Type the same website into four backlink checkers and you get four different answers. We did exactly that on October 21, 2026: one small site, one work account, four tools. Semrush, SE Ranking, Mangools and Ubersuggest found between 40 and 77 linking domains for the same site, and none of them was wrong.
Why One Website Got Four Different Backlink Reports
Each backlink checker counts from its own index of the web, so the same site gets a different report in each one; in our October 21, 2026 test, referring domains ranged from 40 in Mangools to 77 in SE Ranking. That gap is the reason this comparison exists.
If you want to check backlinks to a website, the top search results are the tools themselves: free checker pages from Ahrefs, Semrush, Ubersuggest, SE Ranking and a few smaller vendors. Each page shows you its own numbers. None of them shows you what the other tools say about the same site.
So we lined them up. Our test site is a small marketing site our team runs. It’s young, it has a modest link profile, and nobody famous links to it. That makes it a fair stand-in for the sites most of our readers own.
Why does a small site make a better test than a famous one? Because on a big brand every tool returns huge numbers, and the gaps hide inside the rounding. On a small site you can see exactly where four tools part ways.
Key Takeaways
On the same small site and the same day, the four backlink checkers we tested reported 40 to 77 referring domains and 1,860 to 2.7K backlinks, from our October 21, 2026 test log. Use one checker for tracking over time, compare referring domains rather than total backlinks, and read every authority score only against other sites in the same tool.
Quick Verdict: Which Backlink Checker to Use for What
SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker found the most referring domains on our site, 77, during a 14-day trial with no card, per our October 21, 2026 test log. The best backlink checker for you depends on whether you want the biggest count, a free account you can keep, or a quick check.
| If you want… | Pick | Why, from our test |
|---|---|---|
| The most referring domains and new or lost link tracking | SE Ranking Backlink Checker | 77 referring domains, 2.2K backlinks, new and lost links split out; trial only |
| A free account with a full backlink summary | Semrush Backlink Analytics | 46 referring domains, 2.7K backlinks, Authority Score 7, outbound domains |
| Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow on a free plan | Mangools LinkMiner | 40 referring domains, Trust Flow 19, Citation Flow 21, 2,000 backlink rows per period |
| One quick look with Moz’s Domain Authority | Ubersuggest Backlinks Overview | 48 referring domains, 1,860 backlinks, DA 3, nofollow count shown |
Is there one right answer? No. The table is the short version, and the honest version is that all four told us the same story about our site: a few dozen linking domains, each sending many links. The sections below show where the numbers split and why.
How We Checked One Site in Four Backlink Checkers
We checked backlinks for the same root domain in all four tools on October 21, 2026, using one work account and no credit card, as part of a six-task test of each SEO suite. Backlinks were task four on that list; the other tasks covered sign-up, keyword research, a site audit, rank tracking and free limits.
Here is what we did in each tool:
- Semrush: Backlink Analytics, root domain, on a free account.
- SE Ranking: the Backlink Checker, opened from the Backlinks menu, during the 14-day trial.
- Mangools: SiteProfiler for domain scores, then LinkMiner with “One link per ref. domain” turned on, on a free account.
- Ubersuggest: Link Building, then Backlinks Overview, on a free account.
We copied every number straight from the screen and kept masked screenshots. We didn’t buy a paid plan, we didn’t export full link lists, and we don’t publish the sites that link to us. When this article says “we saw,” the line comes from our test log. When it explains how a tool counts, it cites the vendor’s own documentation.
What didn’t we test? Bulk checks, the APIs, browser extensions and Ahrefs, which we cover from its own pages. If you’re choosing a whole SEO suite rather than a link tool, our same-site test of four SEO suites runs all six tasks side by side.
A note on money: Indie Stack Lab may add affiliate links to some tools later. When a link is an affiliate link, it is labeled. That did not change what we tested or what we wrote down.
The Numbers Side by Side: Referring Domains, Backlinks and Authority
On the same site, referring domains ranged from 40 to 77, backlinks from 1,860 to 2.7K, and authority scores from 3 to 15, per our October 21, 2026 test log. Here is every number in one table.
| Tool | Referring domains | Backlinks | Authority score shown | Extra numbers on the screen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush Backlink Analytics | 46 | 2.7K | Authority Score 7 (“Low authority”) | 96 outbound domains; “1 backlink found today” |
| SE Ranking Backlink Checker | 77 | 2.2K (2,235 analyzed) | Domain Trust 15/100, Page Trust 7/100 | 755 new, 7 lost, 1 broken backlink |
| Mangools LinkMiner and SiteProfiler | 40 | 2.4k active | Domain Authority 3, Trust Flow 19, Citation Flow 21 | 26 referring IPs |
| Ubersuggest Backlinks Overview | 48 | 1,860 | Domain Authority 3 | 1,618 nofollow backlinks |
Three of the four tools landed between 40 and 48 referring domains. SE Ranking stood apart at 77. Totals moved in a different order: Semrush showed the most backlinks (2.7K) and Ubersuggest the fewest (1,860).
So what’s the pattern? Divide backlinks by referring domains and you get roughly 29 links per domain in SE Ranking, 39 in Ubersuggest, 59 in Semrush and 60 in Mangools. That tells you something real about our site: a small group of sites link to it many times each, which usually means sitewide links such as footers, sidebars or directory profiles. Every tool agreed on that shape, even though no two agreed on the count.
The authority scores look even further apart, from 3 to 15. They’re not comparable at all, because each one is a different metric on its own scale. We explain all five further down.
Why Four Tools Report Four Different Backlink Counts
Backlink checkers disagree because each one crawls the web with its own bot and keeps its own index; Semrush says its index holds more than 43 trillion backlinks (Semrush), while SE Ranking lists 2.9 trillion (SE Ranking). Different crawls find different links.
Three things drive the gap, and you can see each of them in our numbers.
1. Whose index the tool reads
Two of the four tools don’t run their own link index. Mangools says LinkMiner’s database includes “both Majestic’s fresh and historic index,” with 9.5 trillion backlinks (Mangools LinkMiner). Ubersuggest’s team wrote that “we now have Moz link data within Ubersuggest” (Neil Patel). Semrush and SE Ranking each run their own crawler.
That explains one neat detail in our test. Mangools’ SiteProfiler and Ubersuggest both showed our site at Domain Authority 3. Both were reading the same Moz score, so of course they matched.
2. How fresh the index is
Indexes refresh at different speeds. Semrush says its database “is refreshed at least hourly” (Semrush), and our Semrush screen showed “Live Update: 1 backlink found today.” Ahrefs, which we didn’t test, says its backlink index is updated with fresh data every 15 minutes (Ahrefs Backlink Checker). Ubersuggest describes its backlink data as updating monthly, as we covered in our Ubersuggest free plan test.
Freshness may be why SE Ranking found the most domains. It marked 61 of its 77 referring domains as new in the last 30 days. We can’t prove that from one lookup, but a tool that picks up recent links quickly will run ahead of one that refreshes slowly.
3. What the tool counts as one backlink
The counting rules differ too. Mangools’ guide says its total backlinks figure is “based on the Fresh Index,” Majestic’s most recent crawl (Mangools LinkMiner guide). Our LinkMiner screen labeled the same idea “Active backlinks.” We also turned on “One link per ref. domain,” which lists one row per linking site. That’s why LinkMiner showed exactly 40 rows for 40 referring domains.
Ubersuggest, by contrast, splits out nofollow links: 1,618 of our 1,860 backlinks were nofollow, about 87%. Our notes from Semrush and SE Ranking record totals only, with no nofollow split.
Want the view from a much bigger index? Our guide to the Ahrefs SEO toolset and its free tiers covers Site Explorer and the free Ahrefs checker.
Semrush Backlink Analytics: Authority Score on a Low-Authority Site
Semrush Backlink Analytics gave our site 46 referring domains, 2.7K backlinks and an Authority Score of 7, labeled “Low authority,” on a free account, per our October 21, 2026 test log. The free account gave us the full summary for that lookup.
| Metric | What Semrush showed |
|---|---|
| Referring Domains | 46 (+12% change marker) |
| Backlinks | 2.7K |
| Authority Score | 7, “Low authority” |
| Outbound Domains | 96 |
| Monthly Visits | 329 |
| Organic Traffic | 21 |
Two lines on that screen were more useful than the score. First, “Outbound Domains 96”: our site links out to more domains than link to it. That’s normal for a content site that cites its sources. Second, “Live Update: 1 backlink found today,” which shows the index is still moving rather than replaying an old snapshot.
How much can a free account check? Semrush says that “with a free plan, you can run up to 10 searches per day” in its backlink tool (Semrush). That’s enough to check your own site and a few competitors each day.
What does an Authority Score of 7 mean? Semrush calls it a “compound metric that grades the overall quality of a website or a webpage,” on a scale of 1 to 100, built from link power, organic traffic and spam factors (Semrush KB). The same page says it’s “best used for domain comparison, and not for determining good/bad on an absolute scale,” and that scores are updated once every two weeks. Because traffic is part of the formula, a small site with little search traffic will score low even with decent links.
We cover the rest of what a free account can do, from the 100-page site audit to rank tracking, in our walkthrough of what a free Semrush account includes.
SE Ranking Backlink Checker: The Most Referring Domains and a Separate Monitor
SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker found 77 referring domains and 2.2K backlinks for our site, with a Domain Trust of 15 out of 100, the highest referring-domain count of the four tools, per our October 21, 2026 test log. It also split links into new, lost and broken, a breakdown our notes don’t record for the other three summaries.
| Metric | What SE Ranking showed |
|---|---|
| Domain Trust | 15/100 |
| Page Trust | 7/100 |
| Referring domains | 77 (61 new, 4 lost, 1 broken in the last 30 days) |
| Backlinks | 2.2K (2,235 analyzed: 755 new, 7 lost, 1 broken) |
One menu detail cost us a minute. “Backlinks” in SE Ranking’s left menu opens a backlink monitor, which watches links you add yourself; it showed “Account limit 0/250.” The checker that analyzes any domain is a separate tool, reached through “Use Backlink Checker Tool,” and it opened in a new tab. If you want a site’s full link profile, the second tool is the one you need.
How many checks does the trial allow? Our checker screen read “Account limit 1/10” after one lookup. SE Ranking has no free plan; the checker runs during the 14-day trial, which needed no card when we signed up.
What surprised us was the new-link share. SE Ranking counted 755 of 2,235 backlinks as new, about a third. Our site didn’t gain a third of its links in one month, so a big share of “new” likely means “newly found by this crawler.” That’s worth knowing before you celebrate a jump in any tool.
Domain Trust is SE Ranking’s own score from 1 to 100. It weighs “both the number and quality of backlinks and referring domains, using PageRank principles,” and SE Ranking calls it “a comparative metric” (SE Ranking Domain Trust). Our review of SE Ranking’s 14-day trial covers its audit, rank tracking and billing pages too. What the checker costs after day 14 is in our breakdown of SE Ranking’s Core and Growth plans.
Mangools LinkMiner and SiteProfiler: Citation Flow and Trust Flow
Mangools LinkMiner found 40 referring domains and 2.4k active backlinks for our site, with a Trust Flow of 19 and a Citation Flow of 21, on a free account, per our October 21, 2026 test log. It was the lowest referring-domain count of the four, and the cleanest list to read.
Mangools splits backlink work across two tools:
| Tool | What it showed for our site |
|---|---|
| SiteProfiler | Domain Authority 3/100, Page Authority 26/100, Citation Flow 21, Trust Flow 19, 26 referring IPs, “Not enough history data” |
| LinkMiner | 40 referring domains, 2.4k active backlinks, 40 of 40 rows listed |
SiteProfiler’s scores come from outside Mangools. Domain Authority and Page Authority are Moz metrics; Citation Flow and Trust Flow are Majestic’s. LinkMiner also adds Mangools’ own Link Strength score for each link, which its guide says weighs Citation Flow, Trust Flow, the follow attribute and referring domains (Mangools LinkMiner guide).
The free limit is rows, not lookups. Our account showed 2,000 backlink rows per period, with about 11 days left before the reset, and 5 site lookups per 24 hours. After our LinkMiner lookup, the menu still read 2k of 2k rows left. Would a bigger site hit that cap? Yes, and quickly: a competitor with thousands of linking pages would use it up in one or two lookups.
One glitch to know. When we opened SiteProfiler from a link with the domain already in the address, it showed placeholder zeros. Typing the domain into the search box fixed it. If you see a page full of zeros, retype the domain before you panic.
Our Mangools free plan test of KWFinder, LinkMiner and SERPWatcher covers the other tools in the bundle.
Ubersuggest Backlinks Overview: Domain Authority and Nofollow Share
Ubersuggest’s Backlinks Overview gave our site a Domain Authority of 3, 48 referring domains and 1,860 backlinks, 1,618 of them nofollow, on a free account, per our October 21, 2026 test log. It was the only one of the four where our notes record a nofollow count.
That nofollow share, about 87%, is the most useful number Ubersuggest gave us. Google’s documentation says links marked with rel attributes such as nofollow, sponsored or ugc “will generally not be followed” (Google Search Central). If most of your links carry nofollow, your total backlink count overstates how much those links help your rankings.
The free plan’s catch is the daily allowance. Ubersuggest gave us 3 free searches per day, shared between keyword and backlink lookups. After a keyword check and this backlink check, the banner read “1 out of 3 free daily searches available.” The backlinks-over-time chart was locked behind a 7-day trial.
Does a DA of 3 mean the site is weak? It means the site is young and small next to the rest of Moz’s index, which is what Domain Authority measures. Mangools showed the same DA 3 on the same day, because both tools read Moz’s score.
For the full free-plan picture, including the 150-page site audit, see our test of what Ubersuggest’s free plan did on a real site. Our Ubersuggest pricing guide covers the paid tiers and lifetime offers.
Authority Metrics Explained: Authority Score, Domain Trust, DA, CF and TF
All five authority metrics in our test run on a 0 or 1 to 100 scale, but each vendor builds its score differently; Moz says Domain Authority is “not a direct ranking factor” for Google but “a comparative metric” (Moz). None of them is a Google score.
| Metric | Vendor | Scale | What it’s built from, per the vendor | Our site |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Authority Score | Semrush | 1 to 100 | Link power, organic traffic and spam factors | 7 |
| Domain Trust | SE Ranking | 1 to 100 | Number and quality of backlinks and referring domains, using PageRank principles | 15 |
| Domain Authority | Moz (shown in Mangools and Ubersuggest) | 1 to 100 | Moz’s link index and dozens of factors, predicting how likely a site is to rank | 3 |
| Citation Flow | Majestic (shown in Mangools) | 0 to 100 | How much link equity or “power” a site carries, based on how many sites link to it | 21 |
| Trust Flow | Majestic (shown in Mangools) | 0 to 100 | Closeness to manually reviewed trusted seed sites | 19 |
Sources: Semrush KB, SE Ranking, Moz, Majestic glossary.
Why did our site score 15 in one tool and 3 in another? Because the formulas differ. Semrush mixes in traffic, which a small site lacks. SE Ranking leans on PageRank-style link math. Moz’s DA compares a site with the whole index, where a young site starts near the bottom. SE Ranking’s own page says DT and DA “use different methods and data, so the numbers may not match.”
Majestic’s two scores work as a pair. Trust Flow measures quality, Citation Flow measures volume. When Trust Flow sits close to Citation Flow, as our 19 and 21 do, the links you have are roughly as trustworthy as they are numerous. Majestic says sites with questionable links see a much lower Trust Flow, so a Citation Flow far above Trust Flow is worth a closer look.
So which number should you watch? Pick one score in one tool and track it month to month. Then compare it with the sites ranking for your keywords in that same tool. For more on Moz’s metric, see our guide to how Moz Domain Authority works and how to check it.
How to Check Your Own Backlinks Step by Step
The fastest way to check backlinks to a website you own is to start with Google Search Console, which shows a sample of links Google has found, and add one third-party checker for the rest; Google says its Links report tables are “limited to 1,000 rows” (Google Search Console Help). Here is the routine we’d use.
- Open Google Search Console and go to the Links report. It lists your top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text. Google says the report “isn’t a comprehensive list of every link” and “doesn’t specify if a link is marked as nofollow.”
- Pick one third-party checker and enter your root domain. A root-domain check covers the whole site; a URL check covers one page only.
- Write down three numbers: referring domains, total backlinks and the tool’s authority score. Note the date.
- Divide backlinks by referring domains. A high ratio, like the 59 we saw in Semrush, usually points to sitewide links from a few sites.
- Sort the list by authority and open the top ten linking pages. Check that each link still exists and makes sense for your site.
- Look for patterns you didn’t create: unknown directories, foreign-language link farms, or hundreds of links with the same anchor text.
- Repeat on the same day each month in the same tool, so you compare like with like.
How many backlinks does my site have, really? There’s no single true number. In our test the honest answer was “between 40 and 77 linking domains, depending on the index.” Track the trend in one tool and it will tell you more than any single count can.
New to Search Console? Our beginner’s guide to Google Search Console for SEO covers setup and the reports that matter. If you only need the free tiers of these checkers, our roundup of free backlink checker tools and what their free plans show lines up the limits.
Checking a Competitor’s Backlinks
All four checkers we tested accept any domain, so you can check backlinks of competitors with the same lookup you use on your own site; Semrush’s free account allows up to 10 backlink searches per day (Semrush). The free caps decide how far you get.
Here is how far each tool’s free option goes on competitor research, based on the limits we saw:
| Tool | Free option | Competitor checks you can run |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush | Free account | Up to 10 backlink searches per day |
| SE Ranking | 14-day trial, no card | A 10-lookup checker limit (“Account limit 1/10” after one) |
| Mangools | Free plan | 5 site lookups per 24 hours, 2,000 backlink rows per period |
| Ubersuggest | Free plan | 3 searches per day, shared with keyword lookups |
What should you look for on a competitor? Start with the sites that link to two or three of your competitors but not to you. Those are your most realistic outreach targets. Then check which of their pages earn the most links; a guide or a free tool that attracts links is a content idea you can do better.
Stay on the right side of the rules while you do it. Google defines link spam as “creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings,” and lists buying or selling links and excessive link exchanges as examples (Google Search Central). A competitor’s paid links are not a model to copy.
Need room for several client sites? Free plans won’t stretch that far. Our guide to SEO tools for agencies and their client limits compares the paid options, and our list of cheaper Semrush alternatives we tested shows what you give up for a lower bill.
Which Backlink Checker Fits You
Choose by how often you’ll check and how many sites you track: in our test, free allowances ran from 3 searches a day in Ubersuggest to 10 in Semrush, while SE Ranking found the most referring domains but only during its 14-day trial. This section is our judgment, based on the numbers above.
- One small site, no budget: a free Semrush account. It gave us the full backlink summary, an Authority Score and 10 searches a day. Add Google Search Console.
- You care about link quality more than counts: Mangools. Trust Flow and Citation Flow side by side, plus a clean one-row-per-domain list.
- You want to see new and lost links: SE Ranking’s trial. Run it on a quiet week and note the new and lost numbers before the trial ends.
- You need one quick check with a nofollow split: Ubersuggest. Spend your daily searches carefully.
Do you need more than one backlink checker? Honestly, most small sites don’t. One tool, checked monthly, plus Search Console covers the job. Use a second tool only when a number looks wrong and you want a second opinion.
Further Reading
- Best SEO tools: 4 suites tested on the same website
- What a free Semrush account includes, tool by tool
- Ahrefs SEO tools guide: features, free tools and plans
- How to use Google Search Console for SEO
References
- Semrush: Backlink Analytics
- Semrush Knowledge Base: Authority Score
- Semrush blog: What can I do with a free Semrush account?
- SE Ranking: Backlink Checker
- SE Ranking: Domain Trust checker
- Mangools: LinkMiner
- Mangools blog: LinkMiner guide
- Neil Patel blog: Ubersuggest data
- Ahrefs: Backlink Checker
- Moz: Domain Authority
- Majestic: Glossary
- Google Search Console Help: Links report
- Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links
- Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search