Backlink analysis : which tools to choose ?
The success of the natural referencing of your site is an operation that requires the SEO expert to take into account many factors, including the optimisation of pages and their structure, content writing, the number and quality of backlinks and much more. In this article, we will mainly talk about the tools available to you to analyse the backlinks pointing to your site or that of your competitors. When it comes to backlinks, Google favours quality over quantity. For example, a link pointing to your site from a site such as Clubic will have more value than 10 links from other sites with the same theme.
What is a backlink?
For those who are new to netlinking, you should know that a backlink is simply a hypertext link present on a site B which, when clicked on, redirects the Internet user to a site A. For Google, the biggest provider of organic traffic, the popularity of a site is evaluated by the number, but especially by the quality of the backlinks pointing to it. Following numerous abuses, Google now limits the number of results displayed to find out the backlinks of a site from its search engine by typing the command “link:www.nomdusite.com”. If you want to know exactly how many backlinks a site has, you should therefore turn to the netlinking tools developed for this purpose, including Ranks, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO, Opensite Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools, Backlink Watch or Analyze Backlinks and many others.
SEO Tools to analyse your netlinking
Ranks
The free version of the Ranks backlinks analysis tool allows any user to know the number of links pointing to the analysed site. However, to take full advantage of this tool, you must opt for the Premium version of Ranks.
Ahrefs
This backlink analysis tool offers a wealth of information to the user who will know in detail the number of links pointing to the site analysed as well as the type of links. You will know the anchor of the backlink as well as its type “nofollow” or “dofollow”. Moreover, this tool allows you to distinguish backlinks from the main URL or from the different pages of the analysed site.
When using the free version, you will only be allowed 5 queries per day to see the first 5 backlinks pointing to the analysed site. However, this number increases to 15 if you decide to open an account with the possibility of consulting up to 500 links pointing to your site. Another drawback is that the free version only gives details for 5 of the backlinks detected by the tool.
Majestic SEO
Rightly considered by many SEOs to be a quality netlinking tool to know in detail the number of backlinks a site has. Majestic SEO offers the user two modes: Historic Index and Fresh Index. Using the “Historic Index” mode, you will see all the backlinks pointing to your site, while the “Fresh Index” mode displays the links obtained by your site over the last 30 days. With Majestic SEO, you can perform a detailed analysis of a specific page on your site. Tools such as Majestic can be used to perform a netlinking audit to get an overall view of a site’s netlinking profile, not just one backlink.
Majestic SEO offers the user the possibility to know the type of backlinks, namely “nofollow” and “dofollow”. It is also possible to see which backlinks to your site have been subsequently removed. To take full advantage of the power of this tool, it would be advisable to upgrade to the paid version, as the free version only gives access to a limited number of functions.
Open Site Explorer
With this inbound link analysis tool, you will be able to find out the number of backlinks your site has thanks to its easy-to-use interface as well as the possibility of comparing it to other sites. You will only be entitled to 5 backlinks if you opt for the free version of the tool which reserves the best features for its premium version.
Analyze Backlinks
Entirely free, the Backlinks Analysis tool allows the user to know the number of incoming links to his site. It is possible to display only one backlink per domain. However, this tool is not as fast as one would like in comparison to the other tools mentioned above. Probably because of the lack of a paid version, Analyze Backlinks does not offer a detailed list of incoming links, which will force you to use another tool.
Backlink Watch
With this tool, you will be able to analyse the bakclinks of your site up to 1000 incoming links. You will be able to know the anchor of these links as well as the number of outgoing links present in the page that linked to you. You will also be able to know the type of link “nofollow” or “dofollow“. If you don’t have the budget to buy the premium version of a backlink tool, Backlink Watch could do the trick.
Google Webmaster Tools
This free tool proposed by Google, offers the possibility of knowing for any site registered in the interface its number of backlinks. A click on each link will allow you to know the number of backlinks and the number of pages with a link within the page that linked to your site. This tool can only be used if you have a Google Webmaster Tools account. Another drawback is that it does not allow you to know the anchor associated with the link to your site.
Aware of the importance of backlinks in Google’s algorithm, any SEO agency is therefore obliged to use a tool to know the number and quality of incoming links pointing to the site whose natural referencing it is responsible for improving. We hope that you will make the right choice regarding the netlinking tool you will use and that you will have learned a little more about the main backlinking tools.
