How do I check backlinks in Google Search Console?

Q: How do I check backlinks in Google Search Console?

Open Links in the left-hand menu to see the sites, pages and anchor text Google found linking to you. Here is how to read it, export it and where it stops.

Open your property in Search Console and choose Links in the left-hand menu. The External links half of that page is your backlink data: the pages on your site that other sites link to most, the domains that link to you most, and the anchor text they use. It is Google's own record, but a sample rather than a full list, and it carries no dates and no nofollow flag.

Where to find backlinks in Search Console

Pick the property. The report covers the pages inside the property you have open, so a Domain property (every subdomain and protocol) gives the fullest picture.
Choose Links. The page is split into external links (from other sites) and internal links (between your own pages).
Open any of the three external tables to see its full list, up to 1,000 rows.
Drill down. Clicking a page in Top linked pages shows which sites link to it; clicking a site then lists the individual pages carrying the links.

What the three tables tell you

Table	What it lists	Use it to
Top linked pages	Your pages with the most links from other sites	Confirm the pages you expect to attract links actually do
Top linking sites	Linking domains, grouped by root domain	Spot sites you do not recognise, or that look spammy
Top linking text	The anchor text other sites use for you	Check that others describe you accurately

Grouping by root domain folds subdomains, protocols and folders together, so m.example.com and example.com/shop/ both count as example.com. A different suffix, such as example.com.de, counts as a separate site. Links without any anchor text appear as (empty).

Why the numbers look lower (or odder) than other tools

It is a sample. Google says the report is not a complete list of every link. Links to pages that are not indexed, and duplicate URLs, can be left out.
Old links linger. The report holds links Google has found over time, so some may already be gone from the source page.
Links are credited to canonicals. Links to a duplicate URL count towards the canonical version. When a link points at a redirecting or non-canonical address, the drill-down shows it in a Target URL (if different) column.
No follow status. The report does not say whether a link carries nofollow.
Disavowed links stay listed. Uploading a disavow file changes how Google treats links, not whether this report shows them.

How to export every backlink Search Console has

Each table downloads on its own, but only up to 1,000 rows. For link-level data, use the export at the top of the Links report, which offers two slices of up to 100,000 rows each, as CSV or a Google Sheet:

Latest links: the most recently discovered links, sorted by discovery date.
More sample links: a sample drawn from every link Google knows about, which matters once you have more than 100,000 linking pages.

There is no API route to this data. The Search Console API offers Search Analytics, URL Inspection, Sitemaps and Sites, and nothing for links, so saving a Latest links export each month and comparing the files is the only way to watch your link profile change through Search Console alone.

What to do with what you find

A linked page returns 404. Redirect it with a 301 to the closest live page, so the links keep pointing somewhere useful.
A strong page ranks poorly. Pages near the top of Top linked pages are good places to add internal links to pages you want to lift. See internal links.
A domain looks spammy. Usually ignore it. Google says it can assess which links to trust in most cases, and recommends disavowing only when many artificial links have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action. See the Disavow Tool.

For how to interpret each table in more depth, see what the External links report tells you.

How AutoPSEO helps

Search Console's sample tells you nothing about when a link appeared or whether it is followed. AutoPSEO's Backlinks research, in the app, reads link data from DataForSEO for your own domain or a competitor's: individual backlinks with anchor text, dofollow or nofollow, first-seen and lost dates and a spam score, plus referring domains and top linked pages. You can filter by follow type and hide lost, broken or likely spam links. Lookups draw on your plan's research credits, listed on the pricing page.

Sources: Google's Links report help, Disavow links help and Search Console API reference.