Link analysis software for SEO

Updated on: 2022-11-15
Link analysis software explained
Analysis of incoming links which direct to a given website is one of the most basic activities of any SEO specialist. Link monitoring allows you to follow the traffic and development of the site and compare it with the actions of your competition. The tools for link analysis are plenty. Some of them are constantly upgraded while others fade into obscurity and are forgotten. Our overview will describe the tools which are the most popular and the most used tools among SEO experts and website owners.
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Table of Contents

How can you use link analysis software?

Software for backlinks analysis can be used in a variety of ways, but they are mostly used to:

1. Comparison with the competition - backlink monitoring tools can compare two sites and check the number and quality of links. Thanks to such a report you can evaluate your situation and decide which quality links are still not directing users to your website and how you can compete with others. Of course, you should remember that links are only a part of SEO activities - the optimization of the page itself is as crucial for successful SEO.

2. Competition activities analysis - when you see what links are acquired by your competitors, you can answer a lot of questions regarding their activities, such as:

  • what link acquisition method do they use?
  •  Do they have their own dedicated base of support pages (hidden from  the search engine bots)
  •  What sites publish their advertising articles?
  •  Were any Black Hat SEO techniques used?
  •  What other services cooperate with them?

This knowledge can give you a lot of ideas and you may find an inspiration to devise your own link-building strategy. It is worth remembering that clever SEO specialists can expertly hide their activities, so you may never see the full scope of the dealings your competitors perform.

3. Link-building campaign monitoring - when link-building is outsourced to specialized agencies, you should monitor their activity. The report of links gained is not enough. All in all, a link from a small, private presell blog that has zero value in the eyes of Google bots is not worth the money you invest in it.

4. Negative SEO campaigns monitoring - let's not discuss if negative SEO activities exist and focus on the fact that some competitors may try to cause a drop in search engine results for your page. Link analysis tools and Disavow tool are probably the only effective means of fighting negative SEO.

5. Listing of all incoming links - from the moment of first signifiers of link acquisition the link analysis tool will list a whole base of backlinks you gain and will denote which are beneficial or detrimental to your efforts.

Free link analysis tools

Searching links through a browser


You can use Google to quickly see the links that direct to your site, by typing the "link" command and our domain in the search box. Remember, it is only a sample of links leading to your domain and as such, you should not presume the most important links are displayed here.


Important note! If you wish to see more search results, denote that you don't need links from your own domain, by typing the command like this: "link:domain.com -site:domain.com"


Below you can see an example of such search:

links search using a browser software

Google Search Console

https://search.google.com

When you have an access to Google Search Console, you can download a list of sample links to your domain which are saved by Google. This information is unfortunately not very complex, as you get only a list of URLs without the info about the anchors leading to your page. When you use GSC, you can acquire a list of recent links or a sample of all leads. GSC gives you the ability to generate a list of up to 100 000 links.

What information can be gathered from Google Search Console?

  • Sample of new links (up to 100 000)
  • Sample of all links (up to 100 000)
  • list of domains with the largest number of links (up to 1000)
  • Subpages that are linked the most
  • texts used the most in anchors

 

Backlinks Watch

http://www.backlinkwatch.com/

It's a simple tool that can perform a quick incoming links analysis, but the link base is relatively small. When you specify the URL of the domain, you will receive information regarding links directing to it (including the anchor, PR, and nofollow attribute). When the link takes a form of an image, it will also be shown. Operation speed is the big advantage of this tool, but its interface doesn't encourage to use it.

Backlink Watch software

Backlinks: Your Free Backlink Checker Tool

https://neilpatel.com/

A  tool presented by Neil Patel famous digital marketer and SEO specialist. The list is presented in a clean form and each link has the parameters such as an anchor, PR, and DR assigned. When you register using Google Account you'll receive a larger link database.

Backlink Checker Tool Neil Patel

RankSignals

https://www.ranksignals.com/

A fast and simple tool that can generate basic information about links to your site - Anchor text and Page Rank.

Comparison of free tools

Tool Database
size using Whitepress
Google
Search Console
0
BacklinksWatch 357
RankSignals 0
Backlinks 1096

Paid software (with a free version available)


MajesticSEO

https://www.majesticseo.com/

One of the most popular link analysis tools with a huge database. It is also simple to use and has a user-friendly interface, which makes it even more pleasant to utilize, even if you are completely green in SEO. Majestic SEO can return very interesting data about incoming links, for example:

  •  anchor distribution diagrams
  • diagrams for different link types (nofollow/dofollow, text/image)
  • division of links - Fresh Index (no older than 90 days) and Historic Index (all link data)
  • information about deleted links

The software is paid and in its free version it does not show this much information, but it allows you to check a lot of data for your own domain if you verify your ownership.

Majestic SEO software
Ahrefs

https://ahrefs.com/

The second most popular link analysis tool. It shows almost the same data and link parameters as Majestic in a slightly different form. The choice between Ahrefs and Majestic depends only on your personal preference and being used to one interface or the other. All necessary info is displayed in a form of graphs and visualizations which make the data more comprehensible. Ahrefs also shows metrics for Social Media traffic, including likes and shares on Facebook, tweets, and retweets on Twitter.
 

Ahrefs backlink profile checker
 

MOZ Link explorer

https://moz.com/link-explorer

A tool developed by moz.com group - one of the biggest SEO-oriented portals on the web. OpenSiteExplorer is less complex than the two previous tools and much smaller link database. Nevertheless, it presents all information in a clear and understandable way. Just like Majestic and Ahrefs, OSE gives you the ability to export links for further analysis.

MOZ link explorer tool
 

SEO SpyGlass

http://www.seo-spyglass.com/

Unlike the previous tools, SEO Spyglass is a desktop software, not a browser-based one, which is a rare occurrence for link analysis software. SpyGlass is a number of tools combined into one app and one of them offers link analysis. Before you download the list you can choose what parameters you are interested in to make your work easier. A very useful parameter is PenaltyRisk, which evaluates the risk of the negative influence of a given link. The link data can be exported to PDF (and you can configure the way it is displayed before you do it).

WebMeUp

http://webmeup.com/

A multipurpose tool that not only analyzes links but also helps in general website optimization. Just like SpyGlass, it is able to evaluate a negative effect the given link might have using a PenaltyRisk parameter - the lower it is, the lower the chance of negative Google input.

SEO PowerSuit Link Explorer tool
 

MonitorBacklinks

https://monitorbacklinks.com/

MonitorBaclkinks is a relatively fresh software that presents the collected data in a very convenient way. Sadly, the link database is small for now, thus, the tool focuses more on monitoring the existing links instead of gathering all of their parameters.

Monitor Backlinks
 

What will you see for free?

Each of the described tools allows for a free checkup of the backlinks for a given domain, but it restricts the amount of data it displays.

Link analysis software compared
 

Comparison of capabilities

The summary below shows the different capabilities of each tool, tested on one domain. We used the cheapest available paid version.

Comparison of link analysis software

Link quality analysis tools

The information regarding the number and sources of links is not enough. You should collect and evaluate the links when you wish to delete some of them if they have a negative impact on your domain. Thus, you should gather as much data as possible to check the negative effects of some links. Here are some tools that will help you see the quality of links.

Clusteric

https://clusteric.com/

Desktop software that allows you to analyze the quality of links. When you upload the list you have to wait for a couple of minutes to get the full evaluation. The analysis should give you information such as:

  • evaluated quality of the link
  • type of script used on the page linking to you
  •  anchor text
  •  dofollow/nofollow
  •  rotation data

Clusteric also gives you the ability to create a file with links that should be reported in Disavow Tool. Just specify the parameters of such links (for example - all dofollow links from SEO scripts with a quality below 70) to generate a list. 

Backlink analysis in Clusteric software

 

Summary

As you can see, there are numerous analysis tools available, but they differ in database size, data collection solutions, and presentation methods. It's best to use their free capabilities and choose the one that you liked the most. Maybe you already use some of the link analysis software yourself? Leave a comment if you do.

Author: Karol Soja

 

Your comments (1)
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  • Amir

    I really appreciate your blog post on link analysis software for SEO. I really like the idea of using backlink monitoring tools to compare two sites and check the number of links. I think this will be very helpful in determining the level of competition and what links they have acquired. I also like the idea of using a link-building campaign to monitor it.

    atozseotool-s.com

    2022-12-02, 20:42
The administrator of personal data is WhitePress sp. z o.o. with headquarters in Bielsko-Biała, ul. Legionów 26/28. Your personal data is processed for the marketing purposes of WhitePress sp. z o.o. and entities interested in marketing their own goods or services. The marketing objective of the commercial partners of WhitePress sp. z o.o. includes, among others, commercial information about conferences and training related to the content published in the Knowledge Base tab.

The legal basis for the processing of your personal data is the legitimate purpose pursued by the Administrator and its partners (Article 6 (1) (f) of the GDPR).

Users have the following rights: the right to request access to their data, the right to rectify it, the right to delete data, the right to limit processing and the right to transfer data. More information on the processing of your personal data, including your rights, can be found in our Privacy Policy.
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