- Google Webmaster Tools doesn't exist anymore, and that's why people get stuck
- What the free tool shows you
- Step by step: pulling your backlink list
- The part most guides on this topic skip over
- A real example from a client
- What to do with the list once you have it
- When the free method stops being enough
- Frequently asked questions
Straight answer: Google Webmaster Tools was renamed Google Search Console back in 2015, but the free backlink data is still sitting there under "Links" in the left menu, and you can pull your full list of referring domains, linking pages, and anchor text in under five minutes once your site is verified. It won't show you every single link that points to your site (nothing free does), but it will show you enough to spot problems, track growth, and stop paying for a tool you don't need yet.
Google Webmaster Tools doesn't exist anymore, and that's why people get stuck
If you've been typing "Google Webmaster Tools" into search boxes and getting confused when nothing looks like what old tutorials describe, that's not you being behind. Google killed the name in 2015 and rebranded the whole thing as Google Search Console. The old interface, the old menu structure, all of it changed. But because so many blog posts and YouTube videos from 2012 to 2016 are still ranking, people keep searching for the old name and landing on outdated screenshots.
Here's the bit that matters: the tool underneath is still free, still tied to your Google account, and still the closest thing to an official record of what Google itself knows about your backlinks. You verify ownership of your domain (either through DNS record, HTML file upload, or your Google Analytics connection), and from that point on, Search Console starts logging data about your site including who links to it.
What the free tool shows you
Once you're in, click "Links" in the left sidebar. You'll see four reports:
- External links - the total count of links coming into your site from other domains
- Top linked pages - which pages on your site attract the most links
- Top linking sites - the domains sending you the most links, ranked
- Top linking text - the anchor text people use when they link to you
If you haven't set up Search Console yet and want a quicker first look, there's also a simpler route explained in how to find out how many backlinks your website has, which walks through the no-account option too.
Step by step: pulling your backlink list
This is the exact sequence I use with clients, most of whom have never opened Search Console before:
- Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with the Google account tied to your site
- Select your property (choose "Domain" if you want everything under yourdomain.com, or "URL prefix" if you only manage the https version)
- Click "Links" in the left menu
- Under "Top linking sites," click "More" to expand the full list
- Click the export icon and download as a Google Sheet or CSV
- Click into any individual domain name to see exactly which pages on that site link to you
- Switch to "Top linking text" to see the actual words being used as anchor text across all your inbound links
When I pulled this for my own site recently, Search Console showed 214 referring domains and just under 1,900 total external links. The export capped out at 1000 rows, which is worth knowing before you go looking for row 1,200 that isn't there.
The part most guides on this topic skip over
Here's the uncomfortable bit. The list Google Search Console gives you is not the complete list of everyone who links to you. It's Google's edited version of it. Google decides which links are worth surfacing in that report, and it quietly leaves out a chunk of links it considers low value, spammy, or not worth your attention. That's a reasonable thing for Google to do for its own indexing purposes, but it means if you're using this report to audit for a manual penalty, prepare a disavow file, or answer the question "who links to me," you're working from a filtered dataset dressed up as a complete one.
I go into this in more detail, including what specific gaps to expect, in how to interpret backlink data in Google Search Console. But the short version: third party crawlers like Ahrefs or Semrush often show two to four times more referring domains for the same site, because they crawl the web independently rather than relying on what Google chooses to display back to you. Neither number is "wrong." They're answering slightly different questions.
A real example from a client
A client of mine who runs a flooring business in Surrey came to me in early 2025 convinced she'd been hit by a negative SEO attack. Her rankings had dropped for three key terms and she'd read somewhere that competitors sometimes build spammy links to your site to drag you down. She'd already had a quote from an agency to run a full "backlink audit and disavow" for 800 pounds.
Before spending that, we opened her Search Console together. The Links report showed 340 referring domains, nothing alarming, no obvious spam wave. I then ran her domain through a free third party checker as a cross reference, and that tool showed closer to 1,100 referring domains, mostly old directory listings and forum mentions Google's own report had simply not bothered to surface. There was no attack. Her ranking drop traced back to a content update a competitor had made, not a link problem at all. She saved the 800 pounds and spent it on rewriting two pages instead, which is what moved her rankings back up six weeks later.
That's the pattern I see most often: people assume the free report is the whole truth, panic based on a partial picture, and nearly spend money solving a problem that doesn't exist.
What to do with the list once you have it
Having the export is only useful if you do something with it. Three things worth doing straight away:
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- Scan "Top linking text" for anchor text that looks manipulated or repeated in a way you didn't ask for (a sudden cluster of exact-match commercial keywords from unfamiliar domains is worth a closer look)
- Cross reference your "Top linking sites" list against a second free tool so you're not relying on one filtered dataset, which is exactly the comparison covered in this free backlink checker guide
- Save the export with the date in the filename, then repeat the process monthly so you can see what's new and what's dropped off, which is the whole method laid out in how to track backlinks over time without a paid tool
That last point matters more than people think. A single snapshot tells you almost nothing. The trend line, gaining or losing referring domains month on month, tells you whether whatever you're doing for outreach or content is working.
When the free method stops being enough
I'll be straight with you: Search Console is enough for most small business owners checking their own site once a month. It stops being enough the moment you need to compare your backlink profile against three competitors side by side, or you're trying to work out why a specific page won't rank and need historical link data going back two years, since Search Console only shows a rolling window rather than full history. That's when a paid crawler earns its cost. If you're weighing up whether to handle all of this yourself long term or bring in help, I've written honestly about what happens when you try to run SEO without an agency in this piece on doing SEO on your own, including where it works and where it doesn't.
For a step-by-step walkthrough specifically inside the current Search Console interface, with screenshots of exactly where each report lives today, see how to check your backlinks using Google Search Console for free.
See also Websites That Accept Guest Posts in 2026 (Real Sites, Real Rates, No Fluff).
I go deeper on this in backlinks example.
Buying guest posts to build links? Here's how sponsored posts on this site work.
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Webmaster Tools still available or has it been shut down?
Google Webmaster Tools was renamed Google Search Console in 2015. It's the same free tool with the same login, just a different name and a redesigned interface. If you're searching for "Google Webmaster Tools," you want Google Search Console.
Does Google Search Console show every backlink to my site?
No. It shows a filtered selection that Google considers worth surfacing, capped at 1000 rows per export. Third party crawlers like Ahrefs or Semrush typically show substantially more referring domains for the same site because they crawl independently rather than relying on Google's own filtered view.
Do I need to pay for Google Search Console to see backlinks?
No, it's completely free. You only need a Google account and verified ownership of your website, done through a DNS record, an HTML file upload, or your existing Google Analytics connection.
Why do my backlink numbers differ between Google Search Console and other tools?
Because they're measuring different things. Search Console reports what Google itself has chosen to index and display back to you. Independent crawlers build their own separate index of the web, so their counts and Google's rarely match, and both can be correct for what they're measuring.
