A link profile is the overall picture of a site's backlinks. It includes how many referring domains link in, which pages they link to, what kind of sites they are, the anchor text they use, whether the links are followed or qualified, and how the set has changed over time. SEOs review it to understand strengths, compare against competitors and spot problems.
What a profile includes
Each backlink tool builds its own picture from its own crawl, so numbers differ between tools. The dimensions they report are broadly the same.
- Referring domains and total backlinks
- Top linked pages on your site
- Anchor text distribution
- Followed versus nofollow, sponsored and ugc links
- Link types: in-content, navigation, footer, image, redirect
- New and lost links over time
- Linking sites' topics, countries and vendor authority scores
What a healthy SaaS profile tends to look like
There is no ideal template, but healthy profiles usually have links from sites in their market, links spread across the homepage, product pages, docs and content, mostly branded anchor text, and a history that tracks real company events. Problems tend to show up as clusters: many links from unrelated sites, repeated exact-match anchors, or large numbers of sitewide footer links.
Your own data versus third-party data
Google Search Console's Links report shows a sample of the links Google has found, along with top linking sites and top linked pages. It is the only data straight from Google, but it is limited and does not show attributes or dates. Third-party tools fill those gaps with their own crawls, so a full review usually uses both.
Example
Comparing profiles before a campaign
An illustrative payroll platform, Wagecairn, compares its link profile with two competitors. Wagecairn has fewer referring domains, almost all pointing to the homepage. The competitors earn many links to calculators and state-by-state guides. The comparison points the team toward building linkable resources rather than chasing homepage links.
Common mistakes
Judging a profile by one number
A total backlink count or vendor score hides where the links point and whether they are relevant.
Comparing data from different tools
Each tool's index is different. Compare competitors inside the same tool.
Questions
Start with the Links report in Google Search Console, then use a third-party backlink tool for anchors, attributes and history.
