DataForSEO Brain

Backlinks API (Capability)

6 min read

Backlinks API (Capability)

The Backlinks API serves link intelligence from DataForSEO’s own backlink crawler and index: summary metrics, full backlink lists, anchors, referring domains and networks, competitors, intersections, per-page data, and new/lost time series for any domain, subdomain, or URL. Sits under DataForSEO Brain → Concepts.

Overview

This module is DataForSEO’s answer to Ahrefs and Majestic: a continuously crawled backlink index queried by REST. You pass a target (a domain, a subdomain, or a full URL) and get aggregate link metrics, the actual backlinks, anchor-text breakdowns, the referring domains and their IP networks, link gaps against competitors, and the new-versus-lost dynamics over time. Endpoints are Live POST calls under /v3/backlinks/{function}/live (the one exception is the free GET /v3/backlinks/index). As of 2026-07-01, Backlinks is plain pay-as-you-go with no subscription and no activation step; the 2026-06-26 40204 gate was removed, and live probes on 2026-07-08 returned 20000 Ok for summary/live and bulk_ranks/live with real data. See cap-status-error-codes.

What it covers

  • GET /v3/backlinks/index - free, no charge; returns the live index volume (backlinks, pages, domains) plus 12-month growth history. The current live index is ~1.96-2.0 trillion live backlinks across ~198-208 billion pages (the docs’ 800.6B backlinks / 80.8B pages / 770.7M domains figure is a stale example snapshot, not the live count). Use it to verify index scale before running paid live pulls.
  • /v3/backlinks/summary/live - headline counts: backlinks, referring domains, spam score, attribute distributions.
  • /v3/backlinks/history/live - monthly historical metrics from January 2019 to present; the new_backlinks / lost_backlinks and new/lost referring-domain fields only populate from May 2021 onward.
  • /v3/backlinks/backlinks/live - the detailed backlink list with per-link metadata.
  • /v3/backlinks/anchors/live - anchor-text aggregation with per-anchor metrics.
  • /v3/backlinks/referring_domains/live and /v3/backlinks/referring_networks/live - linking domains and their IP/subnet groupings.
  • /v3/backlinks/competitors/live, /v3/backlinks/domain_intersection/live, /v3/backlinks/page_intersection/live - competitor profiles and link-gap analysis.
  • /v3/backlinks/domain_pages/live and /v3/backlinks/domain_pages_summary/live - per-page backlink data for a target.
  • /v3/backlinks/timeseries_summary/live and /v3/backlinks/timeseries_new_lost_summary/live - metrics and new/lost links and domains grouped by interval.

Key parameters / inputs

fieldnotes
targetrequired; a domain, subdomain, or absolute URL
modeas_is / one_per_domain / one_per_anchor grouping (backlinks endpoint)
backlinks_status_typeall / live / lost; default live
include_subdomainsinclude subdomains in the search; default true
include_indirect_linksinclude redirects and canonical links; default true
exclude_internal_backlinksdrop links from the target’s own subdomains; default true
internal_list_limitcap on nested arrays (TLDs, types, attributes); default 10, max 1000
rank_scaleone_hundred or one_thousand; default one_thousand
backlinks_filterssummary endpoint only - filters the backlinks behind the headline counts; summary has no order_by/limit/offset
filters / order_by / limit / offsetlist endpoints (backlinks, anchors, referring_domains): max 8 filters, max 3 sort rules, limit up to 1000, offset up to 20000

Response / what you get back

Summary-style responses carry rank, backlinks, referring_domains, referring_main_domains, referring_pages, backlinks_spam_score, and broken_backlinks. Distribution objects include referring_links_tld, referring_links_types, referring_links_attributes, and referring_links_platform_types. Individual backlinks expose anchor, dofollow, first_seen, and lost_date (null while live). Rank is a PageRank-style 0-100 or 0-1000 score depending on rank_scale.

Rank methodology. Rank is DataForSEO’s Domain-Rating analog, built on Google’s original PageRank formula but with a damping factor of 0.5 (vs Google’s 0.85). A domain’s rank is the log-compressed normalized sum of the PageRanks of its indexed pages, so each higher point needs exponentially more links. Three distinct fields appear: rank (the target’s own rank, or the rank a backlink passes), domain_from_rank (rank of the referring domain), and page_from_rank (rank of the referring page). Scale is 0-1000 by default, or 0-100 with rank_scale: one_hundred (conversion sin(rank / 636.62) * 100).

Spam score. backlinks_spam_score (group) / target_spam_score (domain) is a proprietary 0-100% estimate, not a Google signal, computed from 18 page-level signals - for example insecure HTTP (+30%), contact info present (-20%), social meta tags present (-15%), plus domain length, TLD reputation, and external/internal link ratios. Bands are 0-30 low, 31-60 medium, 61-100 high; a group or domain score is the average of its per-page scores.

Cost & method notes

  • Endpoints are Live/synchronous; per-request billing. Since 2026-07-01, Backlinks live endpoints are pay-as-you-go and no separate add-on subscription is required.
  • Access mechanics: gated through 2026-06-26; removed 2026-07-01 when DataForSEO moved all APIs to pay-as-you-go. Existing Backlinks subscriptions were auto-cancelled and accounts keep access without a monthly minimum. The old Make.com, n8n, and Google Sheets connector waiver is historical and now moot because there is no minimum left to waive; see cap-llm-mentions-visibility for the parallel LLM Mentions change.
  • Per-call pricing (flat across the pay-as-you-go endpoints): 0.00003 per returned row, max 1,000 rows per request - roughly **0.05). That headline figure undercuts Ahrefs (~2.00/1k); see dec-dataforseo-vs-ahrefs-semrush-moz.
  • In the 2026-06-26 live cost log, summary, referring_domains, and anchors returned task status 40204 with cost: 0.0. Re-probed live on 2026-07-08, /v3/backlinks/summary/live and /v3/backlinks/bulk_ranks/live returned 20000 Ok with real data; fixtures: .raw/sources/dataforseo-research/backlinks/fixtures/summary-live.json and .raw/sources/dataforseo-research/backlinks/fixtures/bulk_ranks-live.json.
  • The data comes from DataForSEO’s own backlink crawler and index, sourced and refreshed independently. See cap-data-collection-methodology and cap-queue-priority-cost-model.

When to use / how it fits

This module drives play-backlink-audit (summary → referring domains → new/lost → bulk spam → cleanup) and the link side of play-competitor-gap-analysis (domain/page intersection alongside Labs intersections). For headline metrics across many targets at once, prefer cap-backlinks-bulk-metrics. Route jobs through dec-which-api-for-which-job and weigh build-vs-buy against rivals via dec-dataforseo-vs-ahrefs-semrush-moz.

Gotchas / limits

  • Access status timeline: gated through 2026-06-26; removed 2026-07-01 when DataForSEO moved all APIs to pay-as-you-go. The earlier 2026-06-26 note that the subscription was NOT removed was accurate then, but became false after the published pricing update. Treat 40204 for Backlinks as historical and legacy; a pay-as-you-go account no longer receives it for Backlinks live endpoints verified 2026-07-08. See cap-status-error-codes.
  • No $100/month Backlinks add-on remains; budget for per-request and per-row usage before building on this module.
  • 2000 API calls/min, max 30 simultaneous requests; offset past 20000 should switch to a search-after token.
  • Spam score and rank are model estimates, not Google signals; compare against ent-ahrefs and ent-moz metrics rather than treating them as authoritative.
  • Historical depth starts January 2019; older link history is not available. The new_backlinks / lost_backlinks and new/lost referring-domain fields are a narrower window: they only populate from May 2021 onward, so velocity metrics before that date are blank.

Sources

Graph View

Backlinks