# Backlink Verifier

> A backlink verifier fetches the page that is supposed to link to you, finds every link pointing at your domain and reports the rel attribute on each one. It also reads the page's robots directives, because a link on a noindex page, or a page carrying a site-wide robots nofollow, passes nothing however the anchor is written.

Source: https://rankcert.com/tools/backlink-verifier
Free, no signup. Updated: 2026-09-14

## How to use it

1. Paste the page that should carry your link - a directory listing, a guest post, a roundup.
2. Add the domain the link should point at. Subdomains and deep links to it both count as a match.
3. Read the rel column: dofollow passes ranking signal, nofollow, sponsored and ugc do not.

## Questions

### How do I check if a backlink is live?

Fetch the page the link is supposed to be on and look for an anchor pointing at your domain in the raw HTML. That is exactly what this tool does, and it is what a crawler does too - opening the page in your browser is a weaker test, because your browser runs JavaScript that Googlebot may never execute.

### What is the difference between dofollow and nofollow?

A dofollow link carries no rel restriction, so it passes ranking signal to the target. A rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" link is a hint to search engines not to pass that signal. Both kinds send real visitors and both count as brand mentions.

### My link is there but shows as nofollow. Is it worthless?

No, but it is worth less. It still sends referral traffic, still gets your brand in front of readers, and still turns up in link graphs that AI systems read. It just will not move rankings the way a dofollow link does.

### Why does the tool say no link when I can see it on the page?

Two usual causes. The page renders its links with JavaScript, so they do not exist in the HTML a crawler receives - which means search engines may miss the link too. Or the link points at a redirector or a different domain spelling than the one you entered.

### What does noindex on the linking page mean for my link?

It means the page is not in Google's index, so there is no page from which signal can flow. Directories sometimes noindex their listing pages while still advertising dofollow links. Ask for placement on an indexable page instead.

### Can a page-level nofollow cancel my dofollow link?

Yes. A meta robots nofollow, or an X-Robots-Tag nofollow header, applies to every link on the page regardless of the rel on each anchor. This tool flags it when it sees one.

### How long after a link goes up should I check?

Give it a few minutes for their CDN cache to clear, then check. Re-check a month later - links quietly disappear during redesigns, and paid or swapped placements get removed more often than anyone admits.

### Does the anchor text matter?

It is one of the stronger relevance signals a link carries. A descriptive anchor beats "click here", and an image link with no alt text carries no keyword signal at all. This tool shows the anchor on every match so you can see what you actually got.

## Related tools

- [Meta Tags Checker](https://rankcert.com/tools/meta-tags-checker): Check any page's title, meta description, canonical, robots and heading structure, and see the exact issues that hurt its rankings.
- [Open Graph Preview](https://rankcert.com/tools/open-graph-preview): Preview how your page looks when shared on X, LinkedIn, Slack and Facebook, and find the Open Graph tags you are missing.
- [SEO Checker](https://rankcert.com/tools/seo-checker): Run eleven on-page checks against any URL: title, description, canonical, headings, alt text, Open Graph, word count and indexability, with the exact fixes.
- [Redirect Checker](https://rankcert.com/tools/redirect-checker): Follow every hop a URL takes, see the status code at each step, and find the chains, loops and temporary redirects that leak link equity.
- [Broken Link Checker](https://rankcert.com/tools/broken-link-checker): Crawl any page for broken links, see the status code behind every dead URL, and separate the internal ones that cost you link equity from the external rot.
- [Outbound Link Checker](https://rankcert.com/tools/outbound-link-checker): List every external link on a page with its rel attribute, count how many pass equity, and catch affiliate links that should be marked sponsored.