Who links to me: a monthly back links check for your shop
You cannot judge a link plan without a list of what already points at your guides. This is a repeatable routine, using tools most shops already have.
ContentStores editorial team ·
The routine, in the order we run it
1
Export from Search Console first
Open the Links report for your verified property, then export top linking sites and top linked pages. It costs nothing and it is Google's own view, even if it is a sample.
2
Add a second opinion
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools covers your own verified site for free. Semrush, Majestic and Moz Link Explorer each have their own crawl. They disagree, and the disagreement is informative.
3
Put the exports in one sheet
Columns for linking domain, target page, anchor, first seen and source. A merchandiser's stock sheet, but for links.
4
Mark the ones you ordered
Compare against your ordered links list, which carries the status of each placement. Tag them 'bought' so you stop confusing them with organic mentions.
5
Read twenty of them by hand
Open the pages. Does the article exist, is it readable, does the link sit where a human would put it?
6
Log anything odd and wait a month
One strange link means nothing. A pattern means something. Note it and compare next time.
A sample export row, invented for the exercise
Hypothetical data, not from a real shop.
Linking domain
Target page
Anchor
First seen
Source
example-outdoors-blog.com
/guides/hiking-boot-sizing
boot sizing guide
2026-09-14
Ordered
example-gear-forum.net
/guides/hiking-boot-sizing
this thread's source
2026-09-30
Organic
example-free-host.blogspot.com
/
cheap boots online
2026-10-02
Unknown, investigate
Back links check versus a back links checker
A back links checker is a tool, and a back links check is a habit. Most shops own the tool and skip the habit.
Once a month is plenty for a small catalogue of a few hundred products. Weekly makes sense in the six weeks before a major sale, because that is when both rivals and cheap sellers become noisy.
Keep the sheet. Next year, you will want to see what a 40-link September did to a page that had 6 links the year before, and your memory will not be good enough.
Three questions the export should answer
Which guides attract links without being asked? Those are the pages your readers already like, and the cheapest ones to back.
Which guides have none? Quiet pages are not always weak, but a hero guide with zero referring domains is a gap in the plan.
Which product pages attract links? These are rare and valuable. A bought link there looks out of place, so protect them and buy toward the guides around them.
Red flags worth a second look
Many links with one identical commercial anchor.
Pages in languages your shoppers do not use, linking to product pages.
A sudden jump in links from one type of site.
Donor pages that no longer load, or load full of unrelated links.
Anchors that mention products you never sold.
What to do about a bad link
Usually nothing. Google says it generally ignores low-quality links it can recognise, and its disavow tool is meant for the rare case with a clear pattern or a manual action.
If a pattern is large and clearly paid for by someone else, collect the evidence in your sheet first. Then decide, perhaps with a consultant, whether a disavow file is worth the risk of disavowing something good.
A better use of effort is making the next ten links better, and reading Google's own documentation on link spam and the disavow tool before you file anything. The glossary helps you brief them, and the order walkthrough puts the brief into a basket.