A backlink audit is one of the most useful SEO checks you can perform when you want to understand why your website is gaining authority, losing visibility, or attracting links you never asked for. Your backlink profile is more than a number in an SEO tool. It is a record of the websites, pages, anchor texts, and link patterns connected to your domain. Some backlinks can support your content and help search engines understand your site, while others may be irrelevant, manipulative, broken, or simply worthless. That is why learning how to do a backlink audit is an important part of maintaining a healthy SEO strategy.

A proper audit does not mean deleting every backlink from a low-authority website. That approach can create more problems than it solves. Modern backlink analysis requires context: where the link comes from, why it exists, what page it points to, whether the linking site appears legitimate, what anchor text it uses, and whether there is evidence of manipulation. Ahrefs specifically cautions that a low Domain Rating alone does not mean a referring domain is bad, while Semrush uses multiple signals to identify potentially toxic links.

Backlink Audit

A backlink audit is the process of reviewing the links pointing from external websites to your own domain. The purpose is to understand the quality, relevance, distribution, and potential risks within your backlink profile. During an audit, you examine referring domains, individual backlinks, anchor text, target URLs, link attributes, authority metrics, suspicious patterns, and broken links. Tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush can make this process much faster because they collect and organize large backlink datasets that would otherwise be difficult to inspect manually. Ahrefs recommends beginning with a high-level view of backlinks and referring domains before moving into deeper analysis.

Think of your backlink profile like your website’s professional network. A few strange connections do not automatically mean your reputation is damaged. You need to understand who those connections are and why they exist. Some websites may link to you naturally because they found your content useful. Others may have scraped your article, copied a page, created a directory listing, or generated a link automatically. You may also discover links from old campaigns, guest posts, link exchanges, expired domains, or paid placements. A good audit separates these situations instead of putting every questionable-looking link into one giant “bad” category.

The goal is therefore not to achieve a perfect-looking backlink profile. The goal is to build an accurate picture of your external link environment and identify links that genuinely deserve attention.

Why You Should Audit Your Backlink Profile

Your backlink profile changes constantly. New websites discover your content, old pages disappear, domains expire, articles get updated, links move to different URLs, and previously legitimate websites can change ownership or purpose. This means a backlink profile that looked clean six months ago may look very different today. Regular audits help you notice these changes before they become difficult to understand.

A backlink audit can also reveal opportunities that are not necessarily related to removing bad links. You may find valuable websites that consistently mention your brand without linking to it, pages receiving many backlinks but little organic traffic, or broken URLs that still have useful external links. Ahrefs notes that backlinks pointing to 404 pages can effectively waste potential link equity and may be recovered through restoring the page or redirecting it to a relevant destination.

Another important reason is link-building quality control. If you have hired an SEO agency, freelancer, or outreach provider, an audit can help you verify what was actually built. You may discover excessive exact-match anchors, links from unrelated websites, large groups of sites sharing suspicious infrastructure, or placements that do not match your agreed strategy. That information can help you improve future campaigns.

A backlink audit is especially useful after a major ranking decline, a website migration, a domain acquisition, a large link-building campaign, or a period in which you suspect unnatural links were created.

What You Need Before Starting a Backlink Audit

Before you start reviewing individual backlinks, collect as much reliable data as possible. No single SEO database contains every link that exists on the internet. Search crawlers discover links at different times and from different sources, so combining data sources can give you a broader picture.

At minimum, prepare access to Google Search Console and one backlink analysis platform such as Ahrefs or Semrush. A spreadsheet is also useful if your website has thousands of links and you need to document decisions manually. Your spreadsheet can contain columns for referring domain, linking URL, target URL, anchor text, link type, authority metric, relevance, action, and notes.

Useful backlink audit data includes:

Data point	What it tells you
Referring domain	Which website is linking to you
Backlink URL	The exact page containing the link
Target URL	The page on your site receiving the link
Anchor text	The clickable words used for the link
Dofollow/nofollow	The link’s declared attribute
Domain authority metric	A third-party estimate of site strength
Topical relevance	Whether the linking site relates to your subject
First/last seen	Helps identify old or recent links
HTTP status	Shows whether the target page still works
Link placement	Provides context about where the link appears

Semrush’s current Backlink Audit workflow also supports backlink review, removal outreach, and preparation of disavow files, while its audit system evaluates backlinks using multiple signals rather than relying on a single metric.

How to Do a Backlink Audit Step by Step

The simplest way to perform a backlink audit is to treat it as a structured investigation rather than randomly clicking through links. Start broad, identify patterns, and then investigate individual links. This saves time because you do not need to manually inspect every backlink with the same level of attention.

Step 1: Check Your Website’s Overall Backlink Profile

Start by recording the total number of backlinks and referring domains. These two numbers are different. One website can link to your site hundreds or thousands of times, while another website may provide only one backlink. For that reason, referring domains can provide a useful additional perspective when assessing the diversity of your link profile.

Look at how your backlink count has changed over time. A sudden spike is not automatically suspicious, because viral content, digital PR, product launches, or popular news coverage can generate many links quickly. However, an unexplained spike deserves investigation. If thousands of links appear within a short period and most come from unrelated domains, automatically generated pages, or sites with little apparent editorial value, you should examine the pattern more closely.

Also check which pages on your website attract the most referring domains. This can reveal your strongest linkable assets and show whether backlinks are concentrated heavily on one page.

Step 2: Identify Your Most Important Referring Domains

Next, move from individual backlinks to referring domains. A referring domain is an external domain that links to your website. Reviewing domains first can make a large backlink profile much easier to understand because dozens of links may come from the same website.

Sort your referring domains by useful metrics, but do not treat third-party authority scores as absolute truth. Ahrefs explicitly points out that a low DR does not automatically mean a website is bad; it simply means the domain has relatively little link authority according to that metric. The website should still be reviewed for legitimacy, relevance, and context.

Look for legitimate industry websites, news sites, blogs, organizations, communities, resource pages, directories, and other relevant sources. Then investigate domains that appear unusual. Does the site have real content? Does it have a clear purpose? Does it appear to serve actual visitors? Does it link to hundreds of unrelated websites? Are there signs that the site exists mainly to sell or manipulate backlinks?

These questions are more meaningful than simply asking whether the domain has a low score.

Step 3: Analyze Anchor Text Distribution

Anchor text is one of the most important elements to review during a backlink audit. It is the clickable text used to link to your website. A natural backlink profile can contain branded anchors, URL-based anchors, generic phrases, partial-match phrases, and occasionally keyword-focused anchors.

For example, imagine your website sells SEO services. A backlink profile containing anchors such as your brand name, your domain, “this guide,” and descriptive phrases can look very different from one where a huge percentage of links repeatedly use the exact same commercial keyword.

That does not mean exact-match anchor text is automatically harmful. Context matters. A genuinely editorial article can naturally use a descriptive keyword as its anchor. The problem is stronger when there is a broader pattern suggesting deliberate manipulation.

Review anchors at both the domain and page level. Look for unusually repetitive commercial phrases, irrelevant anchors, foreign-language anchors that do not match your audience, or strange combinations that appear to have been automatically generated.

A healthy audit does not try to force every anchor into an artificial percentage. Instead, it asks whether the overall pattern makes sense given how the links were acquired.

Step 4: Check Dofollow and Nofollow Links

Backlinks can include attributes such as nofollow, sponsored, or user-generated-content signals. These attributes provide information about the nature of a link, but you should not treat nofollow links as useless.

A backlink audit should document the distribution of link types because it helps you understand your acquisition patterns. For example, a website receiving links from news coverage, forums, social platforms, directories, and editorial articles may naturally have a mixture of link attributes.

Your objective is not to create a specific dofollow-to-nofollow ratio. There is no universal percentage that makes a backlink profile “perfect.” Instead, investigate whether links were acquired naturally and whether the pages linking to you make sense.

You should also inspect links that appear to have been created specifically for SEO manipulation. A pattern involving paid placements that pass ranking credit, excessive reciprocal linking, or other link schemes deserves closer attention than a normal nofollow link from a relevant community.

How to Find Bad Backlinks

Finding potentially problematic backlinks is where many audits go wrong. SEO tools may flag a link as suspicious, but a flag is a starting point for investigation rather than an automatic instruction to delete or disavow it.

Semrush, for example, uses a Toxicity Score and numerous toxic markers to prioritize links for investigation. Its documentation explains that the score is intended to help identify backlinks requiring closer review.

Potential warning signs include:

• Links from obvious spam websites
• Automatically generated pages
• Completely unrelated websites
• Pages containing large numbers of unrelated outbound links
• Links created as part of known link schemes
• Suspicious private blog network patterns
• Manipulative commercial anchor text
• Links placed in clearly paid or sponsored content without appropriate treatment
• Malware or compromised websites
• Mass-generated directories with no meaningful purpose

But be careful. A low-quality-looking design, low domain authority, foreign top-level domain, or unrelated-looking page is not enough by itself to prove that a backlink is harmful.

Ahrefs similarly recommends looking beyond metrics and reviewing the actual referring website.

Read more:Is Link Exchange Good for SEO? Benefits, Risks & Best Practices

How to Evaluate a Suspicious Backlink

Once you identify a suspicious backlink, open the actual referring page. This simple step can prevent many unnecessary actions.

First, determine whether the website is real and functional. Does it publish genuine content? Does the page have a logical topic? Is your link placed naturally within an article, resource section, author profile, footer, sidebar, or comment? Does the surrounding text provide context?

Next, ask how the link was created. Did you request it? Did you pay for it? Was it part of a guest-post campaign? Did another website mention your brand naturally? Could it have resulted from content syndication or scraping?

Then examine whether the link appears manipulative. A link can be ugly without being dangerous, and a polished website can still participate in manipulative SEO practices. Context is the key.

Create practical categories such as:

Category	Typical action
Natural and relevant	Keep
Legitimate but low authority	Usually keep
Broken backlink	Restore or redirect where appropriate
Suspicious but unclear	Investigate
Clearly manipulative	Consider removal
Clear link-scheme history	Consider removal/disavow
Irrelevant but naturally created	Usually leave alone

This approach is safer than automatically deleting every backlink that an SEO tool labels “toxic.”

How to Fix Broken Backlinks

Broken backlinks are links from external websites that point to pages on your site that return an error, commonly a 404 Not Found response. These links are especially worth investigating because the external site has already provided you with a backlink, but your current website structure may prevent the intended destination from being useful.

Ahrefs’ Broken Backlinks report identifies referring pages that link to 404 URLs and provides the referring page, anchor, and target information.

There are several ways to address a broken backlink.

If the original page was accidentally deleted and still has useful content, restoring it may be appropriate. If the old URL has a clear replacement page, a relevant 301 redirect may make sense. If the old content is obsolete and there is no relevant replacement, forcing a redirect to an unrelated page is usually not a good solution.

You should prioritize broken URLs based on the quality and relevance of their referring domains. A broken link from a highly relevant website with strong editorial context may deserve immediate attention. A broken link from an irrelevant automated site may not justify any effort.

Broken backlink analysis can therefore be both a maintenance task and an SEO opportunity.

How to Review Link Relevance

Relevance is one of the most useful concepts in backlink analysis. A backlink from a website that discusses your industry, subject, audience, product, or service can provide much stronger contextual value than a completely random link.

Imagine that your website publishes detailed SEO guides. A backlink from an established marketing publication discussing technical SEO makes obvious contextual sense. A backlink from a random website about unrelated hobbies requires more investigation, especially if the site contains hundreds of unrelated commercial links.

Still, do not assume that every unrelated backlink is malicious. Websites naturally mention brands and URLs for many reasons. A journalist might reference your website even though their publication covers a different primary topic. A customer might link to your business from a personal website. A community member might recommend your resource.

The correct question is not simply, “Is this domain relevant?” Instead ask, “Does this particular link make sense in the context where it appears?”

That distinction can dramatically improve the accuracy of your backlink audit.

How to Check for Link Schemes and Manipulative Patterns

A backlink audit should also investigate whether links were intentionally created to manipulate search rankings. This is particularly important if you have purchased backlinks, participated in large-scale link exchanges, used private blog networks, or outsourced link building without carefully reviewing the work.

Patterns matter more than isolated links. Suppose you find one low-quality directory linking to your site. That alone may mean very little. But if you find hundreds of nearly identical sites, repeated exact-match anchors, similar article templates, and multiple domains apparently controlled by the same network, the overall pattern deserves much closer attention.

Ahrefs notes that clusters of referring domains sharing infrastructure can sometimes indicate common ownership and, in certain circumstances, potential private blog network activity, while also warning that shared infrastructure alone is not proof of manipulation.

Document what you find before taking action. Save the referring domain, URL, anchor text, acquisition source, and reason for concern. This record becomes valuable if you later need to contact website owners or prepare a disavow file.

How to Remove Bad Backlinks

If a backlink is clearly problematic and you have reason to believe it should no longer be associated with your site, manual removal is generally the first practical step.

Find the website owner’s contact information and send a short, professional request. Explain which page contains the link and provide the exact URL. Avoid threatening language or demanding immediate action. If the website owner agrees, verify that the backlink has actually been removed.

For larger backlink cleanup projects, maintain a removal spreadsheet containing:

• Referring domain
• Referring URL
• Target URL
• Anchor text
• Contact email
• Date contacted
• Follow-up date
• Removal status

Semrush’s Backlink Audit workflow includes a removal process designed to help site owners contact webmasters about unwanted links.

Do not spend weeks chasing every strange backlink. Prioritize links with clear evidence of manipulation or links connected to known SEO campaigns. Naturally occurring spam links that you did not create often do not require manual outreach.

When Should You Use Google’s Disavow Tool?

The Google Disavow Tool is one of the most misunderstood parts of backlink management. It should not be treated as a routine cleaning button for every backlink that looks suspicious.

The important distinction is between a backlink being low quality and a backlink being part of a situation that warrants disavowal. Semrush’s current guidance emphasizes using disavow carefully and points to situations such as a manual action involving unnatural links or a history of participating in link schemes as circumstances where disavow may need consideration.

Google’s system can ignore many unwanted links without requiring you to manually disavow every one. Therefore, the presence of strange backlinks alone does not automatically mean that you should submit a disavow file.

If you determine that disavowal is appropriate, create the file carefully. Semrush notes that domain-level disavowal can be preferable when the entire domain is problematic, while URL-level disavowal may be appropriate for an isolated issue on an otherwise legitimate website.

Never disavow links simply because an SEO tool gives them a high toxicity score. Use the score as a prioritization signal and perform a human review first.

How to Monitor Your Backlink Profile After the Audit

A backlink audit should not end when you finish your spreadsheet. Your backlink profile continues to change, so monitoring should become part of your regular SEO workflow.

Track newly discovered referring domains, lost backlinks, changes to important target pages, anchor-text patterns, and sudden changes in backlink volume. Semrush’s Backlink Audit system includes a Lost & Found report for monitoring new and lost backlinks over time.

You can also create a monthly or quarterly review schedule depending on the size and activity of your website. A small website with a stable backlink profile may not need a detailed manual audit every week. A large website involved in active digital PR or link building may benefit from more frequent monitoring.

Pay special attention after major SEO campaigns. If you build 50 backlinks in a month, you should know where those links came from. If you suddenly gain thousands of links without any obvious marketing event, investigate the cause.

The best backlink monitoring system is simple: discover, review, document, act, and monitor again.

Backlink Audit Checklist

Use the following checklist whenever you perform a complete backlink audit:

1. Export backlinks from your main SEO tools.
2. Collect referring-domain data.
3. Check your total backlinks and referring domains.
4. Review backlink growth over time.
5. Identify the pages receiving the most links.
6. Analyze anchor-text distribution.
7. Review dofollow and nofollow attributes.
8. Check suspicious referring domains manually.
9. Investigate unusual link patterns.
10. Find backlinks pointing to 404 pages.
11. Review links from irrelevant or automated websites.
12. Look for evidence of paid or manipulative link schemes.
13. Contact legitimate site owners when removal is appropriate.
14. Restore or redirect valuable broken pages when relevant.
15. Consider disavow only when there is a clear reason.
16. Document every action.
17. Monitor new and lost backlinks after cleanup.

A checklist prevents the audit from becoming an emotional exercise where you remove links simply because they look unusual. Your job is to make informed decisions based on evidence.

Conclusion

Learning how to do a backlink audit gives you a much clearer understanding of your website’s off-page SEO profile. The process is not about chasing a perfect toxicity score or deleting every low-authority backlink. It is about understanding which websites link to you, why those links exist, which pages receive them, how your anchor text is distributed, and whether there are genuine signs of manipulation.

Start with the big picture, then move toward individual backlinks. Review referring domains, anchor text, link attributes, relevance, broken URLs, and suspicious patterns. Use tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush to speed up data collection, but apply human judgment before removing or disavowing anything. Ahrefs specifically warns against treating low DR as proof that a link is bad, while Semrush emphasizes that toxicity signals should be investigated rather than blindly acted upon.

Most importantly, remember that bad backlink cleanup is not the same as backlink deletion. Some strange-looking links can simply be ignored. Valuable broken backlinks can sometimes be recovered. Legitimate links from small websites may still be useful. And disavowal should be approached carefully because removing links from consideration can also remove links that were helping your site.