Free tool
Backlink Index Checker
Paste the pages linking to you and see which backlinks Google actually counts. Not just indexed or not: we check all seven reasons a live link can still pass nothing. No signup.
0 backlinks entered · free check covers the first 10
What this checker tells you
A backlink index checker verifies whether the page hosting your backlink is in Google’s index, because a link on a page Google has not indexed passes no value. This tool checks that, then checks the six other things that can silently cancel a link: whether it is still on the page, whether it is nofollowed, whether the page is noindexed, blocked in robots.txt, returning an error, or canonicalised elsewhere.
The 7 reasons a backlink passes no value
Index status is one of them. Most backlink index checkers stop there, which is why a link can show green in your tool and be worth nothing in practice.
- The page is unreachable
- The linking page 404s, returns a server error, or does not respond. A backlink on a page that will not load passes nothing, and the page drops out of the index if it has not already.
- The link has been removed
- The page still loads, but the link to you is gone. This is the failure that plain index checkers report as a pass: the page is indexed, so they say everything is fine, while the link they are supposedly checking no longer exists.
- The link is nofollowed
- The link carries rel="nofollow", rel="ugc" or rel="sponsored". The page is indexed and the link is live, but Google treats these as hints it can ignore rather than an endorsement to pass.
- The host page is noindexed
- A meta robots tag or an X-Robots-Tag header tells Google to keep the page out of the index. Google drops noindexed pages, and over time stops following the links on them.
- robots.txt blocks the crawl
- The host disallows crawling that URL, so Googlebot never fetches the page and never sees the link on it. The page can still appear as a bare URL in results, which makes this easy to misread as indexed.
- The page is not in the index
- Nothing is technically blocking it, but Google does not return the page for a direct lookup. Usually the page is too new, too thin, or too weakly linked for Google to keep. A link on a page Google has not kept is not being counted.
- The page canonicals elsewhere
- A rel=canonical points at a different URL, so Google usually credits that URL instead. Your link needs to exist on the canonical version of the page, not only on the one you are checking.
Indexed, live and followed are three different things
These get used interchangeably and they are not the same. A link has to clear all three before it counts.
| Question | What it means | How to check it | If it fails |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is the link live? | The anchor pointing at your domain still exists in the page HTML. | Fetch the page and look for the link. | The link was removed. Nothing else matters. |
| Is the link followed? | The anchor does not carry rel=nofollow, ugc or sponsored. | Read the rel attribute on that anchor. | Google can ignore it. Treat it as a traffic link, not a ranking one. |
| Is the page indexed? | Google has the linking page in its index and will return it. | Query Google for the exact URL. | The link is invisible to search until the page gets indexed. |
The checker above resolves all three in one pass, per URL. If you only need index status on a plain list of pages, the bulk index checker is faster, and for a single URL there is the Google index checker.
How to get an unindexed backlink indexed
You do not control the host page, so your options are narrower than for your own site. In order of what actually works:
- 1Confirm the cause first. A page blocked in robots.txt and a page Google chose not to keep need opposite fixes, and the checker above tells you which one you have.
- 2Link to the host page. An internal link from one of your own indexed pages, or a mention from anywhere with traffic, gives Google a reason to crawl it.
- 3Ask the host to fix a technical block. If it is a noindex tag or a robots.txt rule, only they can remove it, and most will if you point at the specific line.
- 4Give it time before writing it off. Most pages that get indexed are indexed within a few weeks, so a link that is two days old is not a problem yet.
- 5Re-check on a schedule. Index status changes both ways, and a link that got indexed last month can be dropped this month without any notice.
If the host page turns out to be blocking crawlers rather than merely unindexed, the Googlebot block tester shows you exactly how the server responds to Googlebot versus a browser.
Backlinks decay, and nothing tells you
A one-off check is a snapshot. Links get removed during redesigns, host pages get noindexed, and pages fall out of the index quietly. You usually find out when rankings move, which is months later than you would want.
Link removal alerts
Get told when a link you earned quietly disappears from the page.
Scheduled re-checks
Re-check your backlink list daily or every 6 hours, automatically.
Deindex alerts
Know which specific linking page dropped out of the index, and when.
Up to 20,000 URLs/mo
Plans scale from 100 URLs free to 20,000 a month, re-checks included.
See how the monitoring side works on the deindexing alerts page, or the full feature set.
Frequently asked questions
- How do you check if a backlink is indexed?
- Paste the URL of the page that links to you into a backlink index checker. The tool queries Google for that exact URL. If Google returns it, the linking page is indexed and the backlink can pass value. If Google does not return it, the link is invisible to search and passes nothing.
- Does an indexed backlink always pass value?
- No. An indexed linking page can still pass no value for six other reasons: the link was removed, it carries rel=nofollow, ugc or sponsored, the page returns a 404 or redirects elsewhere, the page canonicals to a different URL, or the page blocks Googlebot in robots.txt. Index status alone answers one of seven questions.
- Why does a backlink checker say not indexed when the page loads fine?
- Most checkers report a bot block as not indexed. When a host returns 403 or 429 to an automated request, the checker sees no result and records a false negative. A correct check separates blocked from genuinely absent, because the two need opposite fixes.
- How long does it take for a backlink to get indexed?
- Most linking pages that will be indexed are indexed within a few days to a few weeks. Pages still missing after roughly 60 days are usually blocked, low value, or excluded rather than merely delayed.
- Is this backlink index checker free?
- Yes. You can check backlinks for free with no signup. Free use is capped at the first 10 linking pages per run and 40 per day, because every check fetches the page and queries Google. A free SearchOptimo account raises the limit and re-checks your backlinks on a schedule.
- Can this tool find my backlinks for me?
- No, and that is deliberate. Finding backlinks needs a crawl index the size of Ahrefs or Semrush. This tool checks backlinks you already know about: export the linking URLs from Search Console, your backlink tool, or your outreach sheet, then paste them here to see which ones are actually counting.
Related tools: nofollow link checker, noindex checker, robots.txt tester, and bulk redirect checker.
Check them once. Then watch them.
Run a free check above, then put those linking pages on a monitoring schedule so you hear about a dropped link in hours, not quarters. Free plan, no credit card.