Count referring domains, not backlinks
By the Auditmatic team · Updated 3 November 2026 · 4 min read
Backlinks versus referring domains
A backlink is a single link. A referring domain is a site. If one site links to you from 5,000 pages, you have 5,000 backlinks and one referring domain. Search engines value many different, relevant sites more than many links from one.
Track the right number
- Record your referring domains today as a baseline.
- Check monthly, and note new and lost domains.
- Compare with two or three similar competitors.
The number is not the whole story
Ten relevant sites in your field are worth more than a hundred unrelated ones. Look at who links, not only how many.
How to report it
Report referring domains, the monthly change and two or three notable new links. Avoid reporting the total backlink count, which looks large and means little.
Run it with your AI agent
Connect your agent to Auditmatic, then paste this prompt. Replace the parts in angle brackets. It reads real data and asks before it spends anything.
Use my Auditmatic project for <your-domain>. Run get_backlinks_overview for my site and these competitors: <list>. Report referring domains, total backlinks, and the ratio of links per domain for each. Tell me which sites have a suspiciously high ratio, and show my referring-domain trend over the last 12 months.
Without a tool
You can do this by hand with free tools:
- Open the Links report in Search Console for your top linking sites.
- Count unique domains in a spreadsheet.
- Do the same monthly and chart it.
Questions
Is more always better?
More relevant, real sites is better. A growing count of weak or unrelated domains is not.
How many referring domains do I need?
It depends on the keywords you target. Compare with the pages that rank for them.
Keep going
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