Free · updated for 2026
Free link building tools
Free SEO tools for the part of the job that comes before buying a link: knowing which links you have, which ones your competitors have, and what an outlet is worth before you publish on it.
The tools
All free, no card required.
Backlink checker
Enter any domain to see its referring domains and authority, and which outlets you can get the same links on.
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DR checker
Check the Ahrefs Domain Rating of up to 50 domains at once, with their referring domains, traffic and which ones sell posts.
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Backlink audit
Review your site's link profile with a guide to reading it beyond DR and deciding what to do with each link.
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Competitor backlinks
See who links to your rivals and which of those links you can replicate on Growwer, outlet by outlet.
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Backlink gap
Compare your domain with up to three rivals: the sites that link to them and not to you, and which you can get on Growwer.
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AI visibility checker
Check whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity name your brand when customers ask, who they name instead and which sites they cite.
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Spam score checker
Check any domain's spam score before you buy a link from it, or before it hurts your own profile.
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Website traffic checker
See how many visits any site gets from Google, from which keywords and at what positions, market by market.
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Anchor text checker
See the anchor text mix of any domain's backlinks and spot an over-optimised profile before Google does.
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Dofollow checker
List every link on a page with its anchor and whether it is dofollow, nofollow, sponsored or ugc.
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Browser extension
An outlet's authority and traffic metrics while you browse it, without leaving the site or opening another tool.
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What each one is for
Different moments in a link campaign.
Before you start: what you have
The checker on your own domain gives you the baseline: how many domains link to you, with what authority, and where the gaps are.
When planning: what competitors have
The same checker on a competitor tells you where their links come from, and which of those outlets you can publish on.
When reviewing: what to cut
The audit helps you read the profile with judgment: which links add value, which are noise and which ones to keep an eye on.
When choosing an outlet: what it is worth
The extension shows you the metrics of the site you are on, so you can rule out the ones not worth it in seconds.
When reporting: what changed
Running the checker again after a campaign shows the new referring domains, which is the simplest honest report of what the links bought.
Frequently asked questions
What people ask about the tools.
- Yes. The checker and the audit work without signing up and the extension is free. There is a daily query limit so the service can stay free for everyone.
- From a third-party link database that crawls the web continuously. No tool sees every link that exists, so read the result as a reliable sample rather than an exact total.
- Checking is seeing which links a site has, yours or someone else's. Auditing is judging them: which ones help, which ones don't and what to do with each. The audit uses the checker and adds the guide to read the results.
- Yes, and it is the most common use: seeing where the links of whoever outranks you come from, and which of those outlets you can publish on.
- Not for the checker. An account is only needed if you want to buy posts on the outlets it finds for you.
