To find out which is the best backlink checker, I devised a real test.
I decided to:
To see who really is the best quality backlink checker once and for all.
Because I’m sure you’ve seen all the other studies that use either 4 domains, 100 domains or 1,000 domains to compare database sizes.
So I decided to cut to the chase with a sample size of 1 million domains.
And the results are in…
What Will I Learn?
Ahrefs has spent years as the KING of backlink checkers. They’ve won all of my testing historically.
But this time round they were up against some fierce competition especially after SEMRush raised $40 million to expand last year.
Check out my Ahrefs vs Semrush blog to see which tool performs the best overall.
SEMRush has always played second fiddle to Ahrefs.
Because they’ve always aimed to be a complete SEO digital marketing tool, some of their specific backlinking tools – like their backlink checker, backlink explorer or backlink monitoring tool- have just never been as good.
They invested a lot of resources and added some exceptional new features.
Plus… they’ve really being bragging about their upgraded backlink database recently.
See how Semrush stands against one of its biggest competitors: SEO Powersuite in my SEO Powersuite vs Semrush comparison.
Majestic is a seasoned veteran that makes some big claims about the size of their link database (even though we have proven it not to be true time and time again).
Can their backlink tool match their sales pitch this time?
History says no.
SEO Spyglass started life as an ultra-slow desktop SEO Tool. Never much of contender.
But now they are back with a RAPID upgrade and new database. Is it enough?
Let’s take a look…
Before I reveal the winner I want to talk you through this test’s methodology.
The domains for this test were pulled from the Majestic Million as I’ve always done.
These are the top 1x million domains based on their number of referring IPs and Subnets according to Majestic.
As such:
The 1x million domains were run through each the 4x tools. I then looked at which tool showed:
These are more reliable than counting a vague “link”. (More on that here.)
That gave me 4x million rows of backlink data – Yay! – to work with.
You can download all of that data right here.
I got in touch with a number of backlink analyzer tools and asked if they wanted to take part in the testing.
I had a phone call with each tool to discuss the test and each tool supplied their own data set to be used in the comparison.
The IP & subnet numbers provided were then manually verified against their user interfaces and then sent to an independent 3rd party to create this analysis.
So after crunching all of the information from each SEO backlink tool…
…a clear winner emerged-
The greatest SEO backlink checker that money can buy right now is Ahrefs.
They have-
And not to mention it’s the tool I use every single day to complete a range of SEO tasks and analysis.
Ahrefs have rightly earned their place as the greatest backlink checker on the market right now (and best SEO tool in my opinion).
But:
It’s important you keep on reading because there are some flaws and other things to consider when looking at backlink checkers.
I’ll be the first to admit…
My methodology for this backlink test and analysis is far from perfect. So I wanted to highlight some of the potential flaws.
It’s important to note that the graphs show the number of “wins” and not absolute numbers. Let me explain…
Let’s say all 5x backlink tools look at the same site. They each report:
SEMRush would receive the “point” for their “win”. That is added to their tally. Wash, rinse and repeat for each of the tests.
So the test only represents the number of times each backlink tool beat its opponents.
And the results are showing us that it is unlikely for other backlink checker tools to have more data than the Ahrefs tool does.
Each tool has its own index. That’s 4x unique databases.
Not all databases share the same links. What appears in Ahrefs may not in SEMRush.
Let me offer an example.
If Ahrefs and Majestic are comparing the same domain they may find the same number of links. But these links may not be from the same sources:
See what I mean?
If you wanted a full picture you would need to buy all 4x backlink tools and cross-reference.
(I don’t recommend you do this. Keep it simple.)
Every tool takes a different approach to how they find, store and count data which means you are not always making an apples to apples comparison.
For example Ahrefs has 3 different databases, Majestic have 2 and SEMRush has 1 which are all defined differently-
As you can see there are huge differences in how those datasets are defined.
Ahrefs and Majestic both offer a 3-month database which makes comparison easy, but SEMRush only offers a single database of 6 months.
And because SEMRush do not offer a historic database, the closest to a “fair” test we could get was to compare-
Which still isn’t really fair!
On top of that problem is the fact that tools count data differently.
You see most backlink checkers only count the most recent IP they found for a domain meaning that 1 domain = 1 IP.
But SEMRush records every IP they have found for a domain in the last 6 months which can mean that 1 domain = 30 IP’s.
That is because they count the data differently than any other backlink checker.
And because we didn’t collect referring domain information we didn’t see that either because the IP & Subnet information SEMRush provided did check out 100%!
But the way they count all IP’s found for a domain in the last 6 months, led to inflated IP and Subnet counts. That was corrected with an updated dataset from SEMRush on September 19th 2019 to allows us to make a fair comparison.
The “size of the database” has been the defining point of “top backlink checkers” for years and its a claim that is widely used across the marketing material of many tools.
People always think that bigger is better, but as the old saying goes:
It’s not how big it is, it’s how you use it.
The point of buying any SEO tool is to increase your search traffic right?
So it really doesn’t matter how the big the database is if the presentation of that data does not connect to the goal of increasing your search traffic.
And depending what questions you’re asking, might mean what is the right backlink checker for me – isn’t the right backlink checker for you and won’t be as helpful with your traffic.
Ahrefs is my go to tool and has my favourite interface, for example.
It’s pretty intuitive and doesn’t take a lot of time to get used to. You can run searches and retrieve old data. It’s all there in the SEO dashboard waiting for you and it’s rapid fast!
They provide you with a lot of 1x click filters to help you find the information or report you need quickly. Whether that’s anchor text or the best backlinks.
For example, you can filter by link type…
Or by platform:
They also generate lots of handy reports, like their best by links report:
Or their best by links’ growth one:
Which you just can’t complete in any other tool, no matter how big their database is.
But you can’t import links from other tools into Ahrefs which doesn’t make it the right backlink checker if you’re facing a manual link penalty.
SEMRush has an easy to understand dashboard as well-
But it also has fewer filters and the ones they do have are not always useful for analysis.
See for yourself:
But:
If you want a budget friendly tool with highly customizable reporting, you might want to check out SEO Spyglass or my Semrush alternatives blog post.
And if you haven’t checked it out for a while I suggest you do because they had a huge update recently which totally transformed the user-friendliness-
A lot of people like the overhauled version because it is-
No other tool can compare with it’s customization & advanced reporting features.
You can also import backlink data from third-party tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs and SEMRush to get complete coverage of your link profile.
And those are both things that you can’t do that in any other tool!
So take some time to play around to find which is the correct backlink checker for you.
Because it really depends on what questions you are asking of the data.
But for me personally:
Ahrefs has the biggest database and THEY KNOW how to use it!
You also need to pay close attention to the overall cost of ownership of each tool because this can get really expensive quickly if you are not actively using them-
SEO Spyglass is a $124.75 one time fee for the first year. Then it’s only $4.17/month after that.
The cost of ownership couldn’t be any further apart and that might be a defining point of deciding which backlink checker is for you.
Because after 12 months of owning Ahrefs, it would have cost you nearly $1,200 versus a cost of $124.75 to own SEO Spyglass.
After 3 years that is the difference between $3,600 and $224.83 so don’t overlook the cost of ownership when deciding which is the right backlink checker for you.
The results of the 1x million domain backlink checker test are in:
No other test has used a dataset this large to compare backlink checkers ever!
But after reviewing the results report and spending time using each of the tools, I can say with absolute confidence that-
If we had to crown one winner, the top backlink checker on the market right now is Ahrefs. Based on my testing Ahrefs have the biggest database of links and the most usable, quality data! But they are also the most expensive tool which might not make them the best backlink tool for you.
So, if you’re on a budget, you should read my free seo tools list.
Thanks to all of the backlink checking competitors that took part in the test!
I look forward to doing a complete analysis of these tools again in the future, but for now – the links have spoken.
If you want to test some more backlink checker tools, take a look at Sitechecker who specialise in backlink tracking.
Which is the backlink checker for you? Let me know in the comments…
Further Reading On Backlink Checkers
- Russ Jones’s discovery that called for a recount in this test
- Majestics post about comparing backlink checkers
- Brian Dean’s test (4 domains + functionality)
- SEMRush’s test (100 domains)
- Russ Jones’s test (1,000 domains)
- Previous Ahrefs vs Majestic test
- A look at the freshness of various backlink checkers data
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This post was incredibly insightful! I appreciate the thorough analysis of the backlink checkers, especially the comparison of their effectiveness across such a large dataset. It really helps in making an informed decision for our SEO strategies. Thanks for the detailed research!
Thank you for sharing
All backlink checker tools are explained nicely in different ways. I really liked your post and the way you explained it. Thank you.
Thank you for reading!
when it comes to backlinks quality is vital because SEOs might be wasting precious time that could be used to write articles instead of trying to analyze a 1 million link databases.
I was looking for this type of backlink checker and I found this article. This is really very useful. Thanks for sharing.
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome tips!
I always use the AHREF backlink checker as it is quite easy to use and also an authoritative feel, Tank you for this informative post.
No worries! Keep it up!
Thank you so much for all the incredible information and tips you provide.Keep up the amazing work!
No worries!
Thanks for sharing
No worries!
Excellent
Thanks! Cheers!
I read this article. Really this article is very informative and useful for all. Thanks for share it.
No worries!
Which one is better/ accurate, Semrush vs Ahrefs?
If you had read my post, you would have known that Ahref is the winner of the competition ;)They are both accurate but Ahrefs has a bigger database.
Ahref is great. I am also using Ahref for exploring backlinks and keywords. I love Ahref!
Yep, me too!
I am using paid traffic,but my adsense revenue is not growing.Can I have to focus on backlink?
To get traffic to your site you need:1- Relevant keywords2- Great & unique content3- High-quality backlinks (but this is the LAST thing you should worry about- THE LAST)But FIRST, you need to make sure that your SEO foundation is good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCHOCzd5rooThen, you need to find the right keywords: https://searchlogistics.com/seo/keywords/research/After that, you can focus on content creation: https://searchlogistics.com/seo/on-page/website-content/Once you get all this right, you can start building backlinks: https://searchlogistics.com/seo/link-building/strategies/If you follow my advice, you should see positive results :)This works to get organic & paid traffic. If you don’t have the basics right, no matter how much you paid, you won’t get any traffic. You’re wasting your money.
Your blog is good, i learn many tools for backlink checking.
Glad you learned something here 🙂
such a wonderful content
Thanks!
thanks for sharing these tools with us.
No worries!
It’s really a great blog. The information provided is really great and helpful.
Thank you! I really appreciated your comment 🙂
Great blog, truly useful and helpful information. Thanks for sharing.
No worries! Always happy to share my tips with my readers! 🙂
good information Thanks for sharing and you will try to some new article
No worries!
Great post, very interesting content, I`ve been using your tips for my webpages.
Great! How does it go?
Very nice article. Thank for sharing.
No problem!
Very nice article. Thanks for sharig.
Cheers!
thanks for sharing that helpful content
Cheers!
Interesting information keep it up
Thanks, Christine!
VERY GREAT AND USEFUL
Thank you, John! Glad you enjoyed my case study!
Awesome article information is very useful about backlink checker but I have a question can be article rank without backlink
Well, Backlinks really help you to rank well. It gives visibility to your content/articles…Without Backlinks, it would be very hard to rank even if you have top-notch content!
Very well written article. It will be helpful to anybody who employess it, as well as myself. Keep doing what you are doing – i will definitely read more posts.
Cheers!
Thanks Matthew for sharing the helpful article.
No worries Rohit – hopefully it helped you make your decision on which backlink checker is right for you.
Excellent article Matthew. Thank you for all of the work you put into this. It just reaffirms that my SEO and CRO agency needs to switch to Ahrefs and say goodbye to SEMrush for good. Its just a better value and every test I’ve seen proves there is more data and better data.
When it comes to backlinks you can’t really beat Ahrefs. SEMRush’s strengths lie more with keywords.
I am currently struggling with backlink checkers. Since they provide only limited access then you have to pay money for more. I use ahrefs and now after I read your post I will try Semrush. Thanks for informations you gave. WELL DONE!
Ahrefs is your best bet for backlinks and they also do much more – https://searchlogistics.com/seo/reviews/ahrefs/
Yey, SEMrush is on your list! It’s the backlink checker we have been using for a long time now and it is really good.
Have you tried Ahrefs?
Great and very useful content!Thanks
Glad to hear it.
Great article Matt and I agree – AHREFs by a long shot to analyse SEO properly.
For sure!
Nice Article
Cheers Ankit
Nice and very informative post.
Glad it was useful!
Hi matthew,Your article is really good and informative for me because i am a beginner of seo in software house, so thank you for sharing this article
No worries Ram – you’ll find a lot of helpful content here – https://searchlogistics.com/seo/
Hi Matthew, this article is very useful and interesting. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
No problem – thanks for reading
Great review. That is what I’ve been looking for. Thank you.
Hope you got everything you need to pick a backlink checker tool 🙂
hi,thank you for sharing I love this post
No problem, hope it helps 🙂
Ahrefs is BESTESTTTTTT tool for this work, Agreed!
Yup, certainly is 🙂
hi, This is nice post for best backlink checker and having right article to see you here. Thanks a lot for sharing with us.
Thanks Adrina!
Nice Info , Thanks for sharing .
Glad you liked it Arpit
Why not include backlinkshitter?
Maybe in the next round of testing.
Thank you for sharing
No problem 🙂
Thanks for sharing
Happy to!
Great! Thanks for sharing this information
Glad I could help.
A very informative post. I am trying to build backlinks for my site. But backlink checking tools of some site did not display my backlinks. this post helps a lot. Thanks for sharing.
Glad I could help Jim.
Thank you for information
Hope it was useful 🙂
Great! Matthew, this interesting article, I’ll follow your post. Thanks for sharing this knowledge article.
No worries Yash.