Hello, forum. Could you tell me how I can check the quality of external links pointing to my website? Which ones are dofollow and which are nofollow? Which ones are useful, and which ones should I remove? What services are available for this? Preferably free or low-cost ones. I’m interested in your experience and best practices. Thank you for your attention.
Like Denka already said, GSC and Ahrefs webmaster tools are enough, in particular the second one. AWT shows if the links are do follow, no follow or spam. You just have to add a snippet in your header.php to start getting results. Of course, some options are limited in the free version, but trust me, you'll like what you'll see even in the standard build.
In this respect, I would concentrate more on the context. A good indicator that the link works is when its presence has logical explanations rather than serving only SEO. The difference between do-follow and no-follow does matter but not that much as many say. It is even possible to have a positive use from no-follow links. When it comes to testing, Search Console is a nice choice, while another common tool might be used to get the overall picture of things.
You need to check the domain where your backlinks are placed and make sure it's not a link farm. Having links on spammy domains can eventually harm your website. Ideally, it will also have a decent DR, but this really depends on your niche. You should look into context/topical relevance, too. And then, as people mentioned here, GSC/Ahrefs and maybe a dofollow extension.
External links pointing to your website can significantly affect SEO performance, but the key is not just quantity — it is quality, relevance, and link type (dofollow vs nofollow). To check backlink quality, you can start with Google Search Console. It is a free and official tool that shows which websites are linking to you, which pages are most linked, and overall link structure. However, it does not clearly separate all links as dofollow or nofollow, so it should be used as a baseline. For deeper analysis, tools like Ahrefs Backlink Checker, SEMrush, and Moz Link Explorer are commonly used. These tools allow you to see whether a link is dofollow or nofollow, the authority of the referring domain, anchor texts, and overall link quality metrics. They also help identify potentially toxic or spammy backlinks. In general, good backlinks come from relevant, authoritative, and real websites in your industry. These include news sites, sector-related blogs, supplier pages, or organically earned editorial mentions. Medium-quality links can come from forums, directories, or nofollow sources; they may not pass strong SEO value but can still bring traffic and brand visibility. Low-quality or harmful backlinks usually come from spam directories, unrelated foreign websites, automated link farms, or suspicious SEO networks. These can dilute your site’s link profile if they are excessive. Regarding removal, not every low-quality link needs to be removed. Google often ignores spammy links automatically. Only in cases of severe spam attacks or manual penalties should you consider using the Google Disavow Tool. Best practice is to focus on building high-quality, relevant backlinks instead of constantly trying to clean up existing ones. A natural and diverse backlink profile is always healthier than an artificially “perfect” one. If needed, monthly monitoring with one of the SEO tools is enough; daily tracking is usually unnecessary.
"When checking backlink quality, I don't just rely on standard metrics like DA or DR. My first step is always checking the organic traffic of the referring domain using tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. If the site linking to you has zero organic traffic from Google, that link is likely toxic or useless. Also, manually checking if the link is contextually relevant to your niche is crucial. A link from a completely unrelated industry often does more harm than good."
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