Get the inbound links pointing to a domain, with optional filters and per-link quality scoring.

GET/v1/backlinks2 credits (3 credits with score=true)API key

Returns links found on other sites that point to the domain you query. Data comes from the link graph snapshot that RankParse has pre-processed (see Response format for how snapshots and freshness work), so a lookup is a fast read, not a live crawl.

Request

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
`domain`	string	Yes	none	Domain to query, for example `stripe.com`. No scheme or path. Must contain a dot.
`limit`	integer	No	`100`	Number of rows to return. Clamped to 1 to 1000. A non-numeric value falls back to `100`.
`sort`	string	No	`importance`	`importance` or `recent`. Any other value returns `400 invalid_sort`.
`from_domain`	string	No	none	Only return links whose linking domain is exactly this domain.
`link_type`	string	No	none	Only return links of this type. Lowercased and matched exactly. Stored values are `hyperlink`, `image`, `script`, `stylesheet`, `iframe` and `other`. Allowed characters are `a-z`, `0-9`, `_` and `-` (up to 32).
`score`	boolean	No	`false`	Send `score=true` to add `from_domain_score`, `anchor_type` and `link_quality` to every row. Costs 3 credits instead of 2. Only the exact value `true` enables it.

This endpoint does not support offset. To see more rows, raise limit (up to 1000) or narrow the result with from_domain and link_type.

Example

curl "https://api.rankparse.com/v1/backlinks?domain=stripe.com&limit=5&sort=recent&score=true" \
  -H "X-API-Key: rp_your_key"

import requests

res = requests.get(
    "https://api.rankparse.com/v1/backlinks",
    params={"domain": "stripe.com", "limit": 5, "sort": "recent", "score": "true"},
    headers={"X-API-Key": "rp_your_key"},
    timeout=90,
)
res.raise_for_status()
for link in res.json()["data"]:
    print(link["from_domain"], link["anchor_text"], link["link_quality"])

const params = new URLSearchParams({
  domain: "stripe.com",
  limit: "5",
  sort: "recent",
  score: "true",
});

const res = await fetch(`https://api.rankparse.com/v1/backlinks?${params}`, {
  headers: { "X-API-Key": "rp_your_key" },
});
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`${res.status} ${await res.text()}`);
const { data } = await res.json();
console.log(data);

Response

{
  "domain": "stripe.com",
  "data": [
    {
      "from_domain": "techcrunch.com",
      "from_url": "https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/04/stripe-launches-new-billing-tools/",
      "to_url": "https://stripe.com/billing",
      "anchor_text": "Stripe Billing",
      "rel": null,
      "link_type": "hyperlink",
      "crawled_at": "2026-02-10",
      "from_domain_score": 91,
      "anchor_type": "branded",
      "link_quality": "high"
    }
  ],
  "total": 1,
  "limit": 5,
  "credits_used": 3,
  "credits_remaining": 997
}

Response fields

Top level:

Field	Type	Description
`domain`	string	The normalized (lowercased) domain you queried.
`data`	array	Backlink rows, described below. Empty when the domain has no data.
`total`	integer	Number of rows returned in `data`. It is not the all-time link count for the domain.
`limit`	integer	The `limit` value you sent, echoed back as received (the query itself is clamped to 1000).
`credits_used`	integer	`2`, or `3` with `score=true`.
`credits_remaining`	integer	Your balance after this call.

Each row in data:

Field	Type	Description
`from_domain`	string	Domain of the linking page.
`from_url`	string	URL of the linking page.
`to_url`	string	URL on your domain that is linked to.
`anchor_text`	string or null	Anchor text, or `null` when there is none (images, for example).
`rel`	string or null	The link `rel` attribute, such as `nofollow`, or `null`.
`link_type`	string	`hyperlink`, `image`, `script`, `stylesheet`, `iframe` or `other`. Aggregated rows use `aggregate` (see below).
`crawled_at`	string	Date the link was crawled. Empty string on aggregated rows.
`domain_host_count`	integer	Only present on aggregated rows: the number of links from that referring domain.
`from_domain_score`	integer	Only with `score=true`. Authority score (0 to 100) of the linking domain, `0` when unknown. See Domain Authority.
`anchor_type`	string	Only with `score=true`. One of `branded`, `partial`, `naked`, `generic`, `image`.
`link_quality`	string	Only with `score=true`. One of `high`, `medium`, `low`, derived from the linking domain score, anchor type and `rel`.

Row shape depends on the data path that serves your request. With sort=importance, a request may be answered with one aggregated row per referring domain (link_type: "aggregate", anchor_text: null, from_url set to the domain home page, and domain_host_count holding the link count) instead of URL-level rows. sort=recent always returns URL-level rows, newest first. Write client code that tolerates both shapes.

Behavior and limits

Credits: 2 per call, 3 with score=true. The charge happens before the lookup. If the lookup fails with a server error, the credits are refunded.
Validation first: invalid_domain, invalid_sort, invalid_from_domain and invalid_link_type are returned before any charge.
Scoring: with score=true the linking domains in the page of results are scored in a single extra lookup, so the response may take a little longer.
Caching: results are cached for 30 days per crawl release and per combination of domain, limit, sort, score, from_domain and link_type. A cache hit is billed the same as a fresh lookup.
Empty results: a domain with no data returns 200 with data: [], never 404.
Rate limit: 60 requests per minute per key. See Rate limiting.

Errors

HTTP	Code	When
400	`invalid_domain`	`domain` is missing or not a valid domain.
400	`invalid_sort`	`sort` is not `importance` or `recent`.
400	`invalid_from_domain`	`from_domain` is not a valid domain.
400	`invalid_link_type`	`link_type` has disallowed characters or is longer than 32 characters.
401	`invalid_api_key`	Missing, invalid or revoked API key.
402	`insufficient_credits`	Balance is lower than the call cost.
402	`spend_cap_reached`	Your monthly spend cap is reached.
429	`rate_limited`	More than 60 requests in a minute.
503	`query_timeout`, `upstream_error`	Transient data store problem. Retry after the `Retry-After` header. Credits are refunded.

See Errors for the full list and the error body format.

MCP tool: get_backlinks (accepts domain, limit, score, sort, from_domain, link_type).

Backlinks

Request

Parameters

Example

Response

Response fields

Behavior and limits

Errors

Referring Domains

Anchor Text

Link Audit

Batch Lookup

On this page