Okay, so Yahoo Site Explorer is officially dying today. It’s been a great resource for quite some years now where you could check backlinks to any website you wanted to. The tool is being merged in Bing Webmaster Tools, so you’ll be able to track the link popularity of your websites but you will no longer be able to check competitor backlinks like you used to do before. That’s disappointing, no? There are some alternatives to Yahoo Site Explorer though, that are good enough to meet your needs.

Yahoo Site Explorer Alternatives

Here’s a list of tools to check website backlinks:

1. Open Site Explorer

First up is OSE by SEOMOZ. Type in a URL and it shows comprehensive link data related to that domain. Using Open Site Explorer, you don’t just get the linking domains of a particular website but also get additional data that includes:

• Link anchor text
• Authority of linking page and of the domain
• Top pages of a website with respect to number of links it has
• Domains linking to the domain you entered

and much more useful data. You get access to even more metrics if you have a pro account with SEOMOZ.

Price: $99 per month

2. Majestic SEO

It’s a useful tools that you can use to check competitor backlinks. It shows a summary of link data which indicates the total number of backlinks to the domain and number of domains linking in. A graphic timeline is shown highlighting the history of domain’s link popularity over time. That’s all, however, that you get with free account. If you subscribe to Majestic SEO subscription (?29.99 per month), you can get access to competitor data like:

• Top backlinks to the domain
• List of linking domains
• Top pages of the domain with respect to links

Price: $99 per month

3. ahrefs Site Explorer

ahrefs site explorer lets you check the backlinks of domains. It also shows important metrics related to linking domains and the anchor text of the links. You will need to subscribe for paid account to get access to additional features. Subscription package also includes the SERPs Analysis tool from ahrefs that lets you track search results for different keywords. Important features of ahrefs site explorer include:

• Number of backlinks (number of image, textual, nofollow and deleted links).
• A graph showing new backlinks as well as deleted ones over past 3 months.
• Referring domains and subnets

Price: From $49 per month

4. Linkdex

Linkdex is the online SEO tool that lets you analyze backlinks as well as organic rankings for keywords. Linkdex Backlink Analysis tool lets you analyze:

• Domains linking to you
• Whether a link is relevant or irrelevant?
• Competitor analysis
• Sites which to you as well as your competitor
• Link popularity timeline

In addition, you can also keep the record of links purchased with cost of the links and the date when they were purchased. It all comes with a cost though.

Price: From $50 per month

5. Who Links to Me

Who Links to Me lets you analyze competitor backlinks and anchor texts. You can then export the data into a CSV for easy viewing. You can analyze your site for free but will need to subscribe to the paid version to analyze competitors.

Price: From $39.95 per month