Backlink Checker, Domain Rank & Link Gap

Check the backlinks, referring domains and domain rank of any website or page, in bulk, and find sites that link to your competitors but not to you. Every backlink comes with the linking page, anchor text, dofollow or nofollow, the linking site's rank, and when it was first and last seen. No Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz subscription needed. Built by Precision Labs.

What it does

Pick one of four modes:

• Backlinks: the links pointing at a domain or a single page, from the strongest linking sites down. By default you get the best link from each site, so one site with thousands of links doesn't fill the list.
• Referring domains: every site linking to a domain or page, with its own domain rank, how much link value it passes, and how many links it has.
• Domain overview: domain rank, backlinks, referring domains and spam score for up to 10,000 domains in one run. Use it to vet link prospects, compare competitors, or check a list of domains before buying them.
• Link gap: sites that link to your competitors but not to you, with which competitors they link to. These are your best outreach prospects: they already link to sites like yours.

The data comes from DataForSEO's backlink index, which is updated continuously.

Who it's for

• SEOs and link builders auditing a site's links or building an outreach list.
• Agencies reporting on clients and competitors without paying for another seat.
• Domain investors checking the link profile of domains before buying.
• AI agents and automations (n8n, Make, Zapier, MCP clients) that need backlink data through an API, as clean rows.

How to use it

1. Choose What to find.
2. Enter Domains or URLs, such as example.com for a whole site or https://example.com/blog/post for one page. For a link gap, enter your competitors here and your site under Your domain.
3. Click Start. Most runs finish in under a minute. Download the results as JSON, CSV or Excel, or get them through the API.

Pricing

You pay only for data you get, with no subscription, and prices drop on Apify's paid plans. For example, 1,000 backlinks of a domain cost $1.04 (54¢ on the Business plan).

Event	Free	Starter	Scale	Business	When
backlink-result	$0.001	$0.0009	$0.0008	$0.0005	Each backlink.
referring-domain-result	$0.001	$0.0009	$0.0008	$0.0005	Each referring domain, or each site in a link gap.
domain-result	$0.001	$0.0009	$0.0008	$0.0005	Each domain in the overview.
data-request	$0.04	$0.04	$0.04	$0.04	One lookup of up to 1,000 rows. Referring domains take two per 1,000 (the list, then each site's rank); the overview takes four per 1,000 domains; a link gap takes one per competitor plus one.

Example	Free	Starter	Scale	Business
1,000 backlinks of one domain	$1.04	$0.94	$0.84	$0.54
1,000 referring domains of one domain	$1.08	$0.98	$0.88	$0.58
Overview of 100 domains	$0.26	$0.25	$0.24	$0.21
Overview of 1,000 domains	$1.16	$1.06	$0.96	$0.66
Link gap against 3 competitors, 500 sites	$0.66	$0.61	$0.56	$0.41

Never charged: entries that aren't domains or URLs, entries the data provider rejects (such as an unknown domain ending; the rest of the list is still checked), and overview entries DataForSEO has no record of. A backlinks or referring-domains lookup that finds nothing costs only its request fee. In the overview, a domain with no links is still a result (rank 0, no backlinks) and is charged like any other. No request fee when you repeat a lookup (same target and settings) within the same week: the results come from your own Apify storage. Set Maximum cost per run and the Actor never fetches more than that budget can pay for.

Input

Field	What it does
What to find	Backlinks, referring domains, domain overview, or link gap.
Domains or URLs	What to look up, one per line. In link gap mode, the competitors to compare with (up to 20).
Your domain	Link gap only: the site to find missing links for.
Max results per target	Backlinks or referring domains per target, up to 20,000. For a link gap, in total, up to 1,000.
One backlink per linking site	Backlinks only. On by default.
Dofollow links only	Backlinks only. Off by default.
Include lost links	Also return links that have since been removed. Off by default.
Min domain rank of linking site	Backlinks only: skip links from sites weaker than this (0–100).

Example input for a link gap through the API:

{
    "mode": "gap",
    "yourDomain": "budgetbytes.com",
    "targets": ["seriouseats.com", "thekitchn.com"],
    "maxResults": 500
}

Output

Each row has a type: backlink, referring-domain, overview, gap, or error. A backlink (real data, October 2026):

{
    "type": "backlink",
    "target": "backlinko.com",
    "sourceUrl": "https://cloud.google.com/transform/transforming-seo-with-ai-marketing-botify",
    "sourceDomain": "cloud.google.com",
    "sourceTitle": "Transforming SEO with AI, Botify makes discovery magic | Google Cloud Blog",
    "sourceDomainRank": 100,
    "sourcePageRank": 0,
    "sourceCountry": "US",
    "targetUrl": "https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats",
    "anchor": "according to Backlinko",
    "dofollow": true,
    "linkType": "anchor",
    "spamScore": 0,
    "isNew": false,
    "isLost": false,
    "isBroken": false,
    "firstSeen": "2023-11-03T12:58:36.000Z",
    "lastSeen": "2026-10-16T18:22:28.000Z",
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-26T12:00:00.000Z"
}

A referring domain:

{
    "type": "referring-domain",
    "target": "backlinko.com",
    "domain": "seoquake.com",
    "domainRank": 67,
    "linkStrength": 66,
    "backlinks": 129,
    "spamScore": 0,
    "firstSeen": "2019-01-18T12:35:55.000Z",
    "lostDate": null,
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-26T12:00:00.000Z"
}

A domain in the overview:

{
    "type": "overview",
    "target": "backlinko.com",
    "domainRank": 70,
    "backlinks": 337051,
    "referringDomains": 61523,
    "referringMainDomains": 57599,
    "nofollowReferringDomains": 10158,
    "spamScore": 2,
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-26T12:00:00.000Z"
}

A link gap row (a site that links to The Kitchn but not to Budget Bytes):

{
    "type": "gap",
    "yourDomain": "budgetbytes.com",
    "domain": "whatfinger.com",
    "domainRank": 73,
    "spamScore": 0,
    "competitorCount": 1,
    "competitors": [
        {
            "domain": "thekitchn.com",
            "backlinks": 266,
            "linkStrength": 51,
            "firstSeen": "2025-10-09T23:24:47.000Z"
        }
    ],
    "fetchedAt": "2026-10-26T12:00:00.000Z"
}

The dataset has a view for each mode, so the table shows the right columns.

FAQ

Where does the data come from?

From DataForSEO's backlink index, through the DataForSEO API. This Actor isn't affiliated with, or endorsed by, DataForSEO, Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, or any site named in the examples. Those examples are real output for public websites, used only to show what the data looks like.

What is domain rank?

A 0–100 score of how strong a site is, from the links pointing at it, computed the way Google's original PageRank was. It plays the same role as Ahrefs' Domain Rating or Moz's Domain Authority, but it's DataForSEO's own score, so the numbers differ from theirs. Use it to compare sites with each other.

What's the difference between domain rank and link strength?

Domain rank is how strong the linking site is overall. Link strength is how much of that value it passes to your target, which depends on how and where it links. A strong site with one footer link can pass less than a weaker site that links from many relevant pages.

Why does a backlink list include links from sites I've never heard of?

Every site that links to you is in the index, including scrapers, directories and spam. Turn on Dofollow links only, raise Min domain rank of linking site, or sort by spam score.

How do I find the best link building prospects?

Run a link gap against 3–5 competitors in your niche. Sites that link to several of your competitors come first: they cover your topic and already link to sites like yours.

Do I need an Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz or DataForSEO account?

No. You only need an Apify account.

Why is there a new storage in my account?

The Actor keeps this week's lookups in a key-value store called precisionlabs-backlink-checker-cache in your own account, so repeating a lookup skips the request fee. You can delete it at any time.

Something looks wrong?

Open an issue on the Issues tab with the target and settings, and we'll look into it.

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