How to Check if Your Backlinks Still Work (2026 Guide)

Backlinks are one of the strongest ranking signals in SEO, but they are also one of the most fragile. A link that pointed to your site six months ago may no longer exist today. The referring page might have been deleted, the domain might have expired, or the site owner might have quietly removed your link during a redesign. If you are not regularly checking whether your backlinks still work, you could be losing link equity without knowing it.

This guide walks through exactly how to check if your backlinks still work, from exporting your full backlink profile to bulk-verifying every link and taking action on the ones that have broken.

Why Backlinks Break (And Why It Matters)

Before you start auditing, it helps to understand why backlinks disappear in the first place. The causes fall into a few predictable categories.

Link rot

Link rot is the gradual decay of URLs across the web. Studies estimate that roughly 6-10% of links break every year. A backlink profile with 500 referring URLs can expect to lose 30 to 50 links annually, even if nobody actively removes them. Pages get restructured, content management systems change URL formats during upgrades, and older articles get archived or deleted during routine cleanup.

Site redesigns and migrations

When a referring site undergoes a redesign or platform migration, URLs frequently change. If the site owner does not set up proper 301 redirects, every page on the old URL structure becomes a dead end. This is one of the most common causes of sudden backlink loss. A single referring domain that contributed 20 backlinks can drop to zero overnight after a poorly handled migration.

Domain expiry and ownership changes

Domains expire. When a referring domain lapses, your backlinks from that domain vanish entirely. Sometimes expired domains get picked up by new owners who put up completely unrelated content or parking pages. In that case, the link technically still exists but it's no longer a relevant or valuable backlink. It may even become harmful if the domain is repurposed for spam.

Editorial removal

Site owners sometimes remove links during content updates. They might consolidate articles, update resource lists, or simply decide to reduce the number of outbound links on a page. This is not malicious, but it's a form of backlink loss that's easy to miss if you are not monitoring.

Why broken backlinks hurt your SEO

Every backlink passes a certain amount of link equity (ranking power) to your site. When that backlink breaks, the equity disappears. If a high-authority site linked to you and that link now returns a 404, you lose the ranking benefit entirely. Over time, the accumulation of broken backlinks can cause a gradual decline in organic traffic that's hard to diagnose without a proper audit.

Step 1: Export Your Backlink Profile

The first step in any backlink audit is getting a complete list of every URL that links to your site. There are three main sources for this data.

Export from Google Search Console

Google Search Console provides a free list of backlinks that Google has discovered while crawling the web. To export them:

1. Open Google Search Console and select your property.
2. Navigate to Links in the left sidebar.
3. Under External links, click “Top linking pages” to see referring URLs.
4. Click “Export” in the top right to download the full list as a CSV or Google Sheet.

The advantage of Search Console is that it's free and it shows you exactly what Google knows about. The downside is that it's not comprehensive. Google does not report every backlink it finds, and the data can lag behind by weeks.

Export from Ahrefs

Ahrefs maintains one of the largest backlink indexes available. To export your backlinks from Ahrefs:

1. Enter your domain in Site Explorer.
2. Go to Backlinks in the left menu.
3. Apply filters if needed (e.g., dofollow only, live links only).
4. Click Export to download the full list as a CSV.

Ahrefs typically finds more backlinks than Search Console because it runs its own web crawler independently. The CSV export includes the referring URL, anchor text, dofollow/nofollow status, and the target URL on your site.

Export from SEMrush

SEMrush offers a similar backlink export through its Backlink Analytics tool:

1. Enter your domain in Backlink Analytics.
2. Go to the Backlinks tab.
3. Apply any filters you need.
4. Click the Export button to download as CSV.

For the most thorough audit, export from all three sources and combine the lists. Remove duplicates based on the referring URL column, and you'll have the most complete picture of your backlink profile.

Step 2: Prepare Your URL List for Bulk Checking

Once you have your exported CSV files, you need to extract the referring URLs into a clean list. The column you want is the one containing the full URL of the page that links to you, not your own URLs.

Open the CSV in a spreadsheet and isolate the referring URL column. Remove any duplicates and save the result as a plain text file or a single-column CSV with one URL per line. If you are working with exports from multiple sources, merge them first and then deduplicate.

For large backlink profiles with thousands of referring URLs, consider segmenting your list. You might check your highest-value backlinks first (those from high-authority domains) and then work through the rest in batches.

Step 3: Bulk-Check Your Backlinks

With your clean URL list ready, the next step is to check the HTTP status code of every referring page. You're looking for any page that returns a 404, 410, 500, or times out entirely, because those pages are no longer passing link equity to your site.

Why bulk checking matters

Manually visiting each referring URL is not realistic for any backlink profile larger than a handful of links. A site with 200 backlinks would take hours to check by hand. A site with 2,000 would take days. Bulk checking tools handle this in minutes by sending HTTP requests to every URL simultaneously and reporting back the status codes.

How to bulk-check referring URLs

The process is straightforward with a bulk link checker:

1. Upload your URL list. Paste your referring URLs or upload the CSV you prepared in Step 2.
2. Run the check. The tool sends an HTTP HEAD or GET request to each URL and records the response code.
3. Download the results. You get a report with each URL and its status code: 200 (live), 301 (redirected), 404 (not found), 500 (server error), or timeout.

You can also use a broken URL checker to filter specifically for URLs returning error codes. This gives you a focused list of only the backlinks that need attention.

What the status codes tell you

When reviewing your results, here is what each status code means for your backlinks:

• 200 OK: The referring page is live. Your backlink is probably still there. (Verify the link is still on the page if you want to be thorough.)
• 301/302 Redirect: The page has moved. Your backlink may still work if the redirect leads to a page that still contains your link, but check the final destination.
• 404 Not Found: The page is gone. Your backlink no longer exists, and you are getting zero value from it.
• 410 Gone: The page was intentionally removed. Same impact as a 404 but more permanent in intent.
• 500/503 Server Error: The server is having issues. Recheck these in a few days. If they persist, the page is effectively dead.
• Timeout: The server did not respond. The domain may have expired or the server may be permanently offline.

Step 4: Take Action on Broken Backlinks

Now that you have a list of broken backlinks, you have several options depending on the situation. Not every broken backlink is worth pursuing, so prioritize based on the authority and relevance of the referring domain.

Reclaim broken backlinks

This is the highest-value action you can take. If a high-authority site linked to you but their page now returns a 404, reach out to the site owner and let them know. Provide them with the broken URL and suggest they update it. In many cases, the content still exists somewhere on their site under a new URL, and they simply forgot to set up a redirect.

When reaching out, keep the email short and helpful. Mention the specific broken URL, explain that it returns a 404, and suggest the correct link. Most site owners appreciate being told about broken pages on their own site, so your reclamation request doubles as a favor.

For pages on your own site that have moved, make sure you have 301 redirects in place from the old URL to the new one. This way, even if the referring site's link hasn't been updated, the redirect preserves most of the link equity. For more on identifying pages that need redirects, see our guide on finding broken links on any website.

Replace lost backlinks

If a referring domain has gone offline entirely or the site owner is unresponsive, the backlink is gone for good. In this case, your best option is to replace it. Look for similar sites in the same niche and pitch your content to them. If the original link was to a specific resource or article on your site, that same content is likely valuable to other site owners in the space.

You can also use the Wayback Machine to see what the referring page looked like before it went down. This helps you understand why they linked to you in the first place, which makes your outreach to replacement sites more targeted.

Disavow harmful backlinks

During your audit, you may discover that some expired referring domains have been repurposed for spam or unrelated content. If a domain that once hosted a legitimate blog post linking to you now hosts gambling ads or malware, that backlink could be doing more harm than good.

Google's Disavow Tool lets you tell Google to ignore specific backlinks when evaluating your site. Use it sparingly and only for clearly harmful links. Google generally does a good job of ignoring low-quality links on its own, but disavowing is a useful safety net for obviously toxic backlinks.

To use the Disavow Tool:

1. Create a plain text file listing the URLs or domains you want to disavow.
2. Use the format domain:example.com to disavow all links from a domain, or list individual URLs.
3. Upload the file through the Disavow Links tool in Google Search Console.

Fix broken target URLs on your own site

Sometimes the referring page is fine, but the URL on your site that it links to has changed or been deleted. If a backlink points to a page on your site that returns a 404, you need to fix it on your end. Set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the most relevant current page. This is the fastest way to recover lost link equity because it does not require any action from the referring site.

Use a batch URL checker to verify the target URLs on your site that backlinks point to. If any return errors, set up redirects immediately.

How Often Should You Audit Your Backlinks?

The right frequency depends on the size of your backlink profile and how aggressively you are building links:

• Small profiles (under 100 backlinks): Quarterly audits are sufficient. You won't lose many links between checks.
• Medium profiles (100-1,000 backlinks): Monthly audits keep you on top of losses before they accumulate.
• Large profiles (1,000+ backlinks): Monthly or bi-weekly checks are ideal. Segment your list and rotate through sections if checking everything at once is impractical.
• Active link builders: If you are running outreach campaigns, check new backlinks 2-4 weeks after acquisition to confirm they are live and indexed.

Set a recurring calendar reminder for your backlink audit. The longer you wait between checks, the harder it is to reclaim lost links because referring sites move further from the original content.

A Complete Backlink Audit Checklist

Here is a summary of the full workflow you can follow each time you audit your backlinks:

1. Export backlinks from Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and/or SEMrush.
2. Merge and deduplicate the referring URL lists.
3. Bulk-check all referring URLs to get HTTP status codes.
4. Filter for errors: 404, 410, 500, and timeouts.
5. Prioritize by domain authority. Focus on reclaiming links from high-authority sites first.
6. Reclaim broken backlinks by contacting site owners with updated URLs.
7. Set up 301 redirects for any target pages on your site that have moved.
8. Replace lost backlinks by pitching similar sites.
9. Disavow any backlinks from domains that have turned toxic.
10. Document and schedule your next audit.

Key Takeaways

Backlinks degrade naturally over time. Link rot, site migrations, domain expiry, and editorial changes all chip away at your backlink profile. The sites that maintain strong organic rankings are the ones that treat backlink auditing as an ongoing process, not a one-time task.

The workflow is simple: export your backlinks, check them in bulk, and act on the broken ones. Reclaim what you can, redirect what you control, replace what's gone, and disavow what's harmful. Do this regularly and you'll protect the link equity you've worked hard to build.