Understanding Sites Linking to You
Which sites are linking to you?
Nobody has to tell you when they link to your site, so unless somebody emails to say so, the only way to find out is to go looking. That is the whole job this tool does: enter a domain and it lists the sites pointing at it.
Seeing the actual list matters more than seeing a number. A hundred links from one directory and a hundred links from a hundred different publications produce the same headline figure and mean completely different things, and only the list tells you which of the two you have.
It works on any domain, not just your own, which makes it the quickest way to see where a competitor is picking up coverage you are not.
Backlinks, referring domains and linking pages
A link pointing at your site is what the industry calls a backlink - it is an ordinary link from the linking site's point of view, and only becomes a "backlink" seen from the receiving end. So "who links to my website" and "who has given me backlinks" are the same question asked two ways.
Where the wording starts to matter is in counting, because three terms get used loosely and mean genuinely different things:
- Backlink - one individual link pointing at your site.
- Referring domain - one website that links to you, however many times it does so.
- Linking page - the specific page the link sits on.
One site can link to you fifty times - a sidebar link on every page, say - which is fifty backlinks from a single source, and headline totals happily blur that with fifty separate sites linking once each.
Referring domains is usually the more honest measure of reach, because it counts distinct endorsements rather than repetitions of one. A profile of ten thousand backlinks from forty domains is a narrower footprint than four hundred backlinks from three hundred.
This tool lists the sites, which is the referring-domain view - it answers who, not how many times.
Why it matters who links to you
Backlinks remain one of the strongest signals search engines have about whether a site is worth surfacing, because they are the one thing a site cannot straightforwardly give itself. Somebody else has to decide you are worth pointing at.
That is why the source matters more than the total. A link from a well-regarded site in your field carries weight a link farm never will, and a profile made up mostly of the latter can actively work against you.
Knowing the list also tells you what to protect. Relationships that produced a good link tend to produce more, and a redesign that quietly breaks the pages those links point at is an expensive mistake nobody notices for months.
What to look for in the list
Five things are worth checking as you read down it:
- Whether the linking sites are ones you would be pleased to be associated with.
- How many distinct domains there are, rather than how many links.
- Which of your pages attract links, and whether they are the ones you care about.
- Whether a single page is carrying the whole profile, which is a fragile position.
- Anything unexpected - unfamiliar domains in unrelated languages are worth a closer look.
Backlinks and AI search in 2026
The assistants answering questions today draw heavily on pages that already rank, and backlinks are still a large part of why a page ranks at all. The connection is indirect but it has not gone away.
What has changed is that being widely referenced now feeds a second thing as well - how confidently a model treats a brand as a real, established entity. Consistent mentions across reputable sites contribute to that whether or not each one passes link equity, which is why an unlinked mention is no longer worthless.
The practical upshot is unchanged: earn coverage on sites people actually read. That has always been the version of link building that survives every algorithm update, and it is the version that translates to AI answers too.
What this tool checks
Enter a domain and the tool reports two things from the backlink data we hold for it: the sites linking to it, and the pages of yours they link to most.
It is a broad picture rather than a complete census: no backlink index anywhere captures every link on the web, and none is perfectly current. Read it as the shape of a profile rather than an exact ledger.
Where to go next
For the wider profile - totals, referring domains, dofollow split and the anchor text people use - run the
backlink checker. Then confirm the pages being linked to return a healthy
status code, and check that nothing worth linking to is being kept out of results by a
noindex directive.