Search Console Links Report: Sections, Limits and Audits

The Search Console links report shows which of your pages have the most external backlinks, which sites link to you most, the text those links use, and which pages receive the most internal links. It is a sample, not a complete list, so use it to find patterns and run audits rather than to count every link.

Backlinko’s correlation study of 11.8 million Google results found that the number 1 result has three times more referring domains than positions 2 to 10, though the authors say a correlation study cannot show causation. Links matter, but they are one signal among many, so read this report as evidence, not a scoreboard.

Most site owners open the links report once, glance at a number, and close it. That wastes one of the few places where Google itself tells you something about how your site is connected, both to the rest of the web and within itself. It is free, it needs no extra tools, and it answers questions that paid link tools often answer less cleanly for your own property.

This guide explains each section, what to export, the limits you must keep in mind, and the audits I run with it. If you are new to Search Console as a whole, start with the performance report guide, which covers the reporting most people use daily.

What the report contains

Google’s help page for the links report describes two groups of data. The first covers links from other sites to yours, and the second covers links within your own site.

Section	What it shows	What I use it for
Top linked pages (external)	Your pages with the most backlinks from other sites	Finding the pages that already earn links and deserve protection and updates
Top linking sites	Sites containing the most backlinks to yours	Seeing who links to you and whether the profile is diverse or concentrated
Top linking text	The anchor text used in backlinks to your site	Checking the language other sites use to describe you
Top linking sites for a given page	Which sites link to one specific page	Understanding why a page performs, or pitching similar sites
Top internally linked pages	Pages that receive the most internal links	Checking whether your internal links reflect your priorities
Which pages link to a given page	Internal pages linking to one specific page	Finding where to add links to a weak page

Everything in the report is about links Google has found. That distinction matters in the limits section below.

Know the limits before you draw conclusions

Google is clear about what the report does not do, and I treat these points as ground rules.

It is a sample. The help page states that the report is not a comprehensive list of every link to your site. A total shown here is not your true link count.
Tables are limited to 1,000 rows, so on a larger site the lists may be truncated. Exports from the main landing page can run to more rows, with options for the latest links or more sample links.
It does not say whether a link is nofollow. You cannot judge a link’s value from this report alone.
Links can point to pages that no longer exist. The report can include links to URLs that have since been removed, which is useful, as you will see below.
It does not show competitors. It covers only the property you have verified.

Beyond what Google states, the report also does not tell you about link quality, relevance or how much any link helps. It describes who links, not how valuable those links are. Treat it as a map of connections, then apply your own judgement about which ones matter.

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How to export the data

Each report page offers an export. According to Google’s help page, you can download a CSV file or open the data in Google Sheets. I recommend exporting each of the main tables on the same day, saving them in a dated folder, and repeating the exercise every quarter. Because the tables are samples that change, a series of snapshots lets you spot gains and losses that no single view shows.

When you export, give the files clear names such as the table and the date. I keep one master spreadsheet with a tab per export, so I can compare quarter to quarter using simple lookups.

Audit 1: pages with links that return an error or a redirect

Take the top linked pages export and check the status of each URL. Any page that has attracted links but now returns an error is wasting that value. Look for three outcomes.

The URL returns a real not found response and the content has a close replacement. Redirect it to the most relevant equivalent page, not to the homepage.
The URL was deleted by accident. Restore the page.
The URL is a page that returns a successful status but shows nothing useful. That is a soft 404 problem, which I explain in soft 404 errors and how to fix them.

To check how Google currently sees a specific URL, the URL Inspection tool shows the indexed version and the live test.

Audit 2: does internal linking match your priorities?

Compare the top internally linked pages with the pages that matter most commercially. In a healthy structure, your main service or category pages sit near the top. In a typical unhealthy one, the top of the list is filled with the homepage, the contact page, old posts and legal pages, while the pages you want to rank get few internal links.

Then use the “which pages link to a given page” view on a priority page that is underperforming. If the answer is a handful of weak or irrelevant pages, you have a straightforward fix: add contextual links from related pages that already attract visits. This is a particularly useful companion to work on striking distance keywords, where a modest improvement can lift a page onto the first page of results.

Pages that struggle to be indexed often share the same weakness. A page with almost no internal links gives Google little reason to prioritise it, which is one of the usual causes behind crawled, currently not indexed. Checking its inbound internal links is a quick first diagnostic.

Audit 3: read the anchor text report

The top linking text report is a mirror. It shows how other sites describe you. Three things are worth noticing:

Mostly your brand name and bare URLs: this is common and usually unremarkable.
Heavy repetition of one commercial phrase: this can look manufactured if the links were placed in bulk. Investigate where they came from.
Unexpected or irrelevant terms: these can reveal a hacked page, a mislabelled product, or a link from an unrelated site that deserves a closer look.

Use the same principle for your own internal anchors. Descriptive, varied internal anchor text helps readers and gives crawlers context. Generic anchors such as “click here” waste the chance.

Audit 4: who links to you, and how concentrated is it?

Open the top linking sites list and look at the spread. If a handful of domains account for most of the sampled links, your profile is concentrated, which is not necessarily bad but is fragile. If an unfamiliar site shows a very large number of links, open a few examples to understand the context.

I use this list for outreach as well. Sites that already link to you are the warmest contacts for a new guide, a data update or a correction. A short, respectful note saying you have refreshed the resource they referenced often does more than cold pitching. Do not treat the list as a target to inflate. The report describes links that exist, and a handful of relevant, earned links beat a long list of irrelevant ones.

A quarterly routine you can follow

Export top linked pages, top linking sites, top linking text and top internally linked pages.
Check the status of every URL in the top linked pages list and fix errors and wrong redirects.
Compare the top internally linked pages with your priority page list and add missing internal links.
Scan the anchor text for anything odd and investigate it.
Note new linking sites since the last export, and thank or follow up with the most relevant.
Record what you changed and the date, so you can review the effect later.

Review the results against what the rest of Search Console shows. If clicks fall on a page that holds many links, move straight to the traffic drop diagnostic checklist rather than assuming links are the cause. Link checks are also one part of a full SEO audit, alongside the checks listed in what a professional SEO audit includes.

Questions people ask about the links report

Why does the links report show fewer links than my backlink tool?

Google states that the report is a sample, not a comprehensive list. Third-party tools use their own crawlers and methods, so totals differ between every tool. Use each source for patterns, not as an exact count.

Can I tell if a link is nofollow in Search Console?

No. Google’s help page says the report does not specify whether a link is marked as nofollow. To check a particular link, view the linking page’s source or use a tool that reports link attributes.

Where is the internal links report?

It sits within the same links report, as a separate section from external links. It lists the pages that receive the most internal links and lets you see which pages link to a chosen page.

Does this report help me find bad links?

It can show you unexpected links and odd anchor text, which is a starting point for investigation. It does not label links as good or bad, so you still have to judge them yourself.

If you would like these checks done on your own property, with a clear list of fixes in priority order, ask for a free audit through the contact page.

More in this series (SEO measurement and Search Console): start with What a Professional SEO Audit Includes (and Red Flags), then explore: