bing webmaster tools shows backlink data for free, with no subscription, no trial, no credit card. that part most seos know. the part most seos miss: it surfaces external backlinks for sites you don't own, via the similar sites report. it's the most overlooked free alternative to ahrefs - and it pairs cleanly with the rest of the five free ways to find backlinks. here's every backlink feature it offers, what it shows, what it hides, and where it beats google search console.
why bing webmaster tools is the free ahrefs alternative
every "free backlink checker" roundup lists ahrefs free, moz free, semrush free, and forgets about bing. that's a mistake. bing webmaster tools (BWT) is run by microsoft, costs nothing, and reports backlink data sourced from bing's own web crawl. for sites you own, the backlinks report covers up to 20,000 rows per query - bigger than the ~1,000-row ceiling on google search console backlinks.
the killer feature is the similar sites report. it lets you punch in any url - not just sites you've verified - and see external backlinks pointing at a site that's topically related to yours. that's competitor research, for free, with no signup hoops beyond a microsoft account.
setting up bing webmaster tools (4 minutes)
the verification flow has been streamlined over the last two years. you have four ways to add a site:
- import from google search console - if you already have gsc access, this is one click. bwt reads the gsc property list and pre-verifies everything.
- dns txt record - add a txt record to your dns. typical 2-30 minute propagation.
- html meta tag - paste a
<meta>into your homepage<head>. - html file upload - download a verification file, upload it to your site root.
once verified, the backlinks report becomes available immediately. data may take 24-72 hours to populate for a brand-new property - bing has to wait for its next crawl pass to associate the site with link data it's already collected.
if your site is already verified in google search console, use the gsc import option. it pre-verifies every property, copies your sitemap submissions, and starts the backlink data sync within hours. no dns changes, no file uploads.
the backlinks report: what each column means
in the bwt sidebar, click backlinks. the report has three views you should know:
- top referring domains - unique sites linking to you, with a count of how many pages on that site link in.
- top referring pages - individual pages with the highest count of backlinks to you. usually internal hub pages on a linker's site.
- top anchor text - the most common anchor text used across all your backlinks. useful for diagnosing exact-match-anchor over-optimization.
each row in the detailed view shows: source url (the page with the link), anchor text, target url (the page on your site being linked to), and the discovered date. you can filter by target url, source domain, or anchor text. you cannot filter by follow/nofollow status - bwt doesn't expose that field.
the similar sites report: backlinks for sites you don't own
this is the feature most guides skip. open the similar sites tool from the bwt sidebar. enter any url. bing returns:
- a list of topically-related sites (the actual purpose of the tool)
- for each related site, the top external backlinks pointing at it - with source url, anchor text, and discovered date
that's competitor backlink data, for free, without verification. the row cap is lower than the owned-site report (typically ~100-500 backlinks per competitor rather than 20,000), and the data is bing's view rather than google's - but for any serious competitor audit it's an extra angle the official google tool will never give you.
a worked example. if you run an seo tool and you want to see who's linking to ahrefs.com, punch ahrefs.com into similar sites. bwt returns ~20 related sites (semrush, moz, majestic, ubersuggest, etc.) plus a sample of external backlinks for each. it's a competitor map and a backlink sample in one report.
the similar sites report samples backlinks - it doesn't exhaust them. for a dr-70+ competitor you'll see a few hundred of the thousands they actually have. for the full referring-domain count on any site - including ones you don't own - common crawl-based tools like crawlgraph go deeper. but as a free first pass with zero signup, similar sites is hard to beat.
exporting backlinks to csv: row limits, columns, gotchas
on the backlinks report, click the export button at the top right. bwt produces a csv with these columns:
source_url- the page containing the linkanchor_text- the visible link texttarget_url- the page on your site being linked todiscovered_date- when bing first crawled the linksource_domain- the registrable hostname of the source
the export cap is currently 20,000 rows per click. if your site has more backlinks than that, filter the report by target url or date range, export each slice, and concatenate the csvs locally. there's no built-in pagination marker, so the easiest workflow is "filter, export, repeat."
bing webmaster vs google search console: what each surfaces
the two tools overlap but aren't interchangeable. here's the side-by-side:
| feature | bing webmaster tools | google search console |
|---|---|---|
| max rows per export | ~20,000 | ~1,000 |
| backlinks for unverified sites | yes (similar sites report) | no |
| anchor text breakdown | yes | yes |
| follow/nofollow flag | no | no |
| data refresh frequency | weekly | weekly-monthly (irregular) |
| data source | bing crawl (bingbot) | google crawl (googlebot) |
| historical retention | 6 months | 16 months (rolling) |
the two crawlers see different slices of the web. bingbot indexes roughly an order of magnitude less than googlebot, but bing's reporting is more generous per site that is in its index. you'll often find a backlink in bwt that gsc never surfaces - either because gsc's display filter dropped it or because the linking page is in bing's index but not google's.
why bing's data is often more complete than gsc
this sounds backwards. google has the bigger crawl, so shouldn't google's report be larger? two reasons it usually isn't:
- gsc applies two filters - crawl filter (what googlebot indexed) then display filter (what gsc decides to show you). bwt only applies the crawl filter, then dumps the rest at you.
- the 1,000-row cap is brutal for any site with more than a handful of links. gsc shows the top ~1,000 referring domains; everything below is invisible, not even counted. bwt's 20,000-row export covers the long tail.
the practical move is to query both, treat them as two views of overlapping data, and triangulate. neither is "ground truth" - both are the respective search-engine's opinion of who's linking to you.
when bing data lags or misses
bwt isn't real-time. expect these gaps:
- brand-new links - bingbot may not have crawled the linking page yet. 2-4 weeks is typical.
- brand-new sites - if the linking site is less than ~60 days old, bingbot may not have it indexed at all. those links never appear.
- js-rendered links - bingbot does render javascript but lags behind googlebot here. expect a longer delay for spa-built pages.
- links from non-english sites - bing has thinner coverage of non-english tlds than google. a backlink from
.deor.jpmay show in gsc but not bwt.
for any serious audit, layer the free tools: gsc for what google sees on your own properties, bwt for the longer-tail export plus the similar sites competitor angle, and a common-crawl-based tool like crawlgraph for unverified sites at depth. each fills a gap the others leave.
faq
can i see backlinks to a site i don't own in bing webmaster tools?
yes - use the similar sites report. enter any url, bing returns topically-related sites plus a sample of external backlinks for each. it's the only major free official-tool feature that doesn't require ownership verification.
why does bing webmaster tools show more backlinks than google search console?
gsc applies a display filter on top of its crawl filter - it shows the top ~1,000 referring domains and hides the rest. bwt exports up to 20,000 rows in a single download. bing's crawl is smaller than google's, but its reporting is more generous per indexed site, so the bwt report is usually longer.
is bing webmaster tools data updated in real time?
no. data refreshes weekly. a backlink built today typically shows in bwt within 2-4 weeks - the time it takes bingbot to crawl the linking page and reprocess the link graph. for the equivalent google timeline see how long google takes to count a new backlink.
how do i export backlinks from bing webmaster tools?
open the backlinks report, click export at the top right. bwt produces a csv with source url, anchor text, target url, discovered date, and source domain. the cap is 20,000 rows per export. for larger sites, filter by target url or date range and export each slice.
should i bother with bing webmaster tools if i mostly care about google rankings?
yes. bwt is the second-largest free official backlink data source, and its similar sites report is the only free unverified-site competitor view among major tools. for any serious backlink audit you want both gsc and bwt - they overlap, but each surfaces links the other misses.
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