This guide walks you through the entire backlink audit process step by step — from gathering your data to cleaning up toxic links and building a healthier profile going forward.

A backlink audit is a systematic review of all the external links pointing to your website. Its purpose is to assess the overall health of your link profile, identify links that may be harming your rankings, and ensure your backlink strategy is aligned with Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

How to Do a Backlink Audit

There are several situations where a backlink audit is particularly important:

  • Unexplained ranking drops — if your organic traffic or rankings have declined without an obvious on-page cause, toxic backlinks may be a contributing factor
  • A manual penalty notice — if Google Search Console shows a manual action for unnatural inbound links, an immediate audit is essential. See our guide on recovering from a Google penalty for the full recovery process.
  • Acquiring or inheriting a website — any website with an unknown link history should be audited before new SEO work begins
  • After a competitor negative SEO attack — if you suspect a competitor has pointed spam links at your site, an audit identifies and addresses the damage
  • Routine maintenance — even healthy websites benefit from a backlink audit every six to twelve months to catch issues before they escalate

Tools You Will Need

A thorough backlink audit requires at least one — ideally two or three — of the following tools to ensure comprehensive data coverage:

Google Search Console (free) — provides backlink data directly from Google's index. Essential as a baseline since it reflects exactly how Google sees your link profile.

Ahrefs — one of the largest and most frequently updated backlink databases available. Provides detailed quality metrics including DR, anchor text distribution, and link history.

Semrush — includes a dedicated Toxicity Score for each backlink, making it particularly efficient for identifying problematic links quickly. Its Backlink Audit tool automates much of the initial filtering process.

Moz Link Explorer — provides Spam Score alongside standard backlink metrics. Useful as a supplementary data source.

No single tool captures every link in Google's index. Cross-referencing data from Google Search Console with at least one paid tool gives you the most complete picture possible. For a full comparison of the best free options available, see our guide to the best free backlink checker tools in 2026.

The first step is gathering a complete export of all backlinks pointing to your website from every tool you have access to.

From Google Search Console: Navigate to Links in the left sidebar, then select External Links. Click the export button in the top right corner and download the full link data as a spreadsheet.

From Ahrefs: Enter your domain in Site Explorer, navigate to Backlinks in the left menu, and export the full backlink list. Include all columns — particularly DR, URL Rating, anchor text, DoFollow/NoFollow status, and first seen date.

From Semrush: Navigate to Backlink Analytics, enter your domain, go to the Backlinks tab, and export the full report. Semrush's export includes its Toxicity Score, which is particularly useful for the next steps.

Consolidate your exported data into a single master spreadsheet, removing duplicate entries. Your master spreadsheet should include at minimum: the linking URL, the linking domain, the DR or DA of the linking domain, the anchor text used, the DoFollow/NoFollow status, and the date the link was first discovered.

Before diving into individual links, take stock of the overall shape of your backlink profile. Review the following metrics at a domain level:

Total referring domains vs. total backlinks. A healthy profile has a reasonable ratio between referring domains and total backlinks. If you have 500 backlinks but only 10 referring domains, the majority of your links are coming from a very small number of sources — which can look unnatural.

DR distribution of referring domains. What proportion of your referring domains have a DR above 40, above 60, above 80? A profile dominated by very low DR domains warrants closer inspection.

DoFollow vs. NoFollow ratio. A completely DoFollow profile looks unnatural. A healthy mix — typically weighted toward DoFollow but with a meaningful proportion of NoFollow — is the norm for organically grown link profiles.

Anchor text distribution. Review your most common anchor texts. A heavy concentration of exact match keyword anchors is a significant red flag. Branded, generic, and varied anchors should dominate a healthy profile. Our full guide on anchor text best practices explains what a healthy distribution looks like.

Link velocity over time. Look at when your backlinks were acquired. A sudden spike in link acquisition — particularly if concentrated in a short window — can indicate artificial link building and is worth investigating.

With your high-level overview complete, the next step is filtering your full backlink list to surface potentially toxic links for closer review. Apply the following filters to your master spreadsheet:

Low DR domains. Filter for referring domains with a DR below 10. While low DR alone does not make a link toxic, it flags domains worth reviewing more carefully.

High Toxicity Score or Spam Score. If using Semrush or Moz, filter for links with a Toxicity Score above 45 or a Spam Score above 30 percent. These are your highest-priority review candidates.

Over-optimized anchor text. Identify any anchor text that matches your target keywords exactly and appears across multiple referring domains. Flag these for review regardless of the linking domain's DR.

Irrelevant linking domains. Look for referring domains with no topical connection to your website. A large cluster of links from completely unrelated industries — particularly if acquired around the same time — suggests artificial link building.

Sitewide links. Identify any domains linking to you from every page of their website via footer or sidebar placements. These generate an unnaturally high backlink count from a single domain and are frequently associated with paid link schemes.

Foreign language spam. Links from websites in languages completely unrelated to your market — particularly if those sites show other spam characteristics — are frequently associated with low-quality link farms.

Automated toxicity scores are a useful starting point, but they are not infallible. Every flagged link requires a manual review before any action is taken. Visit each flagged linking website and assess it against the following criteria:

  • Does the website have genuine, original content — or is it thin, auto-generated, or keyword-stuffed?
  • Does the website appear to serve a real audience — or does it exist solely to host outbound links?
  • Is the link placed naturally within relevant content — or does it appear in a footer, sidebar, or directory-style list alongside hundreds of unrelated links?
  • Is the website topically relevant to yours — or completely unrelated?
  • Does the linking page have any organic traffic — or is it a dormant page with no real visitors?
  • Is the anchor text natural and contextually appropriate — or does it appear manufactured?

For each reviewed link, assign a decision category in your spreadsheet: Keep, Request Removal, or Disavow. Links that pass manual review should be kept regardless of their automated score. Links that clearly fail multiple criteria should be actioned. For a deeper understanding of what makes a backlink toxic, see our guide on what toxic backlinks are and how they hurt your SEO.

Before resorting to Google's Disavow Tool, make a genuine attempt to have the most harmful links removed directly. This is particularly important if you are dealing with a manual penalty — Google expects to see evidence of removal outreach as part of any reconsideration request.

To find contact information for linking website owners, check the website's Contact page, About page, or footer. You can also use WHOIS lookup tools to find domain registrant information, or search for the site owner's details on LinkedIn.

Keep your removal request emails brief, professional, and specific:

  • Identify yourself and your website clearly
  • Provide the exact URL of the page containing the link
  • State clearly and politely that you would like the link removed
  • Avoid lengthy explanations — keep it to two or three sentences

Log every outreach attempt in your spreadsheet with the date sent and the outcome. Follow up once after seven to ten days if you receive no response. If a second attempt goes unanswered, move the link to your disavow list.

Step 6: Build Your Disavow File

For links that cannot be removed through direct outreach, create a disavow file to submit to Google. The disavow file is a plain text document (.txt) that instructs Google to ignore specific links or entire domains when evaluating your website. For a complete guide to building and submitting your disavow file correctly, see our article on how to use Google's Disavow Tool correctly.

Format your disavow file as follows:

# Backlink Audit Disavow File
# Last updated: [date]
# Total removal requests sent: [number]
# Total domains disavowed: [number]

# Spam domains - no response to removal request
domain:spam-example.com
domain:link-farm-example.com

# Specific toxic pages on otherwise acceptable domains
https://example.com/specific-spammy-page

Use domain: to disavow all links from an entire domain — which is more efficient than listing individual URLs when a domain has multiple pages linking to you. Reserve specific URL disavowal for cases where only one or two pages on an otherwise legitimate domain are problematic.

Include comments in your disavow file (lines beginning with #) to document your reasoning. This is particularly useful if you ever need to review or update the file in the future.

Step 7: Submit Your Disavow File to Google

Submit your completed disavow file through Google's Disavow Links tool, accessible via Google Search Console at search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links.

Select your website property, upload your disavow file, and confirm the submission. Google will process the file over the following weeks as it recrawls the disavowed URLs. Note that submitting a disavow file replaces any previously submitted file — so always maintain a master disavow file that includes all previously disavowed domains alongside any new additions.

Important: the Disavow Tool should be used with care. Incorrectly disavowing high-quality legitimate backlinks can negatively impact your rankings. Always conduct a thorough manual review before including any domain or URL in your disavow file.

Step 8: Submit a Reconsideration Request (If Applicable)

If your website has received a manual penalty for unnatural inbound links, cleaning up your link profile is necessary but not sufficient on its own. You must also submit a reconsideration request through Google Search Console to have the penalty reviewed and lifted.

A strong reconsideration request should include:

  • A clear acknowledgment of the issue and how it occurred
  • A summary of the toxic links identified during your audit
  • Documentation of your removal outreach — including dates, URLs, and outcomes
  • Confirmation that your disavow file has been submitted
  • A commitment to following Google's Webmaster Guidelines going forward

Be honest and specific. Vague or generic reconsideration requests are frequently rejected. Google's web spam team responds to most reconsideration requests within a few weeks, though complex cases can take longer. For a complete walkthrough of the penalty recovery process, see our guide on backlink building after a Google penalty.

A backlink audit is not only about identifying problems — it is also an opportunity to understand what is working well in your link profile and where your best link acquisition opportunities lie.

Once you have filtered out the toxic links, review your strongest backlinks and ask:

  • Which websites are linking to you with the highest DR and most topical relevance?
  • Which of your pages attract the most high-quality backlinks — and why?
  • Are there patterns in how your best links were acquired that you can replicate?
  • Are there referring domains linking to one page that you could also approach for links to other pages?

Your existing strong backlinks are a roadmap to your best future link building opportunities. The websites already linking to you have demonstrated a willingness to do so — making them natural candidates for additional placements or relationship development. Our guide on how to check your competitors' backlinks shows you how to find similar opportunities beyond your existing profile.

A backlink audit is not a one-time task. Link profiles change continuously — new links are acquired, existing links are lost, and spam links can appear at any time through negative SEO or low-quality directories picking up your details automatically.

Set up the following ongoing monitoring to maintain a healthy link profile between formal audits:

Ahrefs or Semrush alerts — configure alerts to notify you when your website gains or loses significant backlinks. This allows you to identify and address new toxic links quickly before they accumulate.

Google Search Console notifications — ensure email notifications are enabled in Search Console so you are alerted immediately if a manual action is applied to your website.

Scheduled audits — conduct a full backlink audit every six to twelve months as routine maintenance, even if no specific problems are detected. Proactive auditing is far less disruptive than reactive cleanup after a penalty.

  • Export full backlink data from Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and/or Semrush
  • Consolidate data into a master spreadsheet
  • Review high-level profile metrics: referring domains, DR distribution, DoFollow ratio, anchor text distribution, link velocity
  • Filter for potentially toxic links using DR, Toxicity Score, anchor text, and relevance criteria
  • Manually review every flagged link and assign a decision: Keep, Request Removal, or Disavow
  • Send removal requests to webmasters of the most harmful links
  • Follow up on unanswered removal requests after seven to ten days
  • Build a disavow file for links that cannot be removed
  • Submit disavow file via Google Search Console — see our guide on how to use the Disavow Tool correctly
  • Submit reconsideration request if a manual penalty is in place
  • Review healthy links for future link building opportunities
  • Set up ongoing monitoring alerts and schedule next audit

Key Takeaways

  • A backlink audit is a systematic review of all external links pointing to your website, aimed at identifying and removing harmful links while preserving and building on strong ones
  • Use multiple tools — Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and Semrush — for the most complete backlink data coverage
  • Automated toxicity scores are a useful filter but must always be followed by manual review before taking action
  • Always attempt direct removal before resorting to the Disavow Tool — and document every outreach attempt
  • The Disavow Tool is powerful but must be used carefully — incorrectly disavowing legitimate links can harm your rankings
  • Treat a backlink audit as an ongoing process, not a one-time task — regular monitoring prevents small issues from becoming serious problems. For a broader view of everything involved in maintaining a strong link profile, see our guide on what a healthy backlink profile looks like.