How to Perform a Backlink Audit: Step-by-Step Guide for SEO Success in 2025

To achieve better SEO results, start by addressing what’s already there. One of the most overlooked yet powerful ways to boost rankings is to run a backlink audit.

In this guide, we’ll explain what a backlink audit is and why it’s a must in 2025. With constant algorithm updates and penalties for poor-quality links, maintaining a clean link profile is more crucial than ever.

We’ll walk you through the whole process, from understanding backlinks to removing harmful links and maintaining a healthy backlink profile. It’s practical, beginner-friendly, and based on what works now.

By the end, you’ll know how to:

• Analyze your backlink profile
• Spot harmful links
• Fix or disavow what’s hurting your rankings
• Stay ahead of competitors

Let’s get this rolling.

Understanding Backlinks and Their Importance

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Backlinks are links from external websites that directly point to your site. When someone clicks on these links, they land on your pages.

Search engines like Google and Bing view backlinks as votes of trust – they signal that other sites find your content valuable enough to recommend.

Not all backlinks carry the same weight. We need to understand the different types before we start our backlink audit.

• Dofollow links: Pass SEO value or link juice from the linking site to your site. Due to their ranking power, these are the most valuable types for SEO purposes.
• Nofollow links: It includes a special tag that tells search engines not to pass ranking power. While they don’t directly help with rankings, they still drive traffic and can contribute to a natural link profile.
• Sponsored links: These are marked with a “sponsored” attribute. These identify paid partnerships or advertisements. Google treats these similarly to nofollow links.
• UGC (User-Generated Content) links: These are sourced from user comments, forum posts, or guestbook entries. The UGC attribute helps search engines better understand the context of these links.

Backlinks influence your search rankings in several ways.

First, they act as trust signals. Sites with many high-quality backlinks tend to rank higher because search engines view them as authoritative sources.

Second, backlinks help with discovery. Search engine crawlers use links to find new pages and understand how different pieces of content relate to each other.

Third, anchor text in backlinks provides context. When sites link to your page about “digital marketing tips,” using that exact phrase reinforces your page’s relevance for that topic.

The quality and relevance of linking sites matter more than quantity. One link from a respected industry publication carries more weight or SEO value than dozens of links derived from low-quality directories.

Why You Need a Backlink Audit

1. The Danger of Toxic and Spammy Backlinks

Toxic backlinks—often originating from link farms, private blog networks (PBNs), or unrelated low-quality sites—can severely damage your search rankings. These harmful links undermine your website’s credibility and can trigger penalties from search engines.

1. How Google Detects Unnatural Links

Google’s algorithms have consistently evolved and become sophisticated at identifying unnatural link patterns and manipulative link-building tactics. When detected, Google can impose manual penalties or algorithmic demotions that drastically reduce your organic traffic.

1. The Impact of Algorithm Updates

Google’s search algorithm is constantly evolving, with major updates in 2024 and 2025 placing stronger emphasis on user experience, content quality, and backlink integrity. These updates have significantly altered how backlinks impact rankings and how Google assesses link profiles.

Real Consequences of Neglecting Backlink Management

Many sites have lost between 70% and 90% of their organic traffic following major algorithm updates due to neglected backlink profiles.

Recovery from such losses can take months or even years, making proactive backlink audits essential for prevention.

Benefits of Maintaining a Healthy Backlink Profile

Beyond avoiding penalties, a clean backlink profile offers several advantages:

• Resilience to Algorithm Updates: Sites with natural, diverse backlinks tend to maintain or improve rankings during Google’s algorithm changes.
• Identifying New Link Opportunities: Audits reveal high-value sites linking to your competitors, providing targets for your link building efforts.
• Content Strategy Insights: Identify which content pieces naturally attract the most backlinks, enabling you to tailor your content to audience interests.
• Faster Indexing and Crawl Efficiency: Authoritative backlinks enable search engines to discover, crawl, and index your new content more quickly, thereby improving overall site visibility.

Preparing for Your Backlink Audit

Before we dive into the actual audit, we need to set clear goals and gather the right tools.

Define Your Goals

What do you want to achieve?

Your SEO audit goals will determine the depth and focus of your analysis.

For penalty recovery:

Prioritize speed and thoroughness in identifying harmful links. You need to be aggressive with disavowing questionable links and documenting your cleanup efforts for potential reconsideration requests.

For profile cleanup:

Take a more measured approach. Look for patterns of low-quality links and opportunities to strengthen authoritative connections while being more conservative with disavowing borderline cases.

For competitive analysis:

Spend significant time comparing your profile against those of successful competitors to identify potential gaps and opportunities in your link building strategy.

Gather the Right SEO Tools

The tools you choose will shape your audit process. Each platform offers different data sets and analysis features.

Tool Name	Key Features	Unique Strengths
Google Search Console	Provides the most comprehensive view of links Google actually knows about. Free and essential for audits.	Direct data from Google; the best starting point for any backlink audit.
Ahrefs	Large backlink database, excellent filtering, and metrics such as Domain Rating (DR) and URL Rating (UR).	One of the largest link databases, quick link quality assessment, and powerful metrics.
SEMrush	Backlink analysis combined with competitive intelligence, toxicity scoring for harmful links.	Integrated backlink audit tool with toxicity scoring; fast identification of harmful backlinks.
Moz	Domain Authority (DA) scores; Link Explorer tool with filtering and export options.	Popular DA metric used by many SEO pros; user-friendly filtering and export capabilities.
Majestic	Specializes in backlink data, including unique metrics such as Trust Flow and Citation Flow.	Unique SEO metrics for evaluating link quality; focused backlink data provider.

Use more than one tool to cover all links. Different tools crawl the web in various ways and may discover links that others overlook.

Here are the steps:

1. Export all backlinks from each tool.
2. Use Excel or Google Sheets to merge the data.
3. Remove duplicates.
4. Add columns for:

• Link URL
• Anchor text
• Source domain
• Link attribute (dofollow, nofollow)
• Domain authority (DA or DR)
• Notes or action (keep, remove, disavow)

Now, you’re ready to start the audit.

Backlink Audit Step-by-Step Process

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Step 1: Get an Overview of Your Backlink Profile

Start with the big picture before diving into individual links. Understanding your overall backlink profile helps you spot patterns and set priorities for deeper analysis.

1. Total backlinks: This shows the volume of links pointing to your site. A sudden spike might indicate a positive mention or a negative SEO attack. Gradual growth typically indicates a healthy, natural process of link building.
2. Referring domains: Count unique websites linking to you. This metric often matters more than total backlinks since multiple links from the same site have diminishing returns.
3. Link velocity: Tracks how quickly you’re gaining or losing links over time. Dramatic changes in velocity can trigger algorithm scrutiny, while steady growth looks more natural.
4. Anchor text distribution: Reveals how sites describe your content when linking. A natural profile includes your brand name, generic phrases like “click here,” and varied keyword anchors.

Compare these to your top 3 competitors. If they have better links or more balanced anchor text, take notes.

Benchmarking against competitors provides valuable context. If competitors in your space typically have 5,000 referring domains and you only have 500, you’ve identified a significant gap to address.

Look for competitors ranking well for your target keywords. Export their backlink data and compare key metrics.

Are they getting links from sources you haven’t tapped? Do they have anchor text patterns you should emulate?

Document these baseline metrics. You’ll reference them throughout your audit and use them to measure progress over time.

Step 2: Categorize and Segment Your Backlinks

Organizing your backlinks into categories makes the analysis process more manageable and helps identify patterns more easily.

A. Sort Backlinks By Type

Link type segmentation separates dofollow from nofollow links. A healthy profile typically includes both types. Too many dofollow links might look manipulative, while too few won’t provide ranking benefits.

Create separate sections in your spreadsheet for each type of link. Calculate what percentage of your total links are dofollow versus nofollow. Industry standards vary, but many natural profiles have 60-80% dofollow links.

B. Sort Backlinks by Source

Source-based categorization groups links by where they come from.

Common categories include:

• Editorial links from news sites and industry publications
• Guest posts and contributed content
• Resource pages and link roundups
• Directory listings
• Social media profiles
• Forum and comment links
• Partner and vendor websites

Each source type carries different risk and value levels. Editorial links from respected publications are typically high-value and low-risk.

Comment links and low-quality directories often carry more risk with minimal benefit.

C. Sort Backlinks by Location

Geographic and language relevance are crucial for both local businesses and international sites. Links from sites in your target geographic regions and languages typically provide more value than irrelevant international links.

Create dedicated columns in your Google spreadsheet to track the country and language of linking sites. This helps identify unnatural patterns, such as an English-language US business receiving numerous links from non-English sites in unrelated countries.

Step 3: Analyze Link Quality and Relevance

Quality assessment determines which links help or hurt your SEO efforts. Evaluate each link using multiple criteria and metrics to assess its effectiveness.

Domain Authority (DA) and Domain Rating (DR)

These provide quick, quality indicators. While not perfect, sites with higher scores typically offer more valuable links. However, don’t rely solely on these metrics; a relevant site with moderate authority often provides more value than an irrelevant, high-authority site.

Page Authority (PA) and URL Rating (UR)

These measure the linking page’s strength specifically. A link from a high-authority page on a moderate-authority domain can be more valuable than a link from a low-authority page on a high-authority domain.

Spam Score and Toxicity Score

These help identify potentially harmful links. These automated scores analyze various risk factors, including suspicious anchor text patterns, low-quality content, and associations with known bad neighborhoods.

Add columns to your spreadsheet for each metric you’re tracking. This allows you to sort and filter links by quality indicators.

Link placement and context

These significantly impact value. Links within the main content area typically carry more weight or SEO value than the backlinks placed on the sidebar or footer. Links surrounded by relevant content that naturally flows are more valuable than isolated links on unrelated pages.

Review a sample of your links manually to assess placement.

Are they naturally integrated into relevant content?

Do they appear in lists of recommended resources?

Or are they buried in footers alongside hundreds of other unrelated links?

Anchor text analysis

This reveals whether your link profile looks natural. Search engines expect to see variety in how sites link to you.

Common patterns in healthy profiles include:

Anchor Text Type	Recommended Percentage Range	Examples
Brand name anchors	30% – 50%	YourBrand, BrandName.com
Generic phrases (e.g., “click here”)	20% – 30%	Click here, Read more
Exact match keyword anchors	5% – 15%	Best backlink audit guide
Partial match keyword anchors	10% – 20%	Backlink audit tips, audit backlinks
Naked URLs	5% – 10%	https://yourbrand.com

Calculate your anchor text distribution and compare it to these benchmarks. Profiles heavily skewed toward exact match keywords often indicate manipulation and carry higher penalty risk.

Step 4: Identify Toxic and Harmful Links

Toxic backlinks can trigger penalties and hurt your rankings. Learning to spot them quickly is crucial for maintaining a healthy profile.

Low authority indicators

It includes very low domain authority scores, thin content, numerous outbound links on the linking page, and association with known link farms or private blog networks.

Sites with DA scores below 10-15 aren’t automatically toxic, but they require closer examination. New sites naturally have low authority, while established sites with persistently low scores may indicate quality issues.

Spammy site characteristics

It includes automatically generated content, excessive advertising, unrelated outbound links, foreign language content on otherwise English sites, and suspicious domain names.

Many toxic sites try to disguise themselves, but patterns emerge. Sites with names like “best-seo-links-2025.com” or random character strings often exist solely for the purpose of link manipulation.

Irrelevant niche connections

It can indicate paid link schemes. A local plumber getting links from international gambling sites raises red flags. Some irrelevance is natural, but patterns of completely unrelated links suggest manipulation.

Tools and filters

They speed up toxic link identification. Most backlink analysis tools offer spam score filters and bulk analysis features.

In Ahrefs, use the “Best by links” filter set to show pages with high outbound link counts. These often indicate low-quality link directories or pages selling links.

SEMrush’s Backlink Audit tool automatically flags potentially toxic links based on multiple risk factors. While not perfect, it provides a good starting point for manual review.

Create a “toxic” category in your spreadsheet and document why you’ve flagged each link.

Common reasons include:

• Spam score above 70%
• Completely irrelevant niche
• Suspicious domain name
• Low-quality content
• Known link farm or PBN
• Excessive outbound links on the linking page

Step 5: Decide on Action: Remove, Disavow, or Keep

Once you’ve identified problematic links, you need to decide on the appropriate action to take.

You have three main options:

Option #1: Requesting link removal.

This option works best for recently acquired links from legitimate sites. Many web admins will remove links if you ask politely and provide a good reason.

Create a standard outreach template that clearly and professionally explains your situation concisely and professionally. Include the specific URL where the link appears and your preferred timeframe for removal. Track your outreach efforts and follow up once if you don’t receive a response.

Don’t spend excessive time on removal requests for obviously spammy sites. These sites rarely respond to removal requests, and your time is better spent on disavowing.

Option #2: Creating and submitting a disavow file.

This option instructs Google to disregard specific links when assessing your site. This tool should be used with caution, as disavowing good links can negatively impact your rankings.

Format your disavow file as a plain text document with one URL or domain per line.

Use the “domain:” prefix to disavow all links from a specific domain.

Add comments using the “#” symbol to document your reasoning.

Examples:

# Toxic link farm

domain:spam-links-cheap.com

# Irrelevant gambling site

domain:random-casino-site.com

Upload your disavow file through Google Search Console. The process can take several weeks to months before you see results, so be patient.

Option #3: Keeping borderline links

This option is sensible when the risks of removal outweigh the potential benefits. Links from moderate-quality sites in related niches might provide small benefits without significant risk.

Create a “monitor” category for these links. Check them periodically to ensure the linking sites haven’t deteriorated in quality.

Document your decision-making criteria in your spreadsheet. This helps maintain consistency and provides a reference for future audits.

Step 6: Monitor and Maintain Your SEO Backlink Profile

Regular monitoring prevents minor issues from escalating into major problems. Set up systems to track changes to your backlink profile and quickly identify new toxic links.

Schedule regular audits

This is based on your site’s link acquisition rate and risk level. High-growth sites or those in competitive industries may require monthly reviews. In contrast, stable sites may only need quarterly checkups.

Create a calendar reminder and stick to your schedule. Consistency matters more than frequency for most sites.

Automated alerts

This helps you catch significant changes immediately. Most backlink tools offer alert features that notify you when you gain or lose significant numbers of links.

Set up alerts for:

• New referring domains
• Lost high-value links
• Sudden spikes in link velocity
• New links with suspicious anchor text

Ongoing link building strategy

This should align with your audit findings. Use your analysis to determine the types of content and outreach that work best for your site.

Focus your link building efforts on the types of sites and content that already link to you naturally. If industry publications frequently link to your research studies, create more research content. If resource pages often include your tools, develop additional useful tools.

Track the quality and performance of new links you acquire. This helps refine your outreach strategy and identify the most effective SEO link building strategies for your specific niche.

5. Competitive Backlink Analysis

Understanding your competitors’ backlink strategies reveals opportunities and benchmarks for your own efforts.

Here are the steps to competitive backlink analysis:

1. Pick 2–3 competitors ranking above you.

Begin by identifying your main search competitors. These aren’t necessarily your business competitors – focus on websites that are performing and ranking well for your target keywords, regardless of their business model.

1. Use Ahrefs or SEMrush to analyze their backlinks.

Export their backlink data using the same tools you used for your own audit, such as Ahrefs or SEMrush.

Look for patterns in their link profiles that differ from yours.

• Unique domains you don’t have
• Authority scores
• Anchor text strategies

Create a comparison chart showing key metrics for you and your top 3-5 competitors:

Metric	Your Site	Competitor A	Competitor B	Competitor C
Referring domains	1,250	3,400	2,100	1,800
Total backlinks	8,500	25,600	14,200	11,300
Average DR	45	62	58	51

This comparison immediately shows where you stand and which areas need the most attention.

1. Export their links and create a link gap table.

Identifying link gaps means finding sites that link to multiple competitors but not to you. These represent your highest-probability link targets since they’ve already shown interest in your topic area.

Most backlink tools offer gap analysis features that automate this process. Input your own domain and your competitors’ domains to generate a list of sites linking to them but not to you.

Prioritize these opportunities based on:

• Domain authority of the linking site
• Relevance to your niche
• Type of content they typically link to
• Likelihood of successful outreach

Example of a link gap table:

Domain	Your Site	Competitor	Action
topblog.com	❌	✅	Outreach idea
techreview.org	❌	✅	Guest post

Target these opportunities in your future campaigns.

1. Research techniques.

Research techniques for competitor analysis include examining their most linked-to content, identifying their guest posting sites, and analyzing their anchor text strategies.

Look at which pieces of content attract the most links for each competitor. Are they creating comprehensive guides, original research, free tools, or something else? This insight helps inform your content strategy.

Identify sites where competitors frequently guest post or contribute content. These sites may also accept contributions from you.

Analyze successful anchor text patterns from competitors, but don’t copy them directly. Use their approaches as inspiration while maintaining your own unique style and natural variation.

Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

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Even experienced SEO professionals make mistakes during SEO backlink audits. Avoiding these common pitfalls saves time and prevents self-inflicted damage to your ranking.

Mistake #1: Over-disavowing good links.

This is one of the most damaging mistakes. Some people panic and disavow backlinks that don’t appear perfect, including legitimate links from moderately authoritative sites.

Be conservative with your disavow file. Only include links you’re confident are harmful. When in doubt, monitor the link rather than disavowing it immediately.

Mistake #2: Ignoring anchor text diversity.

This leads to unnatural-looking profiles. Some site owners try to force exact match anchors or completely avoid them, both of which can look manipulative.

Aim for natural variation that includes your brand name, generic phrases, and relevant keywords in reasonable proportions. Don’t try to engineer perfect ratios – focus on what looks natural for your industry.

Mistake #3: Relying on a single tool.

This gives you an incomplete picture. Each backlink database captures different links, and its quality metrics use different methodologies.

Use at least two major backlink audit tools for comprehensive coverage. Google Search Console should always be included, as it displays links that Google is aware of.

Mistake #4: Not following up after your audit.

This wastes the work you’ve done. Many people complete an initial audit but never check whether their actions achieved the desired results.

Set calendar reminders to review your progress 3-6 months after completing major audit actions. Monitor your rankings, organic traffic, and new link acquisition to measure success.

Track metrics like:

• Changes in organic traffic
• Ranking improvements for target keywords
• New high-quality links acquired
• Reduction in spam score or toxicity indicators

Keep your strategy balanced. A clean profile means better rankings and fewer SEO headaches.

Conclusion and Next Steps

Backlink audits are crucial for achieving long-term SEO success.

They help you:

• Remove harmful links
• Protect your rankings
• Find new link building opportunities

We’ve covered the complete backlink audit process from initial data gathering through ongoing monitoring. You now have the framework to assess your current backlink profile, identify problems and opportunities, and maintain a healthy link portfolio over time.

Use this step-by-step process to run your first audit or improve your existing efforts.

Keep it simple:

• Audit your links every few months
• Focus on quality, not just quantity
• Watch your anchor text mix

Remember that backlink auditing is an ongoing SEO process, not a one-time task. Establish regular review schedules and monitoring systems to identify and resolve potential or existing link building issues before they escalate into serious problems.

Take action on what you’ve learned here. Your rankings and organic traffic will thank you for the effort.

Start now, and if you stay consistent, the results will come.

Want Help With Your Backlink Strategy?

Book a free link audit call with Daryl. His years of solid experience helped hundreds of businesses clean up their backlink profiles and build authority that lasts.

Book a Free Consultation Now