Google Analytics 4 is a traffic measurement tool for finding backlinks that sent visitors to your website.

Open Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition. Filter the report by Session default channel group: Referral, or use Session source / medium to identify referring websites. Add Page path and screen class to see which pages received the referral traffic.

GA4 shows backlinks that generated tracked visits. It does not show every backlink pointing to your website. For a broader list, use the Links report in Google Search Console.

What you want to find Best tool Where to look
Websites that sent visitors Google Analytics 4 Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition
Pages that received referral visits Google Analytics 4 Add Page path and screen class
Referral traffic, engagement and conversions Google Analytics 4 Traffic acquisition metrics
Websites Google knows are linking to you Google Search Console Links → External links
A larger backlink index Dedicated backlink crawler External link index

Open the GA4 Traffic Acquisition Report

  1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
  2. Select the correct GA4 property.
  3. Open Reports.
  4. Select Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.
  5. Choose the date range you want to analyse.

The report includes dimensions such as Session source, Session medium and Session source / medium.

Filter the Report for Referral Traffic

You can find referral sources in two ways.

Filter by the Referral Channel

Set the report dimension to Session default channel group, then filter the table to:

Referral

The Referral channel generally covers visits from links on other websites. Google Analytics uses traffic-source information, including the referral medium, to classify this traffic.

View Session Source / Medium

Change the main table dimension to Session source / medium. Look for rows such as:

  • example.com / referral
  • news-site.com / referral
  • partnerwebsite.com / referral

The source shows the website or platform that sent the session. The medium describes the traffic type, such as referral, organic, email or paid advertising.

This report shows the referring source, but not necessarily the exact page where the backlink appears.

To see where visitors landed after clicking a backlink:

  1. Stay in Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.
  2. Click the plus icon beside the report dimension.
  3. Add Page path and screen class.
  4. Filter for referral traffic or a specific referring source.

You can then compare the referring source with the landing page and its performance:

Referring source Landing page Sessions Engagement rate Key events
industrysite.com / referral /seo-guide/ 120 68% 8
partnerdomain.com / referral /product/ 74 52% 5

The Page path and screen class dimension shows the part of the URL after the domain and before the query string. For example, the page path for example.com/blog/seo?source=email is /blog/seo.

Review these GA4 metrics for each referring source:

  • Sessions
  • Engaged sessions
  • Engagement rate
  • Average engagement time per session
  • Key events
  • Total revenue, if ecommerce tracking is configured

A backlink that sends 30 visitors and generates five qualified leads may be more valuable than one that sends 500 visitors without meaningful engagement.

Use Session source / medium to evaluate where sessions came from. Use key events to check whether referral visitors completed actions such as form submissions, registrations, purchases or phone-click events.

Find Backlinks to One Specific Page

To see which sources sent traffic to a particular URL:

  1. Open Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.
  2. Click Add filter.
  3. Select Page path and screen class.
  4. Enter the page path, such as /resources/link-building-guide/.
  5. Review the Session source / medium rows.

This shows which sources sent traffic to that page during the selected date range. Google documents both report filters and secondary dimensions for analysing traffic sources by page.

A backlink may not appear as referral traffic when:

  • It has not generated a tracked visit.
  • The visitor blocked analytics tracking.
  • A redirect removed the referral information.
  • The visitor moved from HTTPS to HTTP.
  • The link appeared in a PDF, Word document or another offline file.
  • The visitor copied the URL instead of clicking the link.
  • Campaign parameters classified the visit under another channel.
  • The referring site or browser did not pass referral information.

GA4 classifies a session as direct / none when it cannot identify a clear source. Google lists missing campaign information, redirects, URL shorteners, offline documents and ad blockers as possible causes.

GA4 is therefore not a complete backlink discovery tool. It measures the visits and conversions generated by backlinks.

For links Google has discovered:

  1. Open Google Search Console.
  2. Select your property.
  3. Open Links.
  4. Go to External links.
  5. Review Top linking sites or Top linked pages.
  6. Select a page to see the sites linking to it.
  7. Export the report if needed.

Search Console groups linking data by root domain and can show the top sites linking to your pages. Google says the Links report is a sample, not a complete list of every link. It also does not show whether a link uses nofollow.

Capability GA4 Search Console
Shows referring websites Yes, when they send tracked traffic Yes, when Google has discovered the links
Shows referral sessions Yes No
Shows engagement and conversions Yes No
Shows pages receiving referral traffic Yes Shows top linked pages
Shows backlinks with no visits No Sometimes
Shows every backlink No No
Shows exact link placement or anchor text No Limited
Shows whether a link is nofollow No No

Use each tool for the job it handles best:

  1. Use Google Search Console to find websites and pages Google associates with your site.
  2. Use GA4 to see which referring websites send visits.
  3. Compare engagement rate, key events and revenue to identify commercially valuable sources.
  4. Inspect high-value referring pages manually to confirm the link location, context and destination URL.
  5. Use a dedicated backlink crawler when you need a larger link index, anchor-text analysis, link attributes or competitor research.

Google Analytics 4 is best for measuring backlink traffic and outcomes. Search Console is better for finding linking sites in Google's data. Neither tool provides a complete backlink inventory.