What’s the best truly free backlink tool I can use?

General
1

I’m trying to improve my site’s SEO on a tight budget and I’m struggling to find a backlink tool that’s actually free and still useful. Most tools I try either have very limited free trials or hide key features behind paywalls. I need something reliable to analyze my backlinks and find new opportunities without paying right now. What free backlink tools are you using that are worth the time?

2

Short answer from someone cheap and stubborn: there is no “perfect” free backlink tool, but you can stack a few to get something useful without paying.

Here is what works on a tight budget.

  1. Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker

    • URL: Free Backlink Checker by Ahrefs: Check Backlinks to Any Site
    • What you get:
      • Top 100 backlinks for any domain or page
      • Referring domains
      • Anchor text samples
    • Use it to:
      • See your strongest links
      • Reverse engineer competitor links
    • Limit: data is partial, so do not trust it as full picture.

  2. Ubersuggest free version

    • URL: Ubersuggest: Free Keyword Research Tool - Neil Patel
    • What you get:
      • Limited daily searches
      • Backlink overview for your domain
    • Use it to:
      • Track a few target pages
      • Export some backlink opps
    • Tip: Create a free account, you get a few more daily reports.

  3. Google Search Console

    • URL: https://search.google.com/search-console
    • What you get:
      • “Links” report for your verified site
      • “Top linking sites” and “Top linked pages”
    • Use it to:
      • See links that Google cares about
      • Find pages that attract links already
    • This is your most honest backlink source, even if the interface sucks.

  4. Bing Webmaster Tools

  5. Free Moz tools

    • URL: Free Backlink Checker - Moz Link Explorer - Moz
    • What you get:
      • Few queries per month on free plan
      • Domain Authority, some backlink data
    • Use it to:
      • Compare your DA vs competitors
      • Prioritize higher authority domains for outreach.

  6. SEO Spyglass Free (desktop software)

    • URL: Free Backlink Software to Check Backlinks of Any Site
    • What you get:
      • Installs on your machine
      • Pulls link data from its own index plus search engines
    • Use it to:
      • Audit your own backlinks
      • Export lists without hitting online caps every minute
    • Limit: project size is capped on free tier, but still useful for small sites.

  7. Manual Google search operators

    • Use queries like:
      • “your keyword” “write for us”
      • “your topic” inurl:resources
      • “your brand name” -yourdomain.com
    • Use it to:
      • Find unlinked brand mentions
      • Build prospect lists without any tool.

Practical way to work with this on $0:

Step 1: Get baseline

  • Use GSC “Links” report for your domain
  • Export “Top linking sites” to CSV
  • Use Ahrefs Free and Moz free on your domain to see overlapping domains.

Step 2: Spy on 3–5 competitors

  • Plug each into Ahrefs Free, Ubersuggest, Moz
  • Note repeated domains that link to multiple competitors
  • These domains are more likely to link to you too.

Step 3: Build a simple sheet
Columns: Domain, Source (Ahrefs, Moz, GSC, etc), Anchor type, Page they linked to, Link type (guest post, resource page, directory, mention).

  • Highlight domains that show up for more than one competitor.

Step 4: Outreach targets

  • Prioritize:
    1. Resource pages
    2. Roundups
    3. Sites already linking to similar content
  • Write short, direct outreach.
  • Offer a specific page that matches what they already link to.

Step 5: Ongoing check

  • Once a month, check GSC “Links”
  • Look for new domains
  • Update the sheet
  • If you see a new strong domain, see how they found you, then repeat that pattern.

Free tools will always hide data. You beat that by combining several, logging everything in a sheet, and repeating the process instead of hunting for the “one magic free tool”.

If you want only one to start with, use GSC for your own site plus Ahrefs Free to peek at competitors. That combo is the highest value for $0, even if it feels a bit hacked together.

3

If you’re on a true $0 budget, the “best” free backlink tool is not a single tool, it’s a workflow. I know @voyageurdubois already covered a bunch of solid options, so I’ll try not to rehash the same stuff.

If I had to pick one starting point for backlinks that’s actually usable and free:

1. Google Search Console + exports
Not sexy, but it’s the only data source that tells you “these are the links Google is actually counting enough to show you.”
Use:

  • Links → External links → Export
  • Group by “Top linking sites”
  • Check which pages are getting links already, then create more content in those themes.
    You won’t get competitor data, but you get “what’s already working,” which is way more useful than staring at 10,000 junk links in some SaaS UI.

2. Majestic’s free tier (underrated for free use)
Everybody screams Ahrefs / Moz / Ubersuggest. Majestic’s free layer isn’t generous, but:

  • You can check a domain and get:
    • A sample of backlinks
    • Trust Flow / Citation Flow
  • It’s good for qualifying link prospects you find manually.
    Find a potential site, plug it into Majestic, if TF is 0 and the site looks like trash, skip it. Saves time.

3. Manual log + browser extensions instead of “tools”
This is where I disagree slightly with the idea that you need to stack tons of SaaS. For small sites, you can get very far with:

  • A spreadsheet
  • Free extensions like:
    • MozBar (shows DA-ish metric in SERPs, even if it’s imperfect)
    • Detailed SEO Extension or similar for quick checks
      Then use Google itself to find prospects and only use Majestic/Moz/Ahrefs Free to vet domains, not to “discover” everything.

4. Free link alert via Visualping or similar
Hacky but useful:

  • Pick a competitor’s “Links” page or resource page that you know gets updated with new sites
  • Use a free page change monitor (Visualping, Distill etc.)
  • Every time they update, you get notified
  • Check what they added and try to get listed on similar pages or even the same one

5. Reddit + niche communities for indirect link opps
Not a backlink “tool,” but for free it’s powerful:

  • Look up posts in your niche where people share “resource lists” or “best tools”
  • If they have external sites linked, click through, see if they have roundups or resource pages
  • Pitch your stuff there
    You’re basically using Reddit as a discovery layer and then using GSC/Majestic to see if those domains are worth the effort.

6. Brutally honest take

  • There is no honest, fully featured link index that’s free. All of them throttle or sample.
  • On a budget, your advantage is time and focus, not software.
  • A tiny, clean list of 30 good, relevant prospects you found manually will outperform a bloated export of 5,000 “opportunities” from a SaaS tool that you never actually contact.

If you really want one “tool name” to hang your hat on:

  • For your own site: Google Search Console
  • For checking potential link targets: Majestic free + a browser bar like MozBar

Everything else is just you, Google, some patience, and a spreadsheet you slowly fill up like a gremlin.

4

If you’re hard‑stuck on “one best free backlink tool,” I’d actually put Bing Webmaster Tools on the table as a counterpoint to what @voyageurdubois suggested with GSC.

Not saying they’re wrong, but here’s a different angle.

1. Bing Webmaster Tools as your “other” GSC

It is quieter, but for a $0 budget it gives you:

Pros

  • Actual backlink data from a real search engine, not scraped third‑party stuff
  • Anchor text samples for some links
  • Disavow tool if you need it
  • Combined with GSC, you can cross‑check which links appear in both, which is a good proxy for “these actually matter”

Cons

  • Index smaller than Google
  • Interface is clunkier
  • Data sometimes lags and coverage can feel thin in tiny niches

If I had zero budget, I’d use GSC + Bing Webmaster Tools as my “backlink reality check” rather than chasing one magical free SaaS.

2. Free Ahrefs / Moz / SEMrush tiers, used differently

Where I slightly disagree with the “just don’t rely on SaaS” idea:

If you treat the free tiers like sampling tools instead of dashboards you live in, they become way more useful.

  • Use Ahrefs free site checker to get a very rough DR and a tiny backlink sample for a domain you are thinking of pitching
  • Use Moz free account for a quick DA check when you see a site in the SERPs
  • Use SEMrush free account to see whether that domain actually ranks for anything

You are not building a whole prospect list from these. You are just answering:
“Is this site alive and trusted enough to bother with?”

3. Pure Google scraping, but smarter

Instead of only using Google to find “resource page + niche” like many tutorials suggest, use patterns like:

  • 'your keyword' 'sponsored by' to find events and communities that link out
  • 'your keyword' 'contributors' to find sites that accept guest content
  • 'your keyword' 'case study' to find SaaS and platforms that highlight users and often give them a backlink

You then vet those domains with whatever free checkers you like. Here I actually agree with the workflow idea from @voyageurdubois: spreadsheet plus a couple of free checks beats any fake “unlimited free” backlink tool.

4. Social & PR as free link discovery

Instead of a backlink tool, use social + news search:

  • Search your brand / site on Twitter / X and LinkedIn
  • Plug those sites into your free checker of choice
  • Also search your brand in Google News to catch mentions that do not link, then politely ask for a link

You end up with a mix of:

  • Existing mentions you did not know about
  • Journalists / bloggers who already care about your topic

Free, and often higher quality than typical “SEO link roundup” stuff.

5. About “best tool” on a tight budget

Honestly, if someone ships a product called something like “Best Free Backlink Tool”, the real pros and cons at $0 are going to be:

Pros

  • One place to eyeball a sample of links
  • Maybe some basic metrics like domain authority, anchor text, and spam flags
  • Lightweight and faster to check than logging into 4 platforms

Cons

  • No one can run a real, fresh link index for free at scale, so:
    • Data will be thin, stale, or heavily sampled
    • Competitive research will be very limited
  • You will still need GSC / Bing data to know what search engines actually see

So if you do try a tool with a title like that, treat it as a convenience layer, not your source of truth.

6. Pragmatic stack on $0

If I had to pick a stack that complements what @voyageurdubois already laid out without repeating it:

  • Reality: Google Search Console + Bing Webmaster Tools for your own links
  • Sampling: One free market tool (Ahrefs / Moz / SEMrush) just to sanity‑check prospects
  • Discovery: Google search patterns + social / news search
  • Tracking: Plain spreadsheet with columns for “Found by,” “Metric check,” “Contacted,” “Response”

No magic, no unlimited anything, but it is free, sustainable, and you are not locked into a fake “trial” that dies the second you start getting into a groove.