10 Best Backlink Monitoring Tools You Should Try in 2024
While developing marketing strategies for our first product, Serpple, my team realized that a quality link building team needs a way to monitor backlinks. As we dug deeper into the space, we realized that tools available in the current market didn’t effectively solve our purpose.
Most tools are designed to find backlinks, not monitor them. Many link building teams we spoke to were using spreadsheets to manage links they created, but it’s just not sufficient enough for us.
We’re a curious team and we’re not ones to accept “good enough.” We knew whatever tool we used (or built) would be with us for a longer run, so it had to evolve with our needs. We set out on a research journey, trying out different search queries to find potential solutions. During our market research for Serpple, we came across hundreds of backlink tools, but very few were focused on monitoring backlinks.
We tested many of the top tools and found some serious holes in them. That’s when LinkDog was born. It’s not just another backlink tool, it’s a solution to the problems we found with the existing tools.
Don’t just take our words, try LinkDog out for yourself and dive into our blog to try the other backlink monitoring tools. Here’s why we believe it’s a game changer compared to other backlink monitors.
Why Do You Need A Backlink Monitoring Tool?
SEMrush and Ahrefs are amazing backlink analysis tools that can give you a ton of insight into your website’s backlink profile. You can track the number of referring domains, find spammy links, and view other backlink data like the first seen date in their index (not Google’s), traffic each link is earning, and other great metrics like domain rating and domain authority. These tools are a must for any link building team.
However, link building teams run into a big problem with these tools. One of the biggest issues is being able to manage and track the health of your existing links. While backlink analysis tools are great at showing you your current links, they don’t do a great job of alerting you when links are lost or when links changed over time. This is a big problem and can hinder your ability to build and maintain a healthy backlink profile.
Lost and broken links are super harmful to your SEO and you should always be working to fix them. A backlink analysis tool can tell you if you have links, but it’s not the best way to monitor your entire backlink profile.
Like other small product companies and startups, we rely on similar backlink strategies. Their link building teams work hard to earn quality, relevant links and they often go after both free and paid links. One of the best ways to do that is by digging into your competitors links and earning links from high quality sites, where premium tools can be incredibly helpful.
Just because Google doesn’t want you to pay for backlinks doesn’t mean earning links from high quality sites are easy without paying them. When money involves in your backlink strategies, the risk goes up and it’s even more important to manage your link building efforts.
For link building teams and agencies, having a good backlink management tool is not nice to have, it’s a necessity. A good tool allows them to monitor link health, track their team’s progress, and optimize their efforts for a healthy ROI.
Difference Between Backlink Tracker and Backlink Monitoring
Backlink trackers are tools that aggregate backlink data from their own data centers or by connecting Google Search Console. They do more than report backlink data; they provide valuable metrics like domain authority, domain ranking, page authority, trust flow, and citation flow. These are super valuable for evaluating the health and power of your backlinks.
On the other hand, backlink monitoring is where backlink management goes beyond just reporting existing backlink data. It’s about being able to maintain the health and effectiveness of your backlinks. A good backlink monitoring tool can help your link building team by allowing them to track interactions with backlink partners, manage relationships like a link building CRM, and ensure the backlinks remain live and intact.
A backlink monitoring tool helps link building teams by allowing you to keep a pulse on your backlink profile. You’ll be able to catch issues before they become major problems and maintain focus on building new links. This way, you can ensure 100% of your backlinks remain relevant and pointing to your target pages.
Essential Features of the Best Backlink Monitoring Tool
To get the most out of your link building efforts, you’re going to need a solid backlink monitoring tool that provides the metrics that matter and automates time-consuming reporting and tracking. Here are some features to look for in a tool:
Categorization by Link Type
You should be able to categorize your links by type such as one-way links, direct exchange links, ABC links, guest post links, etc. These categories enhance your reports with in-depth details and help you monitor the best-performing backlink types.
Backlink Partner Management
You should be able to track your link building partners and save info like their contact info, how you met them, and what kind of link they were able to provide. Backlink partner details are essential for resolving issues from previous collaborations. Your team should be able to quickly identify the association, connect with partners, and take necessary actions.
Team Member Goals
Your team members should have goals, like the number of links they’re responsible for building each month, and you should be able to see their progress. The best backlink monitoring tool should also enable efficient management of your backlink budget alongside team targets and goals.
Partner Domain & Metric Tracking
The best tool should have a separate section for your partners’ domains and be able to track the metrics for those domains automatically. This way you can easily share updated info with your link builders instead of having to deal with messy Excel sheets.
Prioritized Task Management
You should be able to manage tasks based on the type of link and set priorities accordingly.
Backlink Alerts
You should get alerts when links are lost or changed. These alerts should include info like partner contact details, what happened to the link and what are the links and activities associated with the broken backlink.
Client/CMO Reporting
You should be able to set up automated reports that show how many links you have built, and what kind of links they are (DA, DR, spam score, etc.). These reports should be able to be exported to a single PDF and emailed over.
We’ve found that a lot of tools offer some of the features we’re talking about, but often miss some of the most important ones link builders need. That’s why we built all of these features into our LinkDog backlink management tool. Here’s a thorough comparison to help you decide how it stacks up.
10 Best Backlink Monitoring Tools You Can Try in 2024
1. LinkDog
LinkDog is not your regular link building tool. It’s a solution designed to help you manage your link building teams, monitor your backlinks, and supercharge your reporting. It tackles features that other tools often ignore, making it a game-changer for link building teams and agencies.
One of LinkDog’s greatest strengths is its ability to track every anchor text you use in your link building efforts and the corresponding keyword rankings for each anchor. This way, you can ensure your link building is supporting your overall SEO goals. LinkDog also allows you to manage your backlinks by its type. With guest post backlinks, for example, you can log details about the guest post, the publication it was featured in, and view all related links, including the primary backlink and any partner links.
LinkDog also features a custom task system designed to help you manage your team tasks. You can assign tasks, track progress, and setting team backlink goals. This way, everyone is on the same page and working towards your link building goals. LinkDog also makes it easy to track your team member backlink depts and credits . You can see exactly how many links your team owes partners and how many links your partners owe you. This is impossible to keep track of in a spreadsheet.
LinkDog can also audit your backlink partners. You can evaluate the quality of their sites and see which partners are the most reliable and influential. This way, your team can focus on the partners that add the most value to your backlink strategy.
By incorporating these advanced features into one solution, LinkDog ensures your link building operations are both efficient and strategically sound, giving your team the ability to achieve amazing results.
Important Features
- Categorize backlink types
- Manage team backlink target and budget
- Task management
- Find lost backlinks easily
- Rank tracking of all the anchor text
Price Details
- Nomads price is $9 for 500 backlinks monitored
- Sprouts price at $59 for 10,000 backlink monitoring
- Titans price at $69 for 50,000 backlink monitoring
LinkDog is a great option for freelancers, small link building teams, SaaS link building companies and niche link building agencies. LinkDog is designed to help you manage your team, clients, backlinks and budget and more – all in one place.
2. Linkody
Linkody is a great link building tool that has been around for a while. It offers all the essential backlink management features. Linkody aggregates backlinks from trusted sources and provides additional info like index status, dofollow/nofollow, Moz DA, Spam Score, IP and TLD.
Key Features
- Manually add links (one by one, bulk upload or import from Google Search Console)
- Tagging system to organize your backlinks
- Competitor backlink research
- Backlink profile analysis including top anchor text and SEO metric distribution
- Disavow bad/low quality links
- Monitor landing pages and get notified of changes with change-logs
Linkody Backlink Profile Screenshot
Price Details
- Webmaster plan starts at $14.90 (500 links monitored)
- Advanced plan starts at $24.90 (2000 monitored backlinks)
- Pro plan starts at $49.90 (5000 monitored backlinks)
- Agency plan starts at $99.90 (20,000 monitored backlinks)
- Agency XL plan starts at $153.90 (50,000 monitored backlinks)
Pros: The backlink profile data is really insightful and I really appreciate the social signals. The trust and citation flow metrics are great for link builder to know their over all backlink quality scores. The global backlink ranking system is a nice touch.
Cons: The interface is really outdated and clutter. I think this tool is best suited for individuals, there is no way to assign team or a client portal for multiple clients. It updates rarely and I think because it’s a small company. The backlink reports could be much more in-depth.
Final Verdict: This is fine for freelancers who manage backlinks in Excel. Not ideal for in-house backlink building teams or link building agencies.
3. BacklinkManager.io
We have used this tool for over six months, and it has been absolutely impressive. Although it has some major shortcomings in backlink monitoring, our team was able to utilize it seamlessly for regular link-building campaigns.
This tool is an excellent fit for teams and link-building agencies. It offers robust features like partner management, detailed reports, client management, backlink checker, task management, and many other functionalities that are well-suited for both teams and individuals.
Key Features
- Backlink target and goal management
- Team and client management
- Efficient backlink management
- Partnership tracking and organization
- Comprehensive backlink reports and customizable dashboards
- Internal team chat for seamless collaboration
BacklinkManager.io Task Management Feature Screenshot:
Price Details
- Start price starts at $39 for 200 backlink monitoring
- Growth plan starts at $99 for 1000 backlink monitoring
- Scal plan starts at $249 for 5000 backlink monitoring
- Enterprise plan starts at $499 for 10,000+ backlink monitoring
Pros: Intuitive UI and combines team management, partner tracking, client management and backlink features well. It also has some unique features that no other SEO tools offer.
Cons: In our test, we added around 200 links and it only confirmed link existense on about 40% of them. The other 60% were uncrawlable due to various technical reasons. The workflow can be confusing and may not be ideal for link building newbies.
Final Verdict: A great option for link builders, link teams and agencies. But if you’re looking for a bulletproof backlink tracker, this may not be the way to go.
4. Base.me
This tool has been on the market since 2020 and they’ve pushed out regular updates over the last 4 years. We haven’t fully integrated it into our workflow but it was one of our top tools when we were testing out different options.
The interface is super user friendly and accessible. It’s a lot like backlinkmanager.io in that it makes it easy to manage teams and clients. One of the big benefits is the index checking as well as the automatic anchor text detection. You can also set up quality level for your website backlinks. This way you can focus on building high quality backlinks but it is manual.
Key Features
- Team & client management
- Link building campaigns management
- Backlink quality check
- Efficient backlink management
- Additionally they are providing a chrome extension
Price Details
- Starter plans starts at $59 for 150 backlinks monitored
- Pro plan starts at $159 for 300 backlinks monitored
- Enterprise plan starts at $299 for 600 backlinks monitored.
Pros: This tool has a lot of great features, especially the ability to add links from a variety of sources or to upload your own CSV files with links. It gathers a ton of data about each backlink, which is helpful for creating in-depth reports. Being able to manage your backlinks and track status is also incredibly helpful.
Cons: This tool lacks client reporting features, and you can’t generate or schedule advanced reports to be sent to clients. It also hasn’t been updated since December 2023, which is a major red flag for me. I’d never recommend a tool like this to my clients, and it’s not suitable for a long-term link building team.
Final Verdict: This tool has some really great features, but it needs a lot of work. I think it’s still in beta and has a long way to go to have a solid roadmap. It also isn’t a good choice for a long-term link building team.
5. Backlinkmonitor.co
This is one of the newer backlink tools on the market. It has some basic features, but is really lacking in a lot of areas. We tried to use it to monitor backlinks with our link building team, but it was glitchy and we reported multiple issues to their support team. Actually we found this tool from appsumo.com (A popular life-time deal selling website).
It was frustrating enough that we don’t trust it. However, it has a lot of fans and there are many positive reviews from people who purchased the lifetime deal from AppSumo.
Key Features
- Backlink monitoring
- Backlink index check
- Backlink monitoring logs
- Advanced backlink search
- Instant indexing option
- Team management
- Ahref integration for backlink
Price Details
- Starter plan starts at $15 for 2500 backlinks
- Advanced plan starts at $29 for 4000 backlinks
- Pro plan starts at $49 for 11,000 backlinks
- Agency plan starts at $99 for 30,000 backlinks
- Agency plus plan starts at $149 for 55,000 backlinks
Pros: This is feature packed and has everything I would expect from a backlink tracker and more. It has full backlink lists, advanced checking, white label capabilities, site indexing and more.
Cons: This needs A LOT of testing to get all the features to work as they should and to iron out bugs. The interface is terrible and not user friendly at all. I found myself getting frustrated and closing it out after playing with it for 20 minutes.
Final Verdict: The features are nice but it needs A LOT of work and testing to become reliable. I wouldn’t recommend messing with it unless you can get it for a lifetime deal.
6. Backlinkmonitor.com
One of the simplest tools I’ve seen in the many SEO tools I’ve tried. It does exactly what I need it to do to manage links. The interface is very fast and easy to use – adding links is a breeze and the tool grabs the status of links extremely quickly. You can also click a button to refresh link status.
They have a Link Prospecting tool in the works which I think will help a lot with link partnerships and building relationships with other sites. That said, they’ve done a great job with a very simple UI and I could see this app growing into a big player in the future.
Key Features
- Add links manually or using CSV upload
- Crawls most of the backlinks (99%)
- You can add more project/domains
Price Details
- Starter plan starts at $9.99 for 500 backlinks
- Pro plan starts at $24.99 for 2000 backlinks
- Agency plan starts at $49.99 for 5500 backlinks
Pros: This has limited feature but they work as it suppose to.
Cons: Just backlink monitoring is the one this tool can do.
Final Verdict: This tool needs more time to develop, but it has the potential to become one of the best solutions for monitoring backlinks.
7. Rankro.com
This is a very powerful tool that does a lot more than just show you backlinks. The question keyword research, YouTube keyword research and Amazon keyword research features are nice but not super relevant to most of us who focus on backlinks.
In Rankro, adding links is very easy. Enter your domain and it will show you all your backlinks along with anchor text, status of the backlink and IP location. It also has a metric it calls OL that I’m not entirely sure what it means. You can also recrawl your backlinks at any time which is nice.
Key Features
- Simple backlink monitoring
- Collect the IP location, anchor automatically.
- You can recrawl anytime you want
Price Details
- Basic plan starts at $1 for 500 backlinks
- Premium plan starts at $6 for 3000 backlinks
- Super plan starts at $12 for 7000 backlinks
Pros: This is a great backlink oversight tool that is super simple.
Cons: It lacks team and client management features, as well as robust reporting.
Final Verdict: Rankro is a great option if you’re an individual or an SEO geek that wants a simple tool. However, it’s not ideal for a link building team or agency that needs advanced management and reporting features. Your call.
8. Backlinkpilot.com
This is one of the simplest link management systems out there. It has a lot of features that are specifically geared towards managing clients, partners and backlinks, as well as importing existing backlinks. The partner link management is nice because you can log links you give to partners and receive from them. This is a feature set that very few link management tools offer.
The “link exchange” feature is also really useful. It allows you to manage the links you are using in your ABC link building campaigns. You can also use it to calculate links you owe other sites and sites that owe you links. This makes exchanging links easy.
Key Features
- Team and Client management
- Backlink management
- Partners management
- Import option
Price Details
- Only free plans with 500 backlinks
Pros: This tool is clearly designed with link building teams in mind and offers some helpful features to support that.
Cons: Adding and tracking links is time consuming and frustrating at times.
Final Verdict: This tool has potential but it is far from being a solution for serious link builders. With some further development it could be a more useful tool.
9. Linkchecker.pro
This is one of the most powerful backlink monitoring tools out there, and it’s batch analysis features are incredible. You can add multiple sites and it will analyze them all at once. It also integrates with Ahrefs, which is awesome. You can export your backlink data from Ahrefs and the tool will help you organize it.
You can also add manual backlinks and tag them by type, tier, tags, and just about any other column you can think of. This is a huge time saver and really helps you stay on top of your backlinks.
It also has an alert feature like the other tools, and you can set custom notifications for when your links are mentioned around the web.
Key Features
- Batch analysis
- Backlink management from ahref
- Redirect findings
- User management
- Report management
Price Details
- Lite plan starts from $25 for 400 backlinks
- Standard plan starts from $50 for 1000 backlinks
- Pro plan starts from $100 for 2500 backlinks
- Pro+ plan starts from $153 for 4500 backlinks
- Pro++ plan starts from $220 for 6500 backlinks
- Pro 8 plan starts from $256 for 8000 backlinks
- Pro 14 plan starts from $415 for 14,000 backlinks
- Pro 22 plan starts form $575 for 22,000 backlinks
10. Hyperchecker.net
Hyperchecker is another tool that operates on a credit-based system. Users can purchase credits to monitor backlinks, access reports, track backlink sources, and manage earnings.
This tool is specifically designed for link builders who work closely with partners to collect domains. It facilitates both free and paid outreach for link insertion and allows users to manage their income from these activities.
Key Features
- Backlink management
- Bulk URL checker
- Reports management
Price Details
- Backlink monitoring starts from $0.0035 per backlink.
- Bulk URL checking starts from $0.0035 per URL
- Google indexing starts from $0.005 per link.
Pros: This tool offers all the necessary features for freelancers to manage backlinks efficiently.
Cons: It is not suited for team collaboration, and managing backlinks based on different activities is not possible.
Final Verdict: Hyperchecker is an ideal tool for freelancers, but it may not be the best fit for team-based backlink management.
Final Thoughts
When looking for a backlink management tool, we had a few must-haves. The platform should allow the manager to invite team members and manage their backlinks individually. We also wanted to be able to set monthly goals and backlink budgets for individuals or the team as a whole, as well as add partner info (domain specific) so the site owner and partners are alerted when key links are missing. These features are a must for any link building focused team.
Unfortunately, we found that most backlink monitoring tools were missing some of the must-haves we listed above and focused on other features instead. This led us to build our own link management tool, LinkDog. It’s tailored to our backlink team needs and we’d love for you to check it out and let us know what you think.
To find the target for backlinks, we followed some standard processes, and I’ve written a separate blog here about performing a backlink audit using free tools.