Why does the Backlink Analytics report show more backlinks than Backlink Audit?

Backlinks on Semrush can be analyzed in two main areas: Backlink Analytics (for studying competitors) and Backlink Audit (for auditing your own links).

It is not uncommon to see a different number of total backlinks displayed in Backlink Analytics and Backlink Audit for the same domain. The difference between these two numbers comes down to a couple of reasons:

• Limit of backlinks analyzed per domain: Backlink Audit is domain centric and only pulls up to 500 backlinks per referring domain, while Backlink Analytics can pull more than 500 backlinks from a single domain.
• Historical backlink data: Backlink Audit retains data on links that were lost within the last 3 months (from the day of campaign update), while Backlink Analytics can go back as far as 6 months from the present day to gather this data.
• 301 redirects: Backlink Analytics is capable of detecting redirecting links, while Backlink Audit doesn’t have this functionality yet.
• Integrations: Backlink Audit can integrate Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Majestic accounts to analyze additional backlinks that our Backlinks Analytics bot didn’t find.

When should I use Backlink Analytics?

Backlink Analytics is used to study your own and your competitors’ backlink profiles and make comparisons between multiple domains side by side. The tool may not show all of the backlinks leading to a domain, for example, when they are blocked from our crawlers. That’s why, to analyze your own website we recommend using Backlink Audit. 

When should I use Backlink Audit?

Backlink Audit allows you to take a deeper look at which backlinks may positively or negatively affect your rankings. With the help of the tool, you can analyze the toxic signals associated with suspicious links, send emails to website owners, and create a disavow file to send to Google.

What is more, by connecting Google Search Console or Majestic to the tool, you will get a comprehensive list of all meaningful backlinks even if they’re blocked from our crawlers.