SEO Tool · Retired
Back Link Checker
This tool queried Yahoo Site Explorer to retrieve the backlinks pointing at any URL. Yahoo shut Site Explorer down in 2011 when it handed search to Bing. The API it depended on no longer exists. Today there are better options — several of them free.
What replaced Yahoo Site Explorer
Yahoo Site Explorer was for its era one of the most complete public backlink indexes available. After it closed, the space was filled by specialist link-intelligence companies that have since grown far larger crawlers than Yahoo ever operated:
- Ahrefs Site Explorer — widely regarded as the most comprehensive backlink index available. Shows referring domains, anchor text distribution, link history, and new/lost links. Paid product with a limited free tier via Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for verified properties.
- Semrush Backlink Analytics — strong index, especially for identifying toxic links and comparing competitor profiles. Free accounts get a limited number of results per report.
- Moz Link Explorer — shows inbound links, Domain Authority, and spam score. Free accounts get ten queries per month.
- Majestic — runs its own independent crawler; the Fresh Index and Historic Index together give a long-run view of a site's link profile. Trust Flow and Citation Flow are its proprietary quality metrics.
- OpenLinkProfiler — free tool with no account required. Smaller index than Ahrefs or Semrush but genuinely free for spot-checks.
Free options today
The most useful free backlink data for your own sites comes directly from Google:
Google Search Console → Links shows every external link Google has seen pointing at your verified property, the pages they land on, and the anchor texts used. It covers only your own sites, but the data comes straight from Google's crawl, so there's no third-party sampling involved.
For competitor research — or checking any site you don't own — Ahrefs' free Backlink Checker returns the top 100 backlinks with no account required. OpenLinkProfiler is another zero-cost option for a quick profile.
Why third-party data and Google's data differ
Third-party tools crawl the web independently. Their indexes are large but not complete — they won't have crawled every page Google has, and vice versa. A link that appears in Ahrefs may not be in Moz's index, and neither may match Search Console exactly.
This discrepancy is normal and doesn't mean any tool is wrong. For link building campaigns, use a paid tool for breadth and competitor analysis. For understanding how Google specifically sees your own link profile, Search Console is the authoritative source.
One practical implication: when auditing for link equity or disavowing toxic links, cross-reference at least two tools before submitting a disavow file to Google — a link appearing in only one index is lower priority than one found in all of them.