Refreshed about monthly
Free backlink check as a ten-minute weekly habit
Skip the giant audit. Take one small dose of link data on a set day, write down three numbers, and close the tab. Our own index covers 181,132,097 domains.
- Domain lookup is free, no key and no card
- Bulk runs cost 1 credit, which is $0.0001
- No subscription and no monthly minimum
$ curl "https://rankdose.com/api.php?action=overview&q=yourdomain.com&key=sk_live_..."
What it is for
Free backlink check in four small doses
Most people do not need a dashboard. They need a rhythm that takes less time than making tea, and that they will still follow in March.
Weekly sip: your own numbers
Type your domain into the box above. You get DR and referring domains, free, with no sign-up. Write both down. The notebook is the real product here.
Weekly sip: three rivals
One compare call covers up to 20 domains for 1 credit. Put your closest three rivals beside you and look only at direction, never at a single day.
Monthly dose: new and lost domains
Pull referring domains for 2 credits and compare with last month's file. Ten fresh names and two lost ones tells you more than any score.
Quarterly stretch: anchor text
Anchors cost 2 credits. Skim them once a quarter for odd phrases you never asked for. The alarm-line page says what to do when you find some.
How it works
Your first ten minutes
Look yourself up
Use the free box at the top of this page. Nothing to install, and the answer arrives as plain numbers you can copy.
Sign in with Google
Google sign-in opens the account and adds $100 of credit, which is 1,000,000 calls at one credit each. No card is asked for.
Save one command
Paste the curl line from the recipe into a text file. Swap in your domain and key, then run it once to see the JSON.
Pick the day
Choose Tuesday morning or Sunday evening. A habit tied to a named day survives much longer than a plan to check sometimes.
Checklist
What counts as a finished dose
- You noted DR and referring domains for your own site, and the date.
- You compared against the same three rivals as last time, not new ones.
- You looked at the trend over four entries before deciding anything.
- You checked whether the monthly refresh has landed since your last look.
- You closed the tab without opening a second tool out of anxiety.
Fit check
A calm routine, not a full suite
This works when your question is whether links to you and your rivals are rising, flat or falling. It does not replace Ahrefs or Semrush for keywords, rank tracking or a daily-fresh crawl.
- Good for small sites, shops, local firms and freelancers who check on a rhythm
- Good when you would rather pay cents than a monthly plan
- Not for keyword research or position tracking
- Not for same-day freshness, because the index moves monthly
Compare
Pay-per-call or subscription, seen from a small routine
| Question | RankDose | Ahrefs or Semrush |
|---|---|---|
| How you pay | Prepaid credit, from $0.10 per 1,000 calls | Subscription; Ahrefs API units start at $129/month for 200,000 units |
| Smallest sensible job | One call, one credit | At least 50 units per Ahrefs request |
| Link data freshness | Own index, refreshed about monthly | Fuller, with a daily-fresh crawl |
| Keywords and rank tracking | Not offered | The fuller products for this |
| Cost of a weekly dose | A handful of credits, well under a cent | Covered by the plan you already pay |
- domains in our index
- 181,132,097
- domain-to-domain links
- 2.77 billion
- backlinks indexed
- 798.5 billion
- free credit on sign-up
- $100
FAQ
Questions people ask before they start
- Is there a free backlink check that needs no account?
- Yes. The domain lookup in the box above and the overview, stats and suggest actions need no key. You get DR and link counts for any domain. Larger jobs, such as bulk runs and referring-domain lists, use credits after a free Google sign-in.
- How often should I check my backlinks?
- Weekly is a fine habit, monthly is the number that matters. Our index refreshes about once a month, so most weekly looks will show the same figures. Write the date anyway, because a flat line is still useful evidence.
- Why did my Ahrefs DR collapse while this one barely moved?
- Because the two scores are different metrics. Ours is public: round(100 x log(ref_domains+1) / log(20,000,000)). It only moves when referring domains move, and one point means roughly 18 percent more or fewer.
- Can I see which sites link to my competitors?
- Yes. Referring-domain lists cost 2 credits per call, and the intersect action, also 2 credits, shows who links to two to ten domains at once. Each call is billed once however many rows come back.
- Will this tell me if a spammy link spike hurt my traffic?
- No, it only shows the links. A spike is worth noticing, but Google says it mostly ignores spam links it recognises. Compare dates with your traffic before blaming links, then read the triage checklist.
- What does a weekly routine cost?
- Usually less than a cent. A compare is 1 credit, a referring-domain pull is 2, and a credit is $0.0001. Even six calls a week over a year come to roughly three cents, and the first $100 is free.
- Is the data as deep as Ahrefs?
- No, and we say so plainly. Ahrefs and Semrush crawl more and refresh faster. Ours is built for cheap, repeatable lookups on domains, referring domains, anchors and top pages, which is what a small weekly habit needs.
- How do I pay once the free credit is gone?
- Top up from the account page with USDT on the TRC-20 network. Sign-in is Google only. There is no subscription, so a quiet month costs nothing and an unused balance simply waits.