Backlink Audit
A backlink audit is a systematic review of all external links pointing to a site to judge their quality, relevance, and risk to SEO.
What I’d do first
- Export from at least two sources (Search Console + one third-party tool).
- Merge and deduplicate into one clean list.
- Categorize each link: keep, monitor, remove, or disavow.
- Attempt manual removal before disavowing.
- Review the top 20-50 riskiest links manually — don't trust automation alone.
Here's the process I've settled on after a few too many late-night disavow scares.
The path I'd take
- Export backlinks from Search Console (Links > External Links > More) and your preferred third-party tool.
- Merge and deduplicate in a spreadsheet. Remove internal links and any that are nofollowed if you're only auditing followed links.
- Enrich with metrics — domain rating, spam score, topical relevance, anchor text distribution. Most tools let you export these.
- Categorize each link into: keep (high quality, relevant), monitor (neutral, low authority), remove (spammy, irrelevant, or broken), or disavow (can't remove, actively harmful).
- Attempt removal first for any link in the disavow bucket. Email the site owner or use a removal service. Document every attempt.
- Disavow only as a last resort — upload a.txt file to Google's Disavow Tool. Include only the domains or URLs you couldn't remove and that pose a real risk.
Watch-outs
- Don't rely on a single source. I've seen audits miss 40% of links because they only used one tool. Cross-reference always.
- Don't disavow before trying removal. Google prefers you remove links naturally. Disavowing is a signal that you couldn't clean up the mess yourself.
- Don't trust toxic scores blindly. I once flagged a link from a.edu forum as toxic because the tool gave it a high spam score. Turned out it was a legitimate student discussion linking to my guide. Manual review saved me.
- Don't ignore broken backlinks. A link that 404s is a missed opportunity. Add it to your link reclamation list.
What I got wrong
Early on, I ran an audit and disavowed about 200 links in one go. I thought I was being thorough. Turns out most of those were low-quality but harmless — Google already ignored them. I wasted time and risked removing links that might have had some marginal value. Now I'm more surgical: I only disavow if there's a clear pattern of spam that could trigger a manual action. Also, I used to skip the manual review step entirely. Big mistake. Tools are great for surfacing candidates, but they can't judge context. A link from a niche blog with DA 20 might be more valuable than a DA 50 link from a generic directory. You have to look.
Next step
Sources
Primary documentation is linked directly. Anything commercial is marked nofollow.
- Google Search Central — Primary Google documentation for link and disavow guidance.
- Google Search Console Help — Official source for exporting and reviewing link data in Search Console.
- Ahrefs Blog — Widely used SEO reference with practical backlink audit workflows.
- Semrush Blog — Common industry reference for backlink audit processes and tooling.
- Backlinko — Well-known SEO education source that explains backlink audit concepts clearly.
Notes from Callum Bennett.