Backlink Audit: Analysis of TOP Link Profiles
Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2025 6:15 am
Backlink auditing is an essential process for any SEO audit . It focuses on analyzing and evaluating the links pointing to a website, identifying opportunities for improvement and potential risks. In this post, we will explain how to perform a backlink audit, and what aspects you should take into account to have a healthy link profile.
1. What is a backlink audit and why is it important?
A backlink audit is a comprehensive analysis of all the links pointing to your website. Its goal is to identify:
Quality links that provide authority to your domain.
Toxic links that could harm your Google ranking.
Link building opportunities to improve your website's authority.
Conducting regular audits allows you to adjust your SEO strategy and improve your website's performance in search engines.
2. How to analyze your backlink profile
To analyze your link profile, it is important to take into account the following aspects:
Diversity of referring domains : The more quality sites linking to your site, the better. This shows that your content is relevant and valuable.
Anchor text : Variety in anchor texts (linking words) is key. A natural profile should include branded anchor texts , generic anchor texts (like "click here"), and some we could have with target keywords, as long as it is natural.
Geographical distribution : Analyze where the links come from, as this can indicate the macedonia whatsapp data international relevance of your site. Especially if you are aiming to rank in specific countries.
Dofollow vs. nofollow links : A healthy balance between both types of links is advisable. Dofollow links convey authority, while nofollow links help to diversify the profile. It is normal to have nofollow links, and Google already knows that many sites have a policy of placing these types of links. Still, these are signals that Google takes into account.
3. Identifying and disavowing toxic links
Toxic links can negatively affect your SEO ranking. They are those that come from:
Low quality or spam sites.
Link farms.
Purchased links that do not comply with Google guidelines.
To identify them, use tools like Google Search Console , Ahrefs, or Semrush. Once detected, you can request their removal or use Google's Disavow tool to disavow any that are harmful.
4. How to build a link profile with natural patterns
The key to a healthy backlink profile is naturalness. This translates into:
Links from relevant content : Make sure that the sites that link to your website have a related theme, are a reference for those topics on the Internet, and are related to your site.
Variety of domains : Receiving links from different sites, instead of many links from a single domain, is more natural and safe.
Collaborations and guest posts : Publish content on other blogs in a natural way and without abusing keywords.
Brand mentions : Work on branding strategies that generate mentions and, eventually, links from relevant media and blogs.
Link building is a subsequent phase to link auditing, although it is based on it. This is what we call link building.
5. Recommended tools for backlink auditing
To perform a backlink audit, these tools can be of great help:
Google Search Console : Identify links that Google already recognizes to your website. And it's free!
Ahrefs : Provides a detailed analysis of all inbound links, with quality metrics. Probably the most complete SEO tool for Offpage SEO .
Complete SEO tools : If you have a complete SEO suite like Semrush, Sistrix or Majestic, although they are not specific tools, they also have their own fairly correct backlink analysis section.
6. Case study: step-by-step backlink audit
In this section we have carried out a practical case. For this we have chosen the DRIM toy stores and the step by step is with the Semrush tool. It is a project with which we have no relationship or prior information. Let's start:
backlinks analysis
At first glance at this section we see the following:
Referring domains : Links are detected from 1,000 referring domains, a fairly significant volume.
Backlinks : Semrush counts almost 10,000 inbound links. If we divide this by domains, this means an average of 10 links per domain. We see this as a bit excessive, although it could be much worse. In any case, we should aim for a ratio of between two and three links on average per domain .
External domains : refers to the domains that we link from our website. In this case we see how DRIM links to 30 domains and 1,000 link to it. This proportion is great because what we are interested in is that there are more citations than quotes, although perhaps in this case the 30/1,000 ratio is so big that it seems exaggerated to us and could be considered by Google as an unnatural pattern. And in the approach of a good backlink audit we should always do it from the perspective of achieving a balanced and natural link profile .
Authority score : This is a metric that Semrush uses to determine the domain's authority. Each tool has its own and each one weighs more factors than others, but they are very similar. These should not be the bible, but they are a relevant reference to take into account.
backlinks evolution
From this screenshot we can see the evolution of link acquisition over time . On the one hand, we should see a gradual and sustained growth of the reference domains. And on the other hand, the growth in backlink acquisition should be proportional to the reference domains. In the case of Drim, we see some graphs that are not what we would like:
An abnormal growth of Backlinks is identified in 2019 , which could be due to an overly aggressive link building campaign , which was probably corrected in 2020 to return to the incremental growth that was previously achieved. It may also be that these links were not pursued and arrived as SPAM or negative SEO attacks.
A decline is observed in the last months of 2024 , which could be due to a carelessness in the link building policy, or the opposite: they are cleaning up due to a possible recent penalty, perhaps due to the Google Core Update of August 2024 .
Finally, we observed a very large disparity between both graphs (domains and inbound links), they are not at all on par. It is likely that they detected that dozens or even hundreds of links were generated from some sites (for example, with sitewide banner campaigns ) and this practice has been corrected this year.
categories domains reference
The next thing we are going to analyze is the categories of the reference domains . This is key, since the thematic relationship is the most important thing in any backlink acquisition strategy . So this graph is very important to identify if the majority of the links we capture are close or far from what we are. In this case, if we are talking about toys, what interests us most is that the websites that link to us are about toys: toy manufacturers, distributors, portals, comparators or blogs about toys. Or even about categories, brands or specific products of our vertical: we would prefer a link from the Barbie blog, than from the general newspaper of San Vicente de la Barquera.
Looking at the categories of sites captured by Drim we see how they are very diversified, the most prominent being: Stores, Information Technologies, Online Services, Press and Advertising and Marketing. The Stores option is normal in large e-commerce sites, since in addition to their own channels, they usually work with traffic acquisition through comparison sites, referrals and so on , and they can also be included, willingly or not, in websites with deals, offers and coupons. In fact, it is like this:
domains reference shops
However, it is less common for the rest of the categories to have no relation to the site's theme. Pay attention to the type of sites that link to you from information technology: rather rubbish websites, from strange countries, automated, scrapers, etc.
1. What is a backlink audit and why is it important?
A backlink audit is a comprehensive analysis of all the links pointing to your website. Its goal is to identify:
Quality links that provide authority to your domain.
Toxic links that could harm your Google ranking.
Link building opportunities to improve your website's authority.
Conducting regular audits allows you to adjust your SEO strategy and improve your website's performance in search engines.
2. How to analyze your backlink profile
To analyze your link profile, it is important to take into account the following aspects:
Diversity of referring domains : The more quality sites linking to your site, the better. This shows that your content is relevant and valuable.
Anchor text : Variety in anchor texts (linking words) is key. A natural profile should include branded anchor texts , generic anchor texts (like "click here"), and some we could have with target keywords, as long as it is natural.
Geographical distribution : Analyze where the links come from, as this can indicate the macedonia whatsapp data international relevance of your site. Especially if you are aiming to rank in specific countries.
Dofollow vs. nofollow links : A healthy balance between both types of links is advisable. Dofollow links convey authority, while nofollow links help to diversify the profile. It is normal to have nofollow links, and Google already knows that many sites have a policy of placing these types of links. Still, these are signals that Google takes into account.
3. Identifying and disavowing toxic links
Toxic links can negatively affect your SEO ranking. They are those that come from:
Low quality or spam sites.
Link farms.
Purchased links that do not comply with Google guidelines.
To identify them, use tools like Google Search Console , Ahrefs, or Semrush. Once detected, you can request their removal or use Google's Disavow tool to disavow any that are harmful.
4. How to build a link profile with natural patterns
The key to a healthy backlink profile is naturalness. This translates into:
Links from relevant content : Make sure that the sites that link to your website have a related theme, are a reference for those topics on the Internet, and are related to your site.
Variety of domains : Receiving links from different sites, instead of many links from a single domain, is more natural and safe.
Collaborations and guest posts : Publish content on other blogs in a natural way and without abusing keywords.
Brand mentions : Work on branding strategies that generate mentions and, eventually, links from relevant media and blogs.
Link building is a subsequent phase to link auditing, although it is based on it. This is what we call link building.
5. Recommended tools for backlink auditing
To perform a backlink audit, these tools can be of great help:
Google Search Console : Identify links that Google already recognizes to your website. And it's free!
Ahrefs : Provides a detailed analysis of all inbound links, with quality metrics. Probably the most complete SEO tool for Offpage SEO .
Complete SEO tools : If you have a complete SEO suite like Semrush, Sistrix or Majestic, although they are not specific tools, they also have their own fairly correct backlink analysis section.
6. Case study: step-by-step backlink audit
In this section we have carried out a practical case. For this we have chosen the DRIM toy stores and the step by step is with the Semrush tool. It is a project with which we have no relationship or prior information. Let's start:
backlinks analysis
At first glance at this section we see the following:
Referring domains : Links are detected from 1,000 referring domains, a fairly significant volume.
Backlinks : Semrush counts almost 10,000 inbound links. If we divide this by domains, this means an average of 10 links per domain. We see this as a bit excessive, although it could be much worse. In any case, we should aim for a ratio of between two and three links on average per domain .
External domains : refers to the domains that we link from our website. In this case we see how DRIM links to 30 domains and 1,000 link to it. This proportion is great because what we are interested in is that there are more citations than quotes, although perhaps in this case the 30/1,000 ratio is so big that it seems exaggerated to us and could be considered by Google as an unnatural pattern. And in the approach of a good backlink audit we should always do it from the perspective of achieving a balanced and natural link profile .
Authority score : This is a metric that Semrush uses to determine the domain's authority. Each tool has its own and each one weighs more factors than others, but they are very similar. These should not be the bible, but they are a relevant reference to take into account.
backlinks evolution
From this screenshot we can see the evolution of link acquisition over time . On the one hand, we should see a gradual and sustained growth of the reference domains. And on the other hand, the growth in backlink acquisition should be proportional to the reference domains. In the case of Drim, we see some graphs that are not what we would like:
An abnormal growth of Backlinks is identified in 2019 , which could be due to an overly aggressive link building campaign , which was probably corrected in 2020 to return to the incremental growth that was previously achieved. It may also be that these links were not pursued and arrived as SPAM or negative SEO attacks.
A decline is observed in the last months of 2024 , which could be due to a carelessness in the link building policy, or the opposite: they are cleaning up due to a possible recent penalty, perhaps due to the Google Core Update of August 2024 .
Finally, we observed a very large disparity between both graphs (domains and inbound links), they are not at all on par. It is likely that they detected that dozens or even hundreds of links were generated from some sites (for example, with sitewide banner campaigns ) and this practice has been corrected this year.
categories domains reference
The next thing we are going to analyze is the categories of the reference domains . This is key, since the thematic relationship is the most important thing in any backlink acquisition strategy . So this graph is very important to identify if the majority of the links we capture are close or far from what we are. In this case, if we are talking about toys, what interests us most is that the websites that link to us are about toys: toy manufacturers, distributors, portals, comparators or blogs about toys. Or even about categories, brands or specific products of our vertical: we would prefer a link from the Barbie blog, than from the general newspaper of San Vicente de la Barquera.
Looking at the categories of sites captured by Drim we see how they are very diversified, the most prominent being: Stores, Information Technologies, Online Services, Press and Advertising and Marketing. The Stores option is normal in large e-commerce sites, since in addition to their own channels, they usually work with traffic acquisition through comparison sites, referrals and so on , and they can also be included, willingly or not, in websites with deals, offers and coupons. In fact, it is like this:
domains reference shops
However, it is less common for the rest of the categories to have no relation to the site's theme. Pay attention to the type of sites that link to you from information technology: rather rubbish websites, from strange countries, automated, scrapers, etc.