Backlink analysis
Backlink analysis: assess, clean up and strengthen your link profile
Measure the quality of every inbound link, spot questionable links, compare your profile with your competitors' and prepare your disavow file.
Key features
What this module does, in practice.
Links gained and lost
New and lost links are detected at each check (monthly, or on demand) and flagged in an alert.
Quality score out of 100
Each link gets a score based on explicit rules (authority, spam, anchor, dofollow…): Good, Neutral or Toxic.
Competitor links
See which sites link to your competitors, and which ones don't link to you yet.
Why analyze your backlinks
Google judges inbound links on their quality and context far more than on their number. A solid link profile remains one of the pillars of a site's authority, especially for competitive queries.
Ignoring your backlinks means missing useful signals: links lost on important pages, a wave of questionable links, over-optimized anchors. Regular monitoring lets you deal with them in time.
What makes a link valuable
A link from a site close to your topic, with real visitors, carries far more weight than a string of links from directories nobody reads. Google takes into account the link's context and the legitimacy of the source site.
What is a healthy link profile?
A healthy link profile looks natural first and foremost: it reflects the site's real reputation. Search engines are good at spotting artificial link schemes.
The pillars of a natural profile
- Diverse referring domains (varied IP addresses and subnets)
- Varied anchors (brand, URL, exact-match keywords, broader phrases)
- A mix of dofollow and nofollow links
- Gradual, steady acquisition over time
- Topical relevance between the source site and the target page
Over-optimized anchors are a common mistake. If a large share of your links use the exact same commercial keyword, the profile looks artificial. Keep a large share of brand anchors, bare URLs and generic anchors ("learn more"). Zerkado's Anchors tab shows how your profile breaks down.
Full SEO auditCrawl your site and find the technical errors holding back its rankings.Spotting and handling questionable links
Toxic links come from low-quality sites, private blog networks (PBNs) or hacked sites. They can hurt your rankings, especially when there are many of them or when they form a link scheme.
How Zerkado rates a link
Checking every link by hand is tedious. The Zerkado SEO platform gives each link a quality score out of 100, which adds up explicit criteria:
| Criterion | What raises the score | What lowers it |
|---|---|---|
| Source domain authority | Established domain | Low authority |
| Spam score | Low | High; from 70/100, the link is always rated toxic |
| Link placement on the page | In the body text | Header, menu, footer |
| Link type | Dofollow | Nofollow |
| Outbound links on the page | Few | Page crowded with external links |
| Anchor | Descriptive text | Empty anchor, image, bare URL or very short text |
| Freshness | Recently discovered link | Older link (slight effect) |
The total rates the link: Good from 65/100, Neutral from 35, Toxic below that. The score helps you sort; it does not replace a look at the source site before any disavow.
Once toxic links are identified, start by asking the webmasters to remove them. If that fails, Google's disavow tool lets you ask Google to ignore them.
Guide: backlink strategy and analysisBuilding, analyzing and cleaning up a link profile, step by step.Your competitors' links
Backlink analysis is not limited to your own site. Studying your competitors' links helps you find sites willing to cite players in your field, and understand what works.
Link intersect
The idea is to find sites that link to several of your competitors but not to you. A site that already cites players in your field is often open to useful content from you. In Zerkado, the Competitors tab groups the domains linking to your competitors (the ones you select, up to five depending on the plan), shows which ones each domain cites and flags those that already link to you.
Watching how fast your competitors earn links also helps you set a realistic goal and budget your link building campaigns.
The indicators to track
To assess your strategy and the health of your profile, a few indicators deserve regular tracking in your SEO reports.
The key indicators
- Domain authority: an overall measure of the strength of your link profile. Each provider has its own (Domain Rating, Trust Flow, Domain Authority); Zerkado shows its own, out of 1,000.
- Number of referring domains: more telling than the total number of links. Links from many different sites are worth more than a large number of links from a single one.
- Anchor distribution: make sure your anchor profile stays natural and not over-optimized.
- Links gained and lost: a positive balance goes with growth. A sudden loss of quality links can explain a drop in traffic.
Zerkado, Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz: what to compare
Index size, data freshness and metrics vary from one tool to another. Ahrefs, Majestic and Moz maintain their own link index; Zerkado relies on that of a specialist SEO data provider. Their plans change often: the table describes Zerkado as of this writing (October 2026) and lists what to check with the others.
| Criterion | Zerkado | What to check elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| Link source | Index of a specialist SEO data provider | Own index? Stated size and freshness? |
| Check frequency | Monthly, plus on-demand refreshes depending on the plan | Continuous or periodic updates? |
| Metrics | Quality score out of 100, authority and spam | Which proprietary metrics (DR, TF, DA…)? |
| Questionable links | Good, Neutral or Toxic rating, based on explicit rules | Spam score only, or a rating for each link? |
| History | Since the project's first check | Since when? |
| Lost and new links | Flagged at each check (project alerts, plus email if you turn it on) | Alerts included? |
| Competitor links | Five competitors compared, sites already linking to you flagged | How many domains can be compared? |
| Integration | Same platform as the audit, rank tracking and content | Separate tools or a single subscription? |
| Price | Included from €79/month | Dedicated subscription or part of a suite? |
Backlink analysis is part of the SEO platform. When a page loses links, you check the effect on its rankings in rank tracking, then strengthen its content with AI content optimization.
Google's disavow file: when and how
The disavow file lets you ask Google to ignore certain links when assessing your site. Google already ignores most worthless links: disavowing is a last resort, against artificial links you cannot get removed.
When should you disavow?
- After spotting links rated Toxic, and checking the source sites yourself
- After asking webmasters to remove them, without success
- After a Google manual action for unnatural links
- In a confirmed negative SEO attack (a sudden wave of spam links)
- When a large share of your profile comes from artificial links you cannot get removed
Disavow best practices
Don't overuse the disavow tool: dropping links that are not truly toxic can deprive you of legitimate authority. In Zerkado, you choose the links to set aside yourself; the file is exported in the expected format, to review before submitting it in Google Search Console. It is a text file with one domain or URL per line; the "domain:" prefix disavows an entire domain.
| Action | Time to take effect | Reversibility |
|---|---|---|
| Removal request to the webmaster | Depends on how quickly the webmaster responds | Permanent (link removed) |
| Google disavow file | Applied as Google recrawls the pages concerned | Reversible (remove the line from the file) |
| Wait (link on an abandoned site) | Uncertain | Automatic if the site disappears |
Building a lasting link acquisition strategy
Backlink analysis should lead to action. Once your profile is cleaned up and your competitors studied, it is time for an ethical, lasting acquisition strategy.
Creating content that attracts links
One lasting approach is to publish content worth citing: original studies, exclusive data, free tools, reference guides. They attract links from media and blogs in your field.
AI content optimization also helps you structure your articles so they answer search intent precisely, which makes them easier to cite.
Digital PR
Digital PR means pitching journalists and creators in your field topics, data or expertise worth an article. A link from a major media outlet can carry more weight than dozens of links from small blogs.
The signals that matter
Several signals make a link valuable: the source site's real audience (a site with actual visitors carries much more weight than a ghost site), topical relevance (a site in your field carries more weight than a general one) and the link's placement within editorial content, where readers can follow it.
| Link type | Typical value | Difficulty to obtain | Durability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editorial link (media, press) | Very high | High | Excellent |
| Link from a resource or guide | High | Medium | Good |
| Guest post | Medium | Medium | Variable |
| Link from a niche directory | Low to medium | Low | Good |
| Forum or comment link | Very low | Very low | Poor |
| PBN link (private network) | Penalty risk | Low | Dangerous |
Frequently asked questions
The questions we hear most often.
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