Referring Domains and their health
Instead of counting links, it counts domains. Each row is one site that has given you at least one link, with its authority, its link count, its spam score and how long it has carried that link.
- Sorted by authority
- Spam score per domain
- Complete for .ir domains
Run the tool right here
Which sites link to you, how much authority each has, and which ones are risky.
- What it costs $0.054
- Data source DataForSEO
The short answer
A referring domain is one independent site that links to you, regardless of how many links it gives. This figure is more meaningful than the total backlink count, because Google also looks more at the diversity of sources than at the raw number of links.
Always read the link-count column next to the row itself, because that is where the real picture appears. A domain that has given you three thousand links has not given three thousand votes; it placed one link in its footer or sidebar and that template repeated across all its pages. To Google this is roughly one link, but it counts as three thousand in the total backlink figure and makes the profile look stronger than it is.
The first-seen date column has diagnostic use. If your rankings have dropped, review the list by that column: several spam domains all added in one week is the pattern of a negative link attack, and an old authoritative domain disappearing means that page was deleted or the link was removed. The two situations call for different action.
Do not overlook the country column either. For a Persian site selling its services in Iran, a link profile that has suddenly filled with domains from countries with no relation to its audience usually means links were bought somewhere, even if you did not buy them yourself and they are left over from a previous agency.
What you get back
What each output column actually means. Read this before your first run so you do not misread a number.
- Health
- Derived from the domain's spam score: under 15 healthy, 15 to 30 acceptable, above 30 risky. A high spam score does not necessarily mean a penalty; it means the domain's link pattern resembles that of penalised sites.
Where the data comes from
DataForSEO backlinks referring domains. This endpoint does not depend on location, so it returns full data for .ir domains too. One thing that usually surprises people: many referring domains on Iranian sites are footer links, where thousands of links come from a single domain, so always read the "links" column next to the domain count.
When it helps
To judge link-profile quality, or when rankings drop and you want to see whether new spam links appeared or an important link was lost.
Where it does not help
As with any backlink tool, what you see is what the provider crawler has found, not a definitive list of every link. Very recent links usually have not arrived yet. The second thing to know is that this list makes no final judgement about link quality: spam score is a machine estimate, and a domain with a low spam score is not necessarily a good domain for you if its subject has nothing to do with your work. Topical relevance is something no column in this table measures, and you have to judge it yourself by opening a few examples.
One thing we learned using it
This endpoint does not depend on location, which makes it one of the few tools in this family that returns complete data for .ir domains. What usually surprises people is the link-to-domain ratio: on Iranian sites a large share of links are footer links and thousands come from one domain, so a domain low in the list may be worth more in reality than one sitting at the top with thousands of links.
What it costs
No monthly subscription. You top up a wallet and the price of a run is printed on the button before you press it; if you never run it, nothing is deducted.
Questions about this tool
How is this different from backlink analysis?
Backlink analysis shows each individual link with its anchor text; this one stands a level higher and gives one row per site. For judging profile quality this is faster, and for seeing exactly which page linked to you the other one is right.
Are more referring domains better?
As long as the new domains are real and relevant, yes. A hundred relevant domains beat a thousand irrelevant ones. A sudden unexplained growth in the domain count is also not what you want, because it looks like the pattern of bought links.
I lost a referring domain, does it matter?
It depends on its authority and relevance. Losing an authoritative, relevant domain is worth following up, usually with a simple email to that site. Losing a spam domain is effectively good news.