain or URL with the Majestic API and your own API key, and get site metrics, backlinks, referring domains, anchor text, top pages and new or lost links as clean dataset rows.

Works with the Majestic API (api.majestic.com/api/json), the link intelligence API behind Majestic Site Explorer, reading either the Fresh Index or the Historic Index. The actor turns a list of domains, subdomains or URLs into deduplicated rows you can download as JSON, CSV or Excel, schedule, or feed into SEO dashboards, link audits, outreach lists, Google Sheets, Looker Studio and AI agents. Bring your own API key.

BYOK, not live-tested: every command, parameter and enum comes from Majestic's public developer documentation at developer-support.majestic.com, but the actor has not been run against a live Majestic account.

What it does

• Site metrics (bulk backlink checker): Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Topical Trust Flow, external backlinks, referring domains, referring IPs and subnets, EDU and GOV links, follow and live link counts, crawl status and page title for up to 100 domains, subdomains or URLs per call.
• Backlinks: the links pointing at a domain, subdomain or URL, with source URL, anchor text, source and target Trust Flow and Citation Flow, link type, nofollow, redirect, image and deleted flags, first indexed and last seen dates. Sort by 14 fields and filter by Trust Flow, Citation Flow, link type, follow or nofollow, live or deleted, source language, anchor text, source URL and dates.
• Referring domains: the domains linking to an item, with Trust Flow, Citation Flow, matched links, IP, subnet, hosting country, language and Topical Trust Flow, sorted by any of Majestic's 19 orders.
• Anchor text: the link texts used, with referring domains, total, deleted and nofollow link counts and estimated link Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
• Top pages: the strongest pages of a domain or subdomain, with backlinks, referring domains, crawl result, Trust Flow and Citation Flow.
• New or lost backlinks: links Majestic found, or saw lost, in a date range.
• API subscription info: your remaining analysis, retrieval and index item units and the index dates, free.
• Fresh or Historic Index for every mode, and a path prefix scope for URL folders.
• Pay only for results: refused, empty and not found lookups are recorded as a free row that says why, never charged.

How to get an API key

Majestic API access comes with the Majestic API plan (and legacy Platinum plans). In your Majestic account open the API tab (majestic.com/account/api), switch on Enable API, and copy your API key into the API key field, or set the DATA_API_KEY environment secret. This actor never ships a shared key.

What a run costs in Majestic units

Majestic spends units from your plan on every call, as documented per command: 1 index item unit per item for site metrics; 5,000 analysis units per backlinks call (10,000 to 20,000 with sorting or filtering); 1,000 per referring domains item; 1,000 per anchor text call; 5,000 per top pages item; 500 per day of new or lost backlinks; and 1 retrieval unit for every row returned. Subscription info costs nothing. maxResults caps the rows a run returns, so the default is a modest 100.

Input

Field	Used by	What it does
mode	all	siteMetrics, backlinks, referringDomains, anchorText, topPages, newLostBacklinks or subscriptionInfo
items	all but subscription info	Domains, subdomains or URLs, one per line
datasource	all	fresh (default) or historic
usePrefixScan	link modes	Treat a URL as a path prefix (URL*)
desiredTopics, addAllTopics	site metrics	Topical Trust Flow topics per item, all trust categories
removeDeletedLinks, linksPerRefDomain, uniqueSourceUrls, filterTopic	backlinks	Leave out deleted links, cap links per referring domain, one link per source URL, topic filter
backlinkSort, sortDirection, filteringDepth	backlinks	Sort field, direction and how many top links to sort through
trustFlowMin, trustFlowMax, citationFlowMin, citationFlowMax	backlinks	Source page Flow Metric ranges, 0 to 100
linkType, followType, liveStatus, sourceLanguage	backlinks	Text, image, redirect or frame; follow or nofollow; live or deleted; 2 letter language
anchorContains, sourceUrlContains, firstIndexedAfter, lastSeenAfter	backlinks	Text and date filters
refDomainSort, analysisDepth	referring domains	Sort order, domains considered
cleanAnchorText, anchorFilter, anchorMatch	anchor text	Clean punctuation, filter text, contains or exact
linkChange, dateFrom, dateTo	new or lost backlinks	New or lost, date range
maxResults	all	Row ceiling for the run (default 100, up to 50,000)
requestsPerMinute	all	Pacing (default 30)
apiKey	all	Your Majestic API key, stored as a secret

A command only receives the parameters its documentation lists; an input that belongs to another mode is left off with a warning.

Example input, the 200 strongest live, followed backlinks of a site from the Fresh Index:

{
    "mode": "backlinks",
    "items": ["example.com"],
    "datasource": "fresh",
    "backlinkSort": "SourceTrustFlow",
    "sortDirection": "desc",
    "followType": "follow",
    "liveStatus": "live",
    "trustFlowMin": 20,
    "maxResults": 200
}

Example output

An example backlink row, shaped from Majestic's documented sample response. The common columns come first; every field Majestic returns follows unchanged.

{
    "mode": "backlinks",
    "modeLabel": "Backlinks",
    "recordType": "backlink",
    "identifier": "majestic.com",
    "found": true,
    "datasource": "fresh",
    "url": "https://www.aspfree.com/",
    "sourceUrl": "https://www.aspfree.com/",
    "targetUrl": "https://majestic.com/",
    "domain": "www.aspfree.com",
    "anchorText": "majestic logo",
    "trustFlow": 62,
    "citationFlow": 50,
    "refDomains": null,
    "backlinks": null,
    "firstIndexed": "2017-07-14",
    "lastSeen": "2017-10-14",
    "retrievedAt": "2026-10-14T09:00:00.000Z",
    "note": null,
    "SourceURL": "https://www.aspfree.com/",
    "AnchorText": "majestic logo",
    "SourceTitle": "ASP Free - ASP Help, ASP Tutorials, ASP Programming, ASP Code - ASP Free",
    "FlagNoFollow": 1,
    "FlagImages": 1,
    "FlagDeleted": 0,
    "TargetURL": "https://majestic.com/",
    "FirstIndexedDate": "2017-07-14",
    "LastSeenDate": "2017-10-14",
    "LinkType": "ImageLink",
    "SourceCitationFlow": 50,
    "SourceTrustFlow": 62,
    "SourceTopicalTrustFlow_Topic_0": "Computers/Programming/Internet",
    "SourceTopicalTrustFlow_Value_0": 61
}

A site metrics row carries trustFlow, citationFlow, refDomains and backlinks plus every GetIndexItemInfo column (RefIPs, RefSubNets, RefDomainsEDU, RefDomainsGOV, LastCrawlResult, Title, TopicalTrustFlow_Topic_0 and so on).

FAQ

How much does the Majestic backlink checker API actor cost?

You pay Apify per row returned: $0.01 per site metrics row (Trust Flow, Citation Flow and link counts for one domain, subdomain or URL) and $0.005 per backlink, referring domain, anchor text, top page or new or lost link row. Subscription info, refused lookups, empty answers and items Majestic does not find are free. Your Majestic subscription is billed separately by Majestic.

Do I need my own Majestic API key?

Yes. This is a bring your own key actor. You need a Majestic plan with API access (the API plan, or a legacy Platinum plan) and API enabled on the API tab of your Majestic account. A run without a key ends straight away with a message saying where to get one; it never fails.

What is the difference between the Fresh Index and the Historic Index?

The Fresh Index holds the most recently crawled links and is updated throughout the day, so its Trust Flow and Citation Flow are the most current. The Historic Index is Majestic's largest index, spanning more than five years, and is better for link history and links that are no longer live.

What are Trust Flow and Citation Flow?

They are Majestic's Flow Metrics, scored 0 to 100. Citation Flow measures how much link equity a URL or site has, and Trust Flow how closely it links to trusted seed sites. Topical Trust Flow splits Trust Flow by topic, such as Computers/Internet or News.

Are there limits?

GetIndexItemInfo takes up to 100 items per call, GetBackLinkData returns up to 50,000 backlinks per call, GetTopPages up to 10,000 pages, GetAnchorText up to 1,000 anchors per page and GetNewLostBackLinks up to 1,000 links. Sorting and filtering backlinks works on the top 5,000 to 50,000 links only. Your plan's analysis, retrieval and index item units cap how much you can read per period; when they run out the run ends cleanly and says so.

What do Majestic's terms allow?

Majestic licenses its standard API for internal use: its terms say you may not resell or create derivative works of its data without written consent, and offer reseller plans and the OpenApps program for tools that serve other people. This actor only reads data into your own Apify dataset with your own key. Use the results for your own research and SEO work, and talk to Majestic about a reseller licence before republishing or reselling the data.

Is the data stored anywhere else?

Rows go only to the run's dataset in your Apify account. The API key is stored as an Apify secret, sent only in the POST body to api.majestic.com and removed from every log line, including the error Majestic returns for a wrong key, which repeats the key back.

Keywords

backlink checker API, Majestic API, Trust Flow API, Citation Flow checker, Topical Trust Flow, referring domains API, anchor text checker, bulk backlink checker, link intelligence, top pages, new and lost backlinks, Fresh Index, Historic Index, SEO backlink data, link audit