Linking Domains

In this guide you’ll learn more about the Linking Domains section on the Link Explorer tool. If you’re looking to troubleshoot why inbound links to your site haven’t been found, please see our troubleshooting guide.

Quick Links

• What Are Linking Domains?
• Find Linking Domains With Link Explorer
• Sorting & Filtering
• View Top Links
• Add to Link Tracking Lists
• Export Your Data
• Understanding Link Explorer Terminology

Linking Domains are sites that link to your site. The count here is the total number of domains linking to you. If you have ten backlinks from a single domain, like Pinterest or Wikipedia, this will be counted as one linking domain.

To find Linking Domains for a site in Link Explorer, follow these steps from within the Linking Domains section:

1. Use the drop-down to select the scope of your search and see data for a root domain, subdomain, or exact page
2. Enter the site you'd like to research into the search box and click Analyze
3. If needed, select Followed on the right-hand side to filter by followed Linking Domains
4. You'll see a list of Linking Domains sorted by descending Domain Authority (DA)

Within Linking Domains you have the option to filter by Link Type or Link State.

When filtering by Link Type, you can choose to see all links, only domains with follow links pointing to your site, or only domains with nofollow links pointing to your site.

When filtering by Link State you have the options to view all all links, only domains marked as lost, or only domains marked as active.

You also have the option to sort the Linking Domains list by Domain Authority (DA) or Spam Score.

Please note: When a sort or filter is applied, the tool will look at the top 100,000 links. It doesn’t matter what domain these links are from. For example, if you have 5 million links and sort by PA, the tool will look at the top 100,000 links based on PA.

Follow Linking Domains

When filtering by Link State and selecting follow, we'll show all the domains with at least one follow link. It's worth noting that if you then select the arrow on the right to see Top Links, that follow link may not feature in those top 10 links.

Click on the arrow in the Top Links column to expand and see more information about the links we’re finding from a particular domain. When the view is expanded, we will show you the Top Links from that domain, sorted by Page Authority (PA). Click All links from this root domain to be taken to the Inbound Links section which will be pre-filtered by Link Source to show the top 10 links from this domain.

Link Tracking Lists can be helpful for setting goals, tracking, and analyzing your link building progress.

To add a link to your list, follow these steps:

1. Select the check box next to a linking domain
2. Click Add to Link Tracking List

You can export your data to CSV using the button on the right. If you have filters applied, the tool will export the filtered results. Once your report is ready, you can download it from the Export Notifications flag on the top right.

Please note: The number of rows you’re able to export from Link Explorer is dependent on your subscription level.

• Learn more about exporting link data from Link Explorer

More definitions are available in our Glossary.

Domain Authority (DA) - Domain Authority is a Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 which predicts how well a domain will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

Page Authority (PA) - Page Authority is a Moz proprietary metric from 1-100 which predicts how well a page will rank in Google based on a machine learning algorithm of link metrics.

Linking Domains (Total Linking Root Domains) - Number of unique root domains linking to a target. Two links from the same website will only be counted as one linking root domain.

Inbound Links (backlinks) - An incoming link from a page on another website back to your own site.

Spam Score - Represents the percentage of sites with similar features we've found to be penalized or banned by Google. This does not mean that the site is spammy. It’s best to use this is a guide to potentially spammy sites for further investigation.