How to Find Who Links to Your Website

Knowing who links to your website isn’t just an ego boost; it’s a fundamental part of your SEO and overall online strategy. By leveraging Google Search Console and possibly a paid tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, you can gain valuable insights into where your traffic comes from, which sites genuinely value your content, and how you stack up against your competitors.

Whether you’re a total beginner or a savvy digital marketer, a consistent routine of checking and analyzing your backlink profile can help you make smarter decisions, protect your site’s health, and pave the way for long-term growth in search rankings.

This is a beginner-friendly guide on how to find who’s linking to your website, along with why it matters and what tools you can use—even if you’re completely new to the world of SEO and link building This step-by-step format should help visual learners and beginners get a solid grasp of the process.

But, first:

1. What Does “Who Links to My Website” Even Mean?

When someone on the internet links from their website to yours, it’s called a backlink (sometimes called “inbound link”).

What are Backlinks?
A backlink (or “inbound link”) is a hyperlink from one website to another. If Site A links to Site B, then Site B has a backlink from Site A. Think of backlinks like votes in a popularity contest—when authoritative websites link to you, search engines interpret it as a sign of trust and relevance.

• If Site A has a clickable link sending visitors to Site B, then Site B has a “backlink” from Site A.
• These links act like recommendations or votes of confidence—telling search engines (and people) that your site might be valuable or relevant. I have more about what backlinks are – the good ones and bad ones on a dedicated article.

Backlinks help you get:

• SEO Boost: Backlinks are one of the top ranking factors for Google. High-quality backlinks can improve your search rankings. Google’s algorithm treats them as endorsements for your content.
• Reputation & Authority: Who’s linking to you can speak volumes about your site’s credibility. Getting a link from a big-name publication is often a sign of trust and can drive more traffic.
• Understanding Your Audience: Knowing which websites link to you also reveals where your visitors might be coming from. This can help tailor your content to match their interests.

2. Why You Need to Know Who Links to Your Website

Beyond curiosity of “hey, someone mentioned me!”, there are more strategic reasons to track your inbound links:

1. Monitor Your SEO Health
   • Good quality backlinks can boost your ranking, but spammy or toxic links can hurt it. Identifying and disavowing bad links is a key SEO tactic. It lets you repair the SEO of your website before it goes out of hand and avoids your site to see graphs like this:
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2. Spot Growth Opportunities
   • If a particular blog or influencer keeps linking to you, you can reach out to form deeper partnerships or collaborate on content.
3. Competitive Insights
   • By knowing your backlinks, you can compare them to competitors’ links (using similar tools). This may help you fill gaps in your content strategy or find new link-building avenues.

3. How to Find Who Links to Your Website (Using Google Search Console)

The most accessible and beginner-friendly method is via Google Search Console (GSC)—a free tool from Google that shows you how your website appears in search results.
If you are not already tracking your website with GSC:

1. Create a Google Account or login to the one you have
2. Go to https://search.google.com/search-console and Add Property: Enter your website domain and choose the verification method (e.g., DNS record, HTML file, or meta tag).
3. Verify Ownership: Follow Google’s instructions. After successful verification, you’ll have access to your site’s performance data. Here is a detailed on how to do this

For a detailed guide on setting up GSC, see Google’s official documentation or Semrush has a much more beginner firendly one

If you have one and just trying to figure out who is linking to your website, follow these steps:

Step 2: Find Your Backlinks in GSC

1. From the left-hand menu, click “Links.”
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2. Look under External links > Top linked pages to see the pages on your website that get most links. There is another option – Top Linking Sites to show which external websites are linking to you the most. For instance 99firms.com got mentioned in Medium.com 626 times. I perfer seeing top linked pages to see what backlink building strategy is actually working out well.
3. Click on more under top linked pages to see most of the pages that got you backlinks.
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4. You can click on one of your page to see who is linking to your site. I am choosing a page that has gained 2025 backlinks from 559 domains – thanks to the adopting the stats page link building strategy in the early days. (Now its pretty saturated and irrelevant unless you figure out some sweet spot or content gap)
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5. You can further click on website that links to your website to see more details. For instance here 317 sub pages on Gorgias.com are giving links to live chat statistics page on 99firms.com. (This happens mostly because site giving your link is probably giving a site-wide or category-wide backlink)
   

How Real-Time Is GSC Data?

• GSC isn’t always instant; it may take a few days or weeks to update new links.
• Despite the slight delay, it’s reliable and directly from Google—giving you a good overview of your backlink profile.

However, there are ton of other details that might be useful to further evaluate – who is linking to your e

Interpreting the Results

• Domain Linking: The name of the website that’s linked to yours.
• Total Links: How many total links you have from that site.
• Which Pages: Specific pages on your website that are getting linked.

Tip: Keep an eye on any suspicious links. If you see a random spam site linking to you hundreds of times, it might be worth investigating further.

You can further refine this GSC link data with Google Looker Studio
But it wont be as comprehensive and as real time as ahrefs data.

4. Other Paid Tools for Checking Your Backlinks

While Google Search Console is free and trustworthy, it’s not the only game in town. If you want more detailed, real-time, or competitive data, you’ll likely need to invest in paid SEO tools. Two popular options are:

4.1 Ahrefs

• Link Index: Ahrefs has one of the largest backlink indexes—so you can often see links that might not appear in GSC (especially if they’re very new).
• Accuracy & Updates: Ahrefs updates regularly (sometimes on a daily basis), giving you near real-time insights on who links to you.
• Pricing: Plans start around $99/month, though you can sometimes get trials or use limited free features.
• How to Check:
  1. Sign up for an Ahrefs account.
  2. Go to Site Explorer and enter your domain (e.g., mywebsite.com).
  3. Navigate to “Backlinks” or “Referring domains” to see who’s linking to you.
  4. Also, You can see, ahrefs on their calendar option provides a very detailed report on who is linking to your site – everyday.
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     • Once you click on the most recent date – today
     • You can list of links. You can add some filters like New Status: Link Added to see who is linking to your website – Today
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4.2 Semrush

• All-in-One SEO Suite: Semrush includes backlink analytics, keyword research, site audits, and more.
• Link Audit & Gap: You can identify potentially harmful links (for disavow) and compare your backlink profile with competitors.
• Pricing: Starting around $119.95/month, with add-ons for extra functionality.
• How to Check:
  1. Open Semrush and sign in.
  2. Head to “Backlink Analytics” under SEO or Link Building.
  3. Enter your domain and wait for the report. You’ll see metrics like Authority Score, Top Anchors, and more.

Semrush definetly is better for traffic analysis and measuring the relevance of the backlink. But for tracking who is linking to your website in real time, I prefer Ahrefs

How Reliable & Accurate Are Paid Tools?

• Advantages: Frequent crawls and large data sets mean they often catch links that GSC doesn’t show yet (or at all).
• Limitations: No third-party tool is perfect. They estimate link data through their own crawlers.
• Real-Time Updates: They’re usually faster than GSC in detecting new links, but you might see slight variations in their link count or domain authority metrics.

Comparing GSC vs. Paid Tools

Which Should You Pick?

• Beginner: Start with GSC. It’s free, easy, and official from Google. Also, if you are not concerned about monitoring your backlinks in real time, you can go with GSC.
• Intermediate/Advanced: Consider a paid tool like Ahrefs or Semrush for deeper insights, real-time updates, and competitive research.

Figuring out who links to your website is more than a vanity exercise. It’s one of the basic SEO tasks. By leveraging Google Search Console (and, if needed, paid tools like Ahrefs or Semrush), you can keep track of your backlink health, uncover new opportunities for growth, and protect your site from unwanted or harmful links.