To check whether a backlink is still live, open the page that links to you, confirm your link is still in the page's HTML (not just visible text), check its rel attribute (follow, nofollow, sponsored or ugc), and make sure the linking page itself still loads with a 200 status and isn't blocked from search engines. Doing that for one link takes two minutes. Doing it every month for hundreds of links across clients and team members is where backlinks quietly go missing — and where most agencies lose money. This guide covers the manual check, the free and paid ways to check in bulk, why links disappear, and a simple system to track every link's status so nothing slips.
Key takeaways
- A backlink is live when the link is still in the page’s HTML, points to the right URL with the expected rel attribute, and sits on a page that loads (200) and isn’t noindexed.
- Check paid and outreach links at placement, then at 30, 60 and 90 days, then monthly.
- Google Search Console’s Links report is the best free starting point, but it won’t alert you when a specific link disappears.
- At scale the hard part is tracking — statuses, owners, history and duplicates — not checking a single URL.
- Contact the site owner quickly when a link disappears; recent removals are the easiest to recover.
Why backlinks disappear
Links you earned or paid for don't stay put. In practice, links get lost for a handful of predictable reasons:
| What happened | What you'll see | Often recoverable? |
|---|---|---|
| The linking page was deleted | 404 or 410 error | Sometimes — ask the site owner to restore or redirect |
| The link was edited out | Page loads, your link is gone | Often — especially for paid or exchanged links |
| The page moved | Redirect to a new URL (link may or may not survive) | Check the new URL |
| The link was changed to nofollow or sponsored | Link present, rel attribute changed | Depends on your agreement |
| The page was noindexed or blocked | Page loads but carries noindex, or robots.txt blocks it | Rarely in your control |
| The domain expired or was sold | Parked page or entirely different content | Rarely |
| The site redesigned its templates | Sidebar/footer/author-box links vanish across many pages | Sometimes |
For agencies and anyone buying placements, the second row matters most. Paid and outreach links are removed more often than people expect, and without regular checks you keep paying for — and reporting — links that no longer exist.
How to check a single backlink manually
- Open the linking page in a private browser window, so you see what everyone else sees.
- Find your link. Use Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) to search for your domain. If it's not in the visible text, it may be on an image or in a menu.
- Confirm it's a real link in the HTML. Right-click the link → Inspect, or view the page source and search for your domain. Check that it's an
<a href="…">pointing to the right target URL — not plain text, and not a different page on your site. - Check the rel attribute. A link with no rel attribute (often called "dofollow") can pass ranking value;
nofollow,sponsoredandugcare hints to search engines that it shouldn't. Note which you got, especially for paid links. - Check the anchor text matches what was agreed.
- Check the page can be indexed. Look for a
noindexmeta tag in the source, and check that it's not blocked by the site's robots.txt. A link on a page search engines can't see carries little value. - Check the status code. Browser extensions or free header-checker tools will show whether the page returns 200, redirects (301/302) or errors (404/410).
Record what you found and the date. That last step is the one most people skip — and it's the one that makes next month's check useful.
How to check backlinks in bulk
Free: Google Search Console's Links report
Search Console → Links shows your top linking sites, top linked pages and top anchor texts, based on links Google has found. It's free and comes straight from Google, which makes it the best starting point. Its limits: it isn't real-time, it shows a sample rather than every link, and it won't alert you when a specific link disappears. Use it to spot trends — a linking domain that disappears from the list — rather than to audit individual placements.
Crawlers in list mode
Desktop SEO crawlers can take a list of linking page URLs, fetch each one, and search the HTML for your domain. That gives you status codes, whether your link is present, and its rel attribute in one export. Free versions usually cap the number of URLs per crawl; paid licenses remove the cap. This is the most reliable way to re-check a known list of placements.
Paid backlink databases
Large SEO suites maintain their own index of the web's links and offer "new and lost backlinks" reports. They're useful for discovering links you didn't know about and spotting lost ones at scale, but they only know what their crawler has seen, they recrawl on their own schedule, and they can be expensive for small teams. Our comparison of the best all-in-one SEO suites for small agencies covers the trade-offs.
How often should you check?
| Type of link | Suggested check schedule |
|---|---|
| Paid placements and guest posts | On placement, then at 30, 60 and 90 days, then monthly |
| Outreach and partner links | On placement, then monthly |
| Directory and profile links | Quarterly |
| Naturally earned links | Watch trends in Search Console; investigate if a top linking site disappears |
The first 90 days matter most for paid links: that's when edits, template changes and "we cleaned up old posts" removals tend to happen. If a link is gone, act quickly — site owners are far more willing to restore a link they removed last week than one they removed six months ago.
The real problem isn't checking — it's tracking
Checking one link is easy. The hard part, for any team building links at volume, is everything around the check:
- Knowing which of 600 links are due a re-check this month.
- Not paying twice for the same domain because two teammates pitched it independently.
- Knowing who verified a link, when, and what they found.
- Showing clients accurate numbers — live links, not every link ever placed.
- Spotting which sites you lean on too heavily, or which links a competitor has that you don't.
Most teams handle this in spreadsheets, which store data but don't protect it. That's the gap SEO Suite — included with Clicktics — was built for.
How SEO Suite keeps every backlink accounted for
SEO Suite is a spreadsheet-style workspace for SEO teams, so it feels familiar from day one — but every row is managed:
- Every link has a status and an owner. Links move through a QA lifecycle and carry a clear verification status — verified, needs review, pending verification, broken, redirected, lost, incorrect target, anchor missing or duplicate — so "is this link still good?" has an answer in the row itself, along with who checked it.
- Lost links keep their history. When a check finds a link gone and it's marked Lost, the record isn't deleted — it keeps the date and full history, appears in the Lost view, and stops counting as a live link in reports. Clients see accurate numbers; your team sees what needs recovering.
- Duplicates are blocked at entry. Seven levels of duplicate detection catch the same URL, domain, target page or anchor the moment someone types it — with block, warn or allow rules per project, team or person. Paying twice for the same placement stops being possible by accident.
- Approved work is locked. Once a link is approved, the row locks; changes go through approval with a paper trail.
- Backlinks Analyze shows the patterns. See your most-used websites, run a duplicate check across projects, find each site's first link, spot repeat links over any period, and compare link profiles between projects to find gaps.
- Daily reports write themselves. Each person's daily status report is built from the links they actually logged, so managers see real progress without chasing updates.
One clarification, because it matters when you're choosing tools: SEO Suite doesn't crawl the web for you. Your team still checks links — manually or with a crawler in list mode, as described above. What SEO Suite does is make those checks systematic: every link has a status, every change has a history, and nothing slips through the cracks between teammates.
Lost links and rankings: connect the dots
When important links disappear, the pages they pointed to can lose rankings over the following weeks. If you notice a page slipping, check its backlinks before rewriting its content. In Clicktics, the Rank Tracker shows daily positions with drop alerts, so a ranking fall is noticed quickly — and your link records in SEO Suite tell you whether a lost link might be the cause. Our traffic drop checklist covers how to separate link losses from other causes.
How to recover a lost backlink
Many lost links can be recovered with a short, polite message — especially when you reach out quickly. A good recovery email:
- Is specific: name the page, the date you noticed, and what changed (removed, nofollowed, page moved).
- Makes it easy: include the exact URL and anchor text you'd like restored.
- Assumes good faith: links are often removed by accident during edits or template changes.
- Gives a reason to restore it: point out that the linked page has been updated or that it helps their readers.
- References your agreement for paid placements, calmly and factually.
If the linking page was deleted, ask whether it can be restored or redirected to a related page that still mentions you. If the whole site is gone, record the link as lost and move on. Logging each recovery attempt — and the outcome — in the link's record means nobody contacts the same site twice, and you learn which sites are reliable partners.
A monthly backlink audit routine
- Export the links due for checking — new placements at 30/60/90 days, plus all paid links.
- Run them through a crawler in list mode (or check manually if there are only a few).
- Update each link's status with what you found: verified, redirected, broken, lost.
- Contact site owners for lost or changed links within a week.
- Review Search Console's Links report for top linking sites that disappeared.
- Report live links only to clients or stakeholders.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check if a backlink is still active?
Open the linking page, search for your domain, and inspect the HTML to confirm it's a real link to the right URL. Check its rel attribute and that the page loads normally (200 status) without a noindex tag. For many links at once, use a crawler in list mode.
How do I find lost backlinks for free?
Google Search Console's Links report shows top linking sites and pages Google knows about. Compare it over time to spot linking sites that disappear. For a known list of placements, a free crawler (within its URL limit) can re-check them in one run.
What does it mean when a backlink is nofollow?
The link carries a rel="nofollow" attribute, which tells search engines not to treat it as an endorsement. Google treats nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints. These links can still send visitors, but generally pass less ranking value.
Why do backlinks get removed?
Pages get deleted or moved, editors remove links during updates, sites redesign templates, domains expire, or links are changed to nofollow. Paid and outreach links are removed more often than naturally earned ones, which is why they need regular checks.
Does SEO Suite check my backlinks automatically?
No — SEO Suite doesn't crawl the web. It's where your team records every link and its verification status, with duplicate blocking, approval locking, lost-link history and analysis across projects. Your team does the checks; SEO Suite makes sure every result is recorded, owned and visible.
Keep every link accounted for
Clicktics gives SEO teams SEO Suite for backlink tracking, duplicate blocking and daily reports, plus a Rank Tracker with drop alerts, Search Console insights and full visitor analytics — in one account. Your first 14 days are free, with no payment details asked.
Start your 14-day free trial → or explore SEO Suite.
Tomás García
Tomás García writes for the Clicktics blog about session replay, analytics engineering, and building privacy-first products that agencies love. Reach the team at [email protected].