Find backlinks for url: a runbook to audit one article
You published a piece you are proud of and want to know who linked to it. This runbook takes about twenty minutes and costs a fraction of a cent.
NoAISEO research team ·
The runbook
Free overview first
Call the overview action with your domain. No key is needed. Note Domain Rating, referring domains and total backlinks, and write today's date beside them.
Find your article in the top pages
The actions take a domain in q, so to see links aimed at one article, pull toppages for the site (2 credits) and look for your path in the list. Use the page parameter if it is not on the first screen.
List the referring domains
Call refdomains (2 credits). Skim for sites a reader of your subject would recognise, and for odd ones. Note the count of distinct domains, not the raw links.
Read the anchors
Call anchors (2 credits). Brand names, titles and bare URLs look natural. A pile of one exact commercial phrase deserves a second look.
Log it and wait a month
The index refreshes roughly monthly. Save the numbers in a sheet, repeat after the next refresh and compare. One snapshot tells you very little.
The calls, ready to paste
Replace example.com with your domain and the key with your own. Each call is billed once, whatever the number of rows, and returns up to 1,000 rows per page.
# free, no key
curl "https://noaiseo.com/api.php?action=overview&q=example.com"
# 2 credits each
curl "https://noaiseo.com/api.php?action=toppages&q=example.com&per=100&key=sk_live_..."
curl "https://noaiseo.com/api.php?action=refdomains&q=example.com&per=100&key=sk_live_..."
curl "https://noaiseo.com/api.php?action=anchors&q=example.com&key=sk_live_..."Reading the result without fooling yourself
Few links is normal. Most good articles collect a handful in their first year, and three referring domains from relevant sites is a better sign than three hundred from nowhere. To find backlinks for url-level pages on a young site, expect a short list that grows slowly.
Our figures come from our own crawler and our own link index, so a link placed last week may be missing. Newer links are best found with Ahrefs or Semrush, which crawl daily. Cross-check against the links report in Google Search Console, and note any gap in your sheet. Gaps happen.
A link says nothing about authorship. Not a word. If you need to demonstrate that side, the decision tree covers it, and the comparison page shows how the two ideas differ. Questions about vocabulary go to the glossary.
What a result might mean
| You see | It may mean | Next move |
|---|---|---|
| Zero referring domains | Index has not seen the site yet, or nobody has linked | Wait for the next monthly refresh; share the article where its readers are |
| Many links, one domain | A sitewide footer or blogroll | Count domains, not links |
| One anchor repeated often | A partner or directory pattern | Check who placed it and why |
| Article missing from top pages | Links go to your homepage instead | Ask linkers to point at the article itself |
What to record each month
- Date of the check and the date of the index refresh, if known
- Domain Rating, referring domains and total backlinks
- New referring domains since last month, with names
- Any anchor that appears more than five times
- Whether the article itself is listed in top pages
- One line on anything you did to the page that month
- The date you reread the article and fixed anything stale
- Which of your own pages linked internally to it