Moz Link Explorer is the Moz feature used to find and review backlinks. To start, open Link Explorer, enter your website or page, choose the correct URL scope, and select Analyze. The report shows linking pages, linking domains, anchor text, link attributes, authority metrics and Spam Score. Domain Authority and Page Authority use a 1 to 100 scale.

Goal Moz Feature What It Shows
Find backlinks to your website Link Explorer Inbound links, linking domains and authority metrics
Find backlinks to one page Exact URL analysis Links pointing to one URL
Find competitor link opportunities Link Intersect Sites linking to competitors but not your site
Check link text Anchor Text Words and phrases used in backlinks
Find your most linked pages Top Pages Pages attracting the most backlinks
Monitor changes Discovered & Lost New and lost backlinks

Sign in to Moz and open Link Explorer. Depending on your account, you may access it directly or through the Link Research area.

Enter the website or page you want to investigate. Moz lets you analyse three URL scopes:

  • Root domain: Finds backlinks pointing to the whole website.
  • Subdomain: Limits the analysis to a subdomain, such as blog.example.com.
  • Exact page: Finds backlinks pointing to one URL.

Use the root domain for a broad backlink audit. Use the exact URL option when you want to understand why a specific article, product page or landing page attracts links.

Select Analyze to open the Link Explorer overview.

Moz typically shows these summary metrics:

  • Domain Authority: A Moz score from 1 to 100 that estimates a domain's ranking potential from its link metrics.
  • Page Authority: A Moz score from 1 to 100 that estimates the ranking potential of a specific page.
  • Linking Domains: The number of unique root domains linking to the target.
  • Inbound Links: The total number of backlinks Moz has found pointing to the target.
  • Ranking Keywords: Keywords for which the website appears in search results.

Domain Authority is not a Google ranking score. Use it to compare websites in the same analysis rather than treating it as an absolute measure of quality.

A website with 100 backlinks from 100 relevant domains may be more useful than a website with 1,000 backlinks from only a few domains. Relevance, placement and the reason for the link matter more than the raw total.

Select Inbound Links to view the individual backlinks Moz has found.

Review these fields for each link:

  1. Linking page: The page that contains the backlink.
  2. Target URL: The page on your website receiving the link.
  3. Anchor text: The clickable words used for the link.
  4. Link type: Whether the link is followed or has a nofollow-related attribute.
  5. Page Authority: The authority estimate for the linking page.
  6. Domain Authority: The authority estimate for the linking domain.
  7. Spam Score: A risk signal that needs further review.
  8. Redirect status: Whether the link reaches your site through a redirect.

The most useful backlinks are usually relevant, editorially placed and found on pages that users could visit. A high Domain Authority score alone is not a reason to prioritise a link.

Use the report to separate useful backlinks from links that need investigation.

  • A relevant topic or audience.
  • A page that provides information, research, reviews or recommendations.
  • A clear reason for linking to your content.
  • A suitable target page.
  • Evidence of useful content or an established publication.
  • A followed link when ranking value is the focus of the audit.
  • Irrelevant or automatically generated content.
  • Excessive outbound links.
  • Repeated exact-match commercial anchor text.
  • Unrelated guest posts or sponsored links across the same website.
  • No clear audience or purpose.
  • Large numbers of links from one domain.

Do not treat a high Spam Score as proof that a link is harmful. Moz describes Spam Score as the percentage of sites with similar characteristics that it has found to be penalised or banned by Google. Use the score as a starting point for manual review, not as the final decision.

Open the Linking Domains report to see the unique websites linking to your domain.

This report gives more context than the total backlink count. Repeated links from one domain can make a backlink profile look larger than it is.

For example:

  • 500 backlinks from 5 websites indicate heavy concentration.
  • 100 backlinks from 80 relevant websites indicate broader domain diversity.

Look for websites that:

  • Link to several pages on your site.
  • Send links to commercially important pages.
  • Cover topics related to your industry.
  • Could become referral or partnership sources.
  • Link to competitors but have not yet mentioned your brand.

The number of linking domains does not tell you whether every link is useful. Review the source page and the target URL before adding a domain to an outreach list.

Use Link Intersect to find websites that link to competing domains but not to your website.

A practical workflow is:

  1. Enter your own domain.
  2. Add two or more relevant competitors.
  3. Run the comparison.
  4. Find domains that link to multiple competitors.
  5. Visit the linking pages manually.
  6. Check whether your website has a stronger, newer or more relevant resource.
  7. Contact the site only when you have a clear reason to request consideration.

Prioritise sites that:

  • Link to content similar to yours.
  • Have published related material recently.
  • Link to multiple competitors in your category.
  • Maintain an active editorial website.
  • Could reasonably reference your page.

For example, if three competitors have links from an industry association's resource page, check whether your company has a useful guide, study or tool that belongs on the same page.

7. Review Anchor Text

Use the Anchor Text report to see how other websites describe your pages.

Common anchor text types include:

  • Brand names.
  • Naked URLs.
  • Descriptive phrases.
  • Generic text such as "learn more".
  • Commercial keyword phrases.

A natural backlink profile usually contains a mixture of branded, descriptive and URL-based anchors. A large concentration of identical commercial anchor text is a reason to review the links and investigate how they were acquired.

Anchor text can also reveal a content distribution problem. If most backlinks point to your homepage while your service and resource pages receive few links, your link-building work may be focused too heavily on the brand.

8. Find Your Most Linked Pages

Open Top Pages to identify the pages that attract the most backlinks.

Use the report to answer three questions:

  1. Which pages earn links without direct outreach?
  2. What topic or format makes those pages useful to other sites?
  3. Can you add relevant internal links from those pages to pages that need more visibility?

Pages that often attract backlinks include:

  • Original research.
  • Industry statistics.
  • Free tools and calculators.
  • Detailed tutorials.
  • Templates and checklists.
  • Original visual assets.
  • Clear explanations of complex topics.

Once you find a page that earns links, create related content around the same topic. Link from the popular page to relevant commercial or supporting pages where the connection makes sense.

Use Discovered & Lost to monitor changes in your backlink profile.

Review newly discovered links for:

  • Content campaigns that earned coverage.
  • New brand mentions.
  • Competitor coverage.
  • Pages that may deserve further promotion.

Review lost links to find out whether:

  • The linking page was removed.
  • The page content changed.
  • Your target URL now redirects or returns an error.
  • The publisher replaced your link with a competitor's link.
  • The publisher removed the reference.
  • The website went offline.

A lost backlink is not always a problem. It may have been irrelevant, temporary or low quality. Start with lost links from relevant websites that previously sent referral traffic or supported an important page.

Use the download or export option in Link Explorer to save backlink data as a CSV file. Depending on your Moz subscription, available reports may include:

  • All links.
  • Follow links.
  • Linking domains.
  • Top pages.

You can sort the file by Domain Authority, Page Authority, Spam Score, anchor text, target URL or discovery date. Export limits and row counts depend on your subscription.

A useful spreadsheet can include these columns:

Column Why It Matters
Linking domain Identifies the referring website
Linking page Shows the page containing the link
Target URL Shows which page receives the backlink
Anchor text Helps assess relevance and anchor diversity
Follow status Helps classify the link
Domain Authority Provides a comparative authority estimate
Page Authority Evaluates the specific linking page
Spam Score Flags domains for manual review
First seen or discovery date Helps identify recent opportunities
Outreach status Prevents duplicate prospecting

Moz does not display every backlink immediately. Its link index is updated over time, and newly discovered links may take about three days to appear. The delay can be longer when the referring page is difficult to crawl or has limited quality signals.

If a known backlink is missing, check:

  • Whether you analysed the correct root domain, subdomain or exact URL.
  • Whether the linking page is publicly accessible.
  • Whether the page blocks crawlers.
  • Whether the backlink points to an old URL or redirect.
  • Whether the backlink was added recently.
  • Whether the linking page was removed or changed.
  • Whether Moz has indexed the referring page.

Use Google Search Console alongside Moz when auditing your own website. Moz helps with competitor comparisons, authority metrics and backlink prospecting. Search Console provides data from Google's own systems.

For a quick backlink audit:

  1. Open Link Explorer.
  2. Analyse your root domain.
  3. Record total inbound links and unique linking domains.
  4. Open Inbound Links.
  5. Sort and filter the links.
  6. Review anchor text and target URLs.
  7. Investigate Spam Score instead of treating it as a verdict.
  8. Open Top Pages to find content that attracts links.
  9. Use Link Intersect to find competitor gaps.
  10. Export suitable prospects to a spreadsheet.
  11. Monitor Discovered & Lost for important changes.

Count links last. First check whether the linking domain is relevant, whether the page gives users a reason to visit, and whether the link points to the right page.