How Many Backlinks Do I Have – And How Many Do I Need?

The number of backlinks you need depends on your website, the competitors, and the number of crucial subpages you want to boost in SERPs. Plus, we mustn’t forget link quality, which plays a crucial role in the mix – a few high-quality backlinks are simply better than numerous low-quality ones. So, how to get to the bottom of this? Find it out in this article!

The best way to check how many backlinks you have is to conduct a backlink audit. For that, you can use:

In most cases, it’s pretty straightforward, but the tools might have their own limitations. For instance, GSC shows only the top 1000 sites linking to your website. It might suffice if you’re running a relatively fresh website, but for larger portals, it’s simply not enough. Advanced SEO tools have their own separate databases, so the only way to ensure you’ve got all the details is to use a few of them rather than one, plus… they aren’t free which might deter you if you’re not planning to use them regularly. GA4 is the least precise option, plus you have to have it implemented onto your website. So, the best approach is to use a mixture of the available solutions.

The number of backlinks you need depends on the number of subpages you want to strengthen, the number of backlinks acquired by your competitors, the quality of the websites (and links) from which you receive backlinks, and your current credibility in the eyes of Google. You can verify the last metric with parameters like Domain Rating or Domain Authority, though don’t trust them 100% ➡️ they are determined by external tools, so they might differ from what Google really thinks about your website. Let’s look at this in a bit more detail.

First, you need to analyze the number of backlinks acquired by your competitors. This is crucial for three reasons:

What if you don’t know how to do this? Don’t worry, read our guide on doing competitive link analysis.

The second crucial aspect determining how many backlinks you need to rank involves the number of subpages you want on top of the SERPs. While you should look at links holistically, remember that the main thing they do is support the specific page you’re linking to. So, the more keywords you want to rank for (AKA the more pages can bring major profits to your business), the more backlinks you’ll need.

You should always acquire links to your homepage and main categories – the elements that don’t change over time and generate profits. When it comes to product pages or blogposts, you’ll rarely want to link to them, as they would need to meet the following criteria:

This is why you need a good link building strategy – a plan of action including details on how often you want to acquire links and how many backlinks you need to get for each subpage every month.

Quality is yet another factor determining how many backlinks you should acquire per day, week, or month. In principle, the better it is, the more power the link brings to your site. But what do we mean by quality in the first place?

Once again, this is why you need a tight link building strategy. With it, you can plan ahead for link diversification and find adequate sites to obtain your links from. After all, negotiations with publishers might also take some time (especially when guestposting is concerned). Don’t let it overwhelm you and plan ahead.

Even if you know how many links you have and how many you need and set a strategy based on this data, you won’t necessarily win the SERP race. Why is it so?

Link building won’t be fully effective without other SEO efforts to support it. If you want to maximize their potential, you need to invest resources in aspects such as:

Naturally, these are just a few examples. SEO is a large puzzle, built from several elements. Important as it is, link building is just one of them – it won’t create a beautiful picture if it isn’t connected with the other elements. So, don’t forget about UX consulting or SEO copywriting services ➡️ integrate them into a single, powerful strategy.

The knowledge of how many backlinks you have and how many backlinks you need stems from analysis – there’s no straightforward answer to these questions. We’ve shown you the tools and strategies that you can use, but now the ball is in your court. Don’t worry if this feels difficult or you don’t have time – you can always rely on our link building services managed by the one and only Kasia Śliwa – our experienced Senior Off-Site SEO Specialist!