How to Do a Backlink Audit: From Export to Action Plan

A backlink audit is a periodic review of every link pointing to your site, so you understand what you have, what you've lost, and what might be putting you at risk. Here's a practical, no-nonsense process.

1. Gather your data

Pull backlinks from every source you have — your monitoring tool, Search Console, and any third-party crawlers. Deduplicate by linking domain.

2. Assess quality and relevance

For each linking domain, weigh relevance, authority (see DA/PA) and real traffic. Flag anything that looks purely manipulative.

3. Review your anchor profile

Check your anchor text distribution for over-optimization. A spike in exact-match commercial anchors is a warning sign.

4. Identify losses and risks

Compare against your last audit to spot links lost to link rot, then queue them for recovery. Document toxic links for monitoring or, if necessary, disavow.

5. Make it recurring

A one-off audit is a snapshot; the value comes from repetition. Combine periodic audits with continuous monitoring for full coverage.