How do I find backlinks a backlink index misses, and what does the coverage report show?

Why a backlink index is not enough

A backlink index (the data source behind Check now) only knows the links its own crawler has found. Small and local businesses are often listed on directories, forums and local sites an index has not crawled yet, so their list can look very short. Found on the web closes that gap with sources SEOmise already uses, and checks every page itself before it counts.

Find on the web

1. Open Analyse → Backlinks → Found on the web.

2. The page shows what a search asks, and whether each source is set up:

   • AI web search: one question that searches the web for directories, forums, local news, associations, suppliers and profiles naming your website, business name, phone number or address;
   • Search results: up to four searches with the search results provider, for your website address on other sites, your business name with its town, your phone number and your address. They need your country (Backlinks → Settings, or a search market);
   • SEOmise's web watch: pages SEOmise's own free bot already saw linking to or naming you. It shows off while the web watch is switched off. The bot's own part of the page, Our bot, shows what it watches for and what it found by kind; Show only what the bot found filters the list below.

   A search made in the last 30 days is answered from the stored results at no cost and marked stored: no cost.

3. Press Find on the web. The price is on the button before you press it: a run uses one of your plan's web discovery runs this month, and once they are used, credits at the price list's rate. A run answered entirely from stored searches is free, and a run that could not search at all gives its run back. Nothing runs by itself: a search only starts when someone presses the button.

4. SEOmise then reads every page found, the way its own crawler does: it follows each site's robots.txt and the crawler opt-out list, reads one page per site at a time, never reads private addresses, and skips pages that are too large. Each page then says what it holds:

   • Links to you (followed) or (nofollow), with the link's words;
   • Mentions you, no link: your website address, business name or phone number is on the page without a link, with the words around it;
   • No link or mention, Page removed, Did not answer or Not read (the site does not allow it).

Only pages the searches actually returned are kept. When the AI could not search the web and answered from what it knows, nothing from that answer is kept, and no web address written in an answer is ever used. Pages are checked again every 14 days. A link that is missing is checked again the next day; only when it is still missing does it count as lost. A page that does not answer is never counted as lost.

Import a backlink file

Google Search Console has no links API, so its Links → Export external links file is the way to bring its links in. Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and other tools export backlink lists too.

1. Under Import a backlink file, choose the CSV file (comma, semicolon or tab separated) and press Read the file.
2. SEOmise suggests which column holds the linking page (or the linking website), your page, the link text and the link attribute, and lists every column it did not recognise. Check the columns and the tool the file came from; nothing is imported until you press Import and check the pages.
3. For Semrush and Moz files, the tool's own first seen, last seen and lost columns are read too (Semrush: first_seen, last_seen, lostlink; Moz: Date First Seen, Date Last Seen, Date Lost): they show next to the source as what that tool saw, and a link the file marks lost counts as lost until SEOmise reads it on its page. The date columns of Search Console and Ahrefs files are not read, because their names are not confirmed; they are listed as not recognised.
4. Rows without an address, rows that are not web addresses, pages on your own website and duplicates are left out and counted. A file that lists websites without pages (such as Search Console's top linking sites) is kept as Website only: there is no page to read.

One list, every source

Pages found lists every page once, whichever source found it, with all the sources next to it:

• the backlink index (your profile check), the files you imported (each tool on its own: Search Console, Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz or another), SEOmise's own crawler, the web watch, the links you monitor under Link health, the AI web search and search results, and Bing Webmaster Tools for a site you verified there (when our team has switched it on);
• for each source, when it first and last saw the link, and whether it says the link is gone.

Each page has SEOmise's own verdict:

• Live (checked by us): SEOmise read the page itself (a page check, the web watch, its crawler or the link monitor) and the link or mention is there. Verified shows when;
• Lost: the link was there and is gone (confirmed by a second reading), or a backlink tool or a file listed it and the page no longer links to you (a historical link), or the backlink index itself reports it as removed. When our team has switched it on, a lost link also shows when the Internet Archive last saved the page (last archived);
• Not confirmed yet: found, but not read yet, or the page did not answer.

Each row also says whether it is a link, a mention (your name without a link) or a directory listing, and keeps the link's attribute apart (nofollow, ugc, sponsored) with the address it points to. Links from the backlink index are read on their page a few at a time (100 waiting per project by default), so a large index is confirmed over a few days. Export gives the whole list as CSV or PDF with the verdict, the sources and the dates.

The coverage report

The Links overview shows Where your links were found:

• The figures: pages discovered (each counted once), links verified live, historical and lost links, pages found but not confirmed yet, verified referring domains (websites with a link SEOmise saw live, with the lost ones next to it), lost referring domains, mentions without a link, directory listings, pages more than one source found, websites found by any source, websites the backlink index lists, and verified links the index does not list. Under each, Based on names the sources and when they were last checked, and says when licensed data is an estimate. Export gives the figures and the sources as CSV or PDF.

• What each source found: one bar per source (each imported tool on its own), split into the websites only it found and those another source found too. Click a bar to see its websites.

• What to do, each with its action:

  • Verified links to keep: Monitor (Link health checks the link on its schedule);
  • Lost links to win back: Ask to restore (your outreach list);
  • Mentions without a link: Ask for a link (your outreach list);
  • Directory listings to fix: listings recorded under Local SEO → Citations that do not match your details or are duplicates, and directories where more than one page names you;
  • Links only your competitors have: websites linking to your competitors but not to you.

  Add to the plan puts a task with the exact steps on Plan → To do. Click any row to see the evidence: the page, what it held and when it was read, the searches that found it, and what the web watch saw.

• The AI summary, on request: written only from the findings stored for your website (never from the pages' text), priced before you press the button, and reused for nothing while the findings are unchanged. It names the findings it used; click one to see its evidence. An answer that names a finding it was not given or a figure the findings do not hold is not kept, and nothing is charged.

Off-site work is the same whatever platform your website runs on: nothing on your site changes.

What is stored

SEOmise keeps what it read on public pages (whether the page links to or names you, the link's words and attribute, the HTTP status and at most 200 characters around a mention, with e-mail addresses removed), never the page itself; these readings are shared between workspaces so a page is not read twice. Searches and their results are kept for your workspace only. Other workspaces never see your searches or findings. Deleting stored third-party data (Storage & history) deletes the stored searches too, and a site that opts out of SEOmise's crawler has its readings deleted.