Your backlinks can lift your rankings or quietly drag them down, and most business owners have no idea which. A backlink audit shows you every link aimed at your site, what each one is doing to your SEO, and what to clean up. Here is the step-by-step process we use.
Why Your Backlink Profile Needs A Regular Audit
Every link pointing at your website is a vote in the eyes of search engines, but not every vote helps. High quality links from relevant sites push you up the search engine results, while spammy links from low quality sites can hold you back or trigger a penalty. A backlink audit is how you tell the two apart.
Left unchecked, a backlink profile drifts. Old link building campaigns leave behind bad links, competitors point toxic backlinks at you, and valuable links quietly disappear. Auditing your backlinks on a schedule keeps the profile clean, protects your site’s SEO performance, and shows you where the best new links could come from.
Our Approach: Since 2017 our Perth team has audited and rebuilt backlink profiles for trades, clinics and online stores across WA. We treat a link audit as routine maintenance, not emergency repair, and we only ever disavow links we can prove are doing harm.
● 3.8x: more backlinks the top organic result tends to have
● 50+: quality signals a backlink analysis tool can weigh
● Quarterly: how often a healthy site should audit backlinks
The Tools You Need To Audit Backlinks
You do not need a huge budget to start, but you do need the right data. Google Search Console is the first stop and it is a free tool: its links report shows the external links Google already knows about, the top linking domains, and your most linked pages. For many small sites, that free backlink checker covers the basics.
To go deeper, an SEO tool built for backlink analysis is worth the spend. Industry leading tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush pull far more backlink data than Search Console alone, scoring every referring domain and flagging patterns you would never spot by hand. A dedicated backlink checker or backlink audit tool turns a messy list of links into a clear, detailed analysis you can act on.
Whichever tools you choose, the aim is one complete backlink profile you can actually read. We usually run Search Console alongside a paid backlink checker so nothing slips through, then work from a single combined links report instead of jumping between dashboards.
Step One: Gather All Your Backlink Data
Start by pulling all the backlinks into one place. Export your backlinks report from Google Search Console, then pull your external backlinks from your chosen backlink checker, and combine the two. Search Console shows what Google sees, while a third-party tool often surfaces incoming links the search engine has not reported yet.
The goal at this stage is completeness, not judgement. You want every referring domain, every linked page, and the anchor texts attached to each link, so nothing hides in the gaps. Once all the links sit in a single sheet, you have the raw backlink data the rest of the audit is built on.
A little organisation now saves hours later. De-duplicate the combined list so each referring domain appears once, tag which links are dofollow, and note the linked page for each, so every backlink is ready to score in the next step.
Step Two: Judge The Quality Of Referring Domains
Now the real backlink analysis begins. Go through your referring domains and ask a simple question of each one: would a real person trust this site? Lean on your SEO metrics to stay objective. Domain authority, domain rating and authority score all estimate how much weight a linking domain can pass, so sort your list by those numbers first.
Patterns jump out fast. A cluster of backlinks pointing from unrelated overseas directories looks very different from a handful of links from respected local websites linking to you on purpose. Flag the high quality links as ones to keep and grow, and mark the low quality links from thin or irrelevant sites for a closer look in the toxic-link step.
Relevance matters as much as raw authority. A modest link from a respected Perth trade body can outweigh a high-scoring link from a site with nothing to do with your industry, so weigh both together rather than trusting a single number.
Step Three: Check Your Anchor Text Distribution
Anchor text is the clickable words inside a link, and its spread tells a story. A natural backlink profile shows a healthy mix: your brand name, your website address, plain phrases like click here, and only a modest share of exact-match keywords. That variety is what search engines expect to see.
Trouble shows up when one commercial phrase dominates. If dozens of external links pointing at a single page all use the same money keyword, that pattern looks manipulated and can put the linked page at risk. Map your anchor texts across the profile, note anything unnatural, and keep it in mind when you decide which links to trim.
While you are here, glance at the balance of link types. A believable profile carries both dofollow links that pass authority and nofollow links that do not, so a page fed only exact-match dofollow links stands out for the wrong reasons.
Step Four: Spot Toxic And Spammy Links
This is the step that protects your rankings. Work through the low quality links you flagged and separate genuine problems from the merely ordinary. Many links look harmless at a glance, so judge each one on its source and context rather than a gut feeling. Toxic links tend to come from spammy sites: link farms, hacked pages, unrelated foreign directories and networks that exist only to sell links. Many tools give each link a spam score, and anything above roughly 30 percent deserves a hard look.
Be honest but not trigger-happy. A low domain rating alone does not make a link toxic, and plenty of small, relevant sites are perfectly safe. What you are hunting for are harmful backlinks and bad links that a real editor would never have placed, the kind Google may penalise a site for carrying. Build a shortlist of these toxic backlinks before you touch anything.
Step Five: Reclaim Lost And Broken Backlinks
An audit is not only about removal, it is also about recovery. Your backlink checker can show lost backlinks, links that used to point at you and have since vanished. Some were removed on purpose, but many are lost links caused by a page being deleted, a URL changing, or a simple typo in the link.
These are some of the easiest wins in SEO. A friendly email to the site owner often restores a link, and redirecting a broken linked page recaptures the value instantly. Reclaiming even a handful of valuable links can lift organic traffic without building a single new backlink from scratch.
Keep a short list of every reclaimed link and where it points, because a broken linked page can slip back later after another site change. A quick recheck each quarter keeps those hard-won links live.
Step Six: Remove Or Disavow Harmful Links
With your toxic backlinks confirmed, deal with them in the right order. First, try to remove links at the source: contact the site owners and politely request removal. Track every request so you can follow up, because some will act and many will not. Removal at the source is always cleaner than the alternative.
For the harmful links you cannot get taken down, use disavowing as a last resort. List the offending pages or domains, convert that disavow file into a plain .txt file, and submit it through the Google Disavow Tool. Disavowing toxic backlinks tells Google to ignore them, protecting your site without you needing to chase every last webmaster.
Keep your disavow file safe and version it, because you can add to it at the next audit rather than starting over. Disavowing is powerful and easy to overuse, so list only the links you are genuinely confident are harmful.
Step Seven: Rebuild With High Quality Backlinks
Cleaning up is only part of the work; the rest is growth. A clean profile is exactly what a focused link building strategy needs. Use your audit to find link opportunities: pages that already earn quality links, competitors whose best backlinks you could match, and gaps where a strong asset would attract new backlinks naturally.
The most durable links are earned, not bought. Well-placed guest posts on relevant sites, digital PR, and genuinely valuable content built through content marketing all pull in high quality links that lift your site’s authority. Done well, that is how you build backlinks that keep working, and the aim is always better links, not simply more links. Chase quality backlinks from varied, trustworthy sources rather than raw backlink numbers, because ten links from respected domains beat a hundred throwaway ones.
Step Eight: Set A Recurring Audit Schedule
A backlink audit is a habit, not a one-off. New links appear, old ones drop, and the odd spammy batch always finds its way in, so the profile you cleaned today will need attention again. Booking a recurring audit keeps small problems small and stops toxic links building up unnoticed. Make it part of your wider SEO strategy to check backlinks on a fixed cadence, the same way you already review rankings and organic traffic.
For most businesses, auditing backlinks quarterly works well, with a lighter monthly glance at new inbound links. Keep a running record of what you disavowed and which link types you are earning, so every audit builds on the last and steadily improves your backlink profile over time.
Backlink Audit Case Studies From Our Perth Team
The cleanup shows up in the numbers. Here is what auditing and rebuilding backlink profiles did for three Perth clients, with every figure taken from their own analytics and backlink tools.
Coastal Plumbing (Trades, Perth)
Results: 410 Toxic Links Disavowed; +38% Organic Traffic.
Challenge: inherited spammy links from a previous provider and slid down the search results.
What we did: audited the full profile, requested removals, then disavowed the harmful backlinks Google still counted.
Result: rankings recovered within months and organic traffic climbed steadily.
Perth Property Group (Real Estate)
Results: +72 Quality Referring Domains; 2.1x Organic Leads.
Challenge: a thin backlink profile with few referring domains and little authority.
What we did: used the audit to surface link opportunities, then earned quality backlinks through content and guest posts.
Result: a stronger link profile and a clear lift in organic leads.
Fremantle Retail Co (E-Commerce)
Results: 130 Lost Links Reclaimed; +26% Organic Traffic.
Challenge: a site migration quietly broke dozens of valuable inbound links.
What we did: mapped the lost backlinks, restored redirects, and emailed site owners to fix the rest.
Result: reclaimed link equity and recovered traffic without new outreach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Straight answers to the questions we hear most about auditing a backlink profile.
What Is A Backlink Audit?
A backlink audit reviews every external link that points to your website. It checks each referring domain for quality, flags toxic or spammy links that could hurt your rankings, finds lost backlinks worth reclaiming, and points to where new high quality links should come from.
How Often Should We Audit Our Backlink Profile?
A full audit every quarter suits most businesses, with a quick monthly look at new inbound links. Sites in competitive niches, or ones recovering from spammy links, benefit from checking more often until the profile is stable.
Do We Need Paid Tools To Audit Backlinks?
Not to begin with. Google Search Console is a capable free backlink checker for the basics. Paid tools like Ahrefs and Semrush add far more backlink data and deeper SEO metrics, which makes a serious backlink analysis faster and more accurate.
What Are Toxic Backlinks?
Toxic backlinks are low quality or spammy links that can damage your rankings and drag down your site’s authority. They usually come from link farms, hacked pages or irrelevant sites, and Google may penalise a profile carrying too many of them, which is why an audit hunts them down.
Will Disavowing Links Hurt Our Rankings?
Not when it is done carefully. Disavowing only tells Google to ignore the specific harmful links you list, so removing genuinely toxic backlinks protects your rankings rather than hurting them. The risk comes from disavowing good links by mistake, which is why the review matters.
Your Backlink Profile, Cleaned Up And Working
A backlink audit turns guesswork into a plan. You learn which links are lifting your rankings, which toxic backlinks are holding you back, and where your next quality backlinks should come from. Work through the steps above and you will protect your site’s authority and give every future link building campaign a clean base to build on.
If you would rather have it handled, our Perth team runs the whole process for you, from the first backlinks report to disavowing toxic backlinks and earning new ones. We use industry leading tools, explain what we find in plain language, and only ever recommend changes we can back with data.
Ready To Clean Up Your Backlinks?
Book a free backlink audit and we will show you exactly what is pointing at your site, what is helping, what is hurting, and the fastest way to improve your backlink profile. No jargon, no pressure, just a clear action plan.