How to Read Your Backlink Analysis

Backlink analysis using the Back Link Checker tells you which other websites link to yours, how much authority those links carry, and how your site compares to the ones ranking above you. Google treats each link as a vote, so this is usually the reason two similar sites rank in a particular order.

The Backlinks page gives you:

• Domain strength, scored 0 to 100, with a plain-words label
• Linking websites and total backlinks, so you can see reach and depth separately
• Gained and lost, month by month
• An authority ladder putting your site alongside the competitors who outrank you
• Every referring domain, with its strength and link type

You'll find it in your back office under SEO → Backlinks.

Two things:

• Your plan. Backlink analysis is available on Grow and Pro. On Basic you'll see a locked panel instead of the page. There's no cap on either plan — your whole profile is analyzed.
• A connected custom domain. Your link profile belongs to your domain, so your site needs its own domain connected and verified first. Until then you'll see a prompt to set one up.

The first time you open the page, SiteStakes builds your snapshot live. It takes a few seconds and you'll see the progress on screen. After that it's already there when you visit.

Domain strength is a 0 to 100 score reflecting the quantity and quality of links pointing at your site. It uses the same scale applied to every domain on the web, so it's comparable to any competitor.

Each score maps to a label:

• Getting Started (under 15) — most new sites start here, and every link you earn moves it up
• Building (15 to 39) — your link profile is growing, so keep earning mentions
• Established (40 to 69) — you have real authority, enough to win competitive keywords
• Local Authority (70 and above) — search engines treat your site as a trusted source in your market

The score moves slowly. That's normal, and it's why the direction over months matters more than today's number.

• Linking websites — unique domains with at least one link to your site. Ten links from ten different sites beat a hundred links from one, so this is the number to grow.
• Total backlinks — every individual link pointing at any page of your site, including several from the same website.
• Gained this month — new referring domains since the last snapshot, shown in green.
• Lost this month — referring domains that disappeared, shown in red. Some loss every month is normal.

This is what the authority ladder answers. Because SiteStakes already tracks who ranks above you for your keywords, it takes those exact competitors, looks up their link authority, and sorts them against your own site.

Each row shows a competitor's domain strength, how many of your tracked keywords it beats you on, and a bar making the gap visible. Your site sits in the same list, marked so you can see where you fall.

⚔️ Analyze on any row opens the Competitor Analyzer with that site pre-filled, for a head-to-head against your own page.

If the ladder is empty, you don't have tracked keywords yet. Add some in the Page Rank Tracker and the competitors will appear on your next snapshot.

Two charts, below the ladder.

The growth chart shows your linking websites over the past 24 months. This is drawn from the link index rather than your own history, so it's complete the first time you open the page instead of starting empty.

The gained versus lost chart breaks the last 12 months into monthly bars — green above the line for domains gained, red below for domains lost. Healthy looks like green consistently outweighing red. Losing some links every month is normal: sites redesign, pages get deleted, and links disappear on their own.

Every site linking to you, strongest first.

• Website — the linking domain. A link lost flag appears if the link has since disappeared.
• Strength — that site's own domain strength, 0 to 100. One link from a strong site can outweigh dozens from weak ones.
• Links to you — how many links that site sends you.
• Since — when the link was first seen.
• Type — dofollow links pass ranking strength to your site. nofollow links don't pass it directly, but they still bring visitors and visibility.

Click any row to expand it for the detail: how many pages link to you, how many of those are nofollow, that site's spam score, and the date a lost link went away.

Your snapshot rebuilds automatically once a month. Backlinks move slowly, so a monthly cadence shows you a trend rather than noise.

You can rebuild it yourself with ↻ Refresh snapshot. That button is limited to once every seven days — if your current snapshot is newer than that, the button is disabled and the reason appears when you hover it.

Backlink analysis works best alongside the rest of the SEO tools.

Track your positions with the Page Rank Tracker, compare individual pages with the Competitor Analyzer, and read how real estate backlinks for investors work.