Google Analytics 4 SEO Backlink Checker

What are Backlinks and why they are important for SEO?

Backlinks, or inbound links (or referrals, in Google Analytics) are mentions of your website on external sites. Having a backlink from a popular, trusted website pointing to your site is extremely valuable for improving its ranking in Google search results pages as for Google it represents a vote (i.e. endorsement) to the quality of your content.

This is because Google approximates the authority of a domain by how many other authoritative pages link to it. Backlinks or inbound links are thus the key indicators to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy, transferring their "link juice" - and search traffic - to your domain.

In the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) proactively searching for external links that point to one's website is called link building strategy. This Backlink checker helps you review your backlink profiles and identify other link opportunities.

How to search Backlinks on Google Analytics 4

While there are several paid apps among the SEO tools that measure the number and quality of backlink profiles to your domain (i.e. backlink checker tools), you can access most of that data for free via Google Analytics 4.

In Google Analytics 4’s Traffic Acquisition report, filter for referral traffic and break down by Source / Medium dimension. The output report contains a list of backlinks to your website.

Note that a referral is attributed to site visitors who landed somewhere on your website after clicking an external link that did not appear on 1) your own domain 2) a search engine 3) an email or 4) a social media platform.

How to check backlinks that are bad or irrelevant

Google Analytics 4 allows you to filter out unwanted backlinks from your analysis, such as self-referring sessions, in the Settings area.

Moreover, it’s important to focus on high-quality backlinks paired with relevant anchor texts - giving hints on the page content - and avoid spammy links from domains with high spam scores, as Search Engines can now detect this suspicious activity.

How to track backlinks with Rows

This GA4 Backlink Checker is built on Rows and combines data from Google Analytics 4 with the familiarity of a spreadsheet when it comes to manipulating and visualizing data.

Just by inputting a date range and your GA4 Property ID, you can have a backlink report for your website, excluding specific referral domains, and charting which referral domains have the highest engagement rates and average session durations, representing high-quality links.

These insights are invaluable for SEO reporting, link-building opportunities outreach, and audience research.