How to Check Your Backlinks in Google Search Console (Free)
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Ahrefs has a free account tier that gives you limited but genuinely useful access to their Site Explorer data. You can see your referring domains and export a CSV without paying a penny — with some caveats on the volume you get. Here's exactly how to do it.
Step 1: Create a free Ahrefs account
Go to ahrefs.com and sign up for a free account. You'll need to verify your site to see its data — Ahrefs gives free users access to data for a site they own and verify.
Step 2: Open Site Explorer
Once logged in, go to Site Explorer and enter your domain. Ahrefs will load an overview of your site's SEO profile.
Step 3: Navigate to Referring domains
In the left-hand menu under Backlink profile, click Referring domains. This shows you a table of every domain that links to your site, with their Domain Rating (DR), the number of links they send, and whether those links are dofollow or nofollow.
Step 4: Export the CSV
At the top right of the table, click Export. On the free tier, Ahrefs will export a limited number of rows — typically the top results by DR. You'll get a CSV file containing the referring domain, DR score, number of links, and follow/nofollow status.
Step 5: Paste into the analyser
Open the CSV, select all the content, and paste it into the free backlink analyser. Select Ahrefs CSV as the format and click Analyse.
The tool reads the domain column from the Ahrefs export automatically, classifies each referring domain, and gives you a health score and breakdown.
What you get on the free tier
The free Ahrefs account is limited in export volume — you're not getting thousands of rows. But for most small business sites, the top referring domains by DR are exactly what you want to examine anyway. Spam domains tend to have low DR and may not appear in the top results, which is where your Google Search Console export becomes useful as a complement.
For a fuller picture, combine Ahrefs with a SEMrush free export and your GSC data.