Backlink Checker API: How to Integrate Monitoring Into Your SEO Stack

The Backlink Manager UI handles the day-to-day monitoring workflow for most teams. But if you're running an agency with multiple clients, building a custom reporting dashboard, or automating SEO workflows with tools like Make or Zapier, the backlink checker API is where the real leverage lives.

This guide is a practical walkthrough — not a documentation dump. You'll see exactly how to authenticate, which endpoints matter most, and how to wire the API into three real-world use cases: a client-facing dashboard, a Make automation, and a custom reporting workflow.

Why Use an API Instead of the UI?

The UI is optimized for a single user managing their own portfolio. The API is optimized for scale, automation, and integration. Here's when the API becomes the right tool:

• Multi-client agencies — you need to pull monitoring data for 20+ clients into a single reporting layer without logging in and out of different accounts
• Custom dashboards — your clients want to see backlink status inside your branded reporting portal, not in a third-party tool
• Automated workflows — you want lost link alerts to automatically create tasks in your project management tool, send Slack notifications, or trigger outreach sequences
• Data warehousing — you need to store historical backlink data in your own database for trend analysis and client reporting over time

Core API Endpoints

The backlink checker API follows REST conventions with JSON request and response bodies. Authentication uses Bearer tokens passed in the Authorization header.

Authentication

All requests require your API key in the Authorization header:

GET /api/v1/links
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json

GET /api/v1/links — Retrieve your link portfolio

Returns all monitored links with their current status, attributes, and last check timestamp.

// Request
GET /api/v1/links?status=active&limit=50&offset=0

// Response
{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "lnk_a1b2c3",
      "source_url": "https://domain.com/article",
      "destination_url": "https://yoursite.com/page",
      "status": "active",
      "rel": "dofollow",
      "anchor_text": "backlink manager",
      "dr": 72,
      "last_checked": "2026-01-15T09:42:00Z",
      "created_at": "2025-08-01T14:00:00Z"
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "total": 847,
    "limit": 50,
    "offset": 0
  }
}

GET /api/v1/links/:id/history — Status change history

Returns the full status history for a specific link — every time its status, attributes, or anchor text changed.

// Response
{
  "data": [
    {
      "timestamp": "2026-01-10T14:22:00Z",
      "event": "attribute_changed",
      "from": { "rel": "dofollow" },
      "to": { "rel": "nofollow" }
    },
    {
      "timestamp": "2025-12-01T08:15:00Z",
      "event": "link_active",
      "from": null,
      "to": { "rel": "dofollow", "status": "active" }
    }
  ]
}

POST /api/v1/links — Add a new link to monitoring

// Request body
{
  "source_url": "https://newdomain.com/post",
  "destination_url": "https://yoursite.com/target",
  "expected_anchor": "your target keyword",
  "priority": "high",
  "tags": ["client-acme", "campaign-q1-2026"]
}

GET /api/v1/alerts — Retrieve recent alerts

Returns alerts triggered in the last N days, filterable by type, priority, and tag.

GET /api/v1/alerts?days=7&type=link_lost,attribute_changed

// Response
{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "alt_x9y8z7",
      "link_id": "lnk_a1b2c3",
      "type": "link_lost",
      "source_url": "https://domain.com/article",
      "detected_at": "2026-01-14T11:30:00Z",
      "resolved": false
    }
  ]
}

Building a Client Dashboard

The most common API use case for agencies is a white-label client dashboard — a page inside your reporting portal where clients can see the status of their backlink portfolio without accessing Backlink Manager directly.

Architecture overview

Never call the API directly from client-side JavaScript. Your API key would be exposed in the browser. Instead, build a thin backend proxy:

• Your backend authenticates with the Backlink Manager API using your key
• Your frontend calls your backend, which returns filtered data for that specific client
• Client access is controlled by your own authentication layer — clients never see the API key

Filtering by client using tags

Tag every link with a client identifier when you add it to monitoring. Then filter by tag when pulling data for the dashboard:

// Fetch all links for client "acme-corp"
GET /api/v1/links?tags=client-acme-corp&status=all

// Your backend returns only the fields the client needs
{
  "links": [...],
  "summary": {
    "total": 124,
    "active_dofollow": 98,
    "active_nofollow": 12,
    "lost": 8,
    "errors": 6
  }
}

Displaying status changes over time

Pull the alerts endpoint filtered by client tag to show a timeline of events. This gives clients visibility into what changed, when, and what action was taken — turning monitoring data into a tangible demonstration of your agency's value.

Make / Zapier Automations

For teams that don't want to build custom code, Make (formerly Integromat) and Zapier provide no-code access to the API through their HTTP modules.

Lost link → Asana task (Make scenario)

Here's the exact scenario structure:

• Trigger: Scheduled — runs every 6 hours
• Module 1: HTTP → Make a request → GET /api/v1/alerts?type=link_lost&resolved=false
• Module 2: Iterator → loops over each alert in the response
• Module 3: Filter → only process alerts from the last 6 hours
• Module 4: Asana → Create a task with the source URL, destination URL, and detection timestamp
• Module 5: HTTP → PATCH /api/v1/alerts/:id → mark alert as processed

Attribute change → Slack notification

For high-priority links, a Slack notification is faster than email. Set up a parallel scenario that filters for attribute_changed alerts on links tagged as priority:high and posts a formatted message to your SEO team's Slack channel with the link details and a direct link to the Backlink Manager UI.

Custom Reporting Workflows

Monthly client reports are a core deliverable for most agencies. Integrating the backlink checker API into your reporting workflow eliminates the manual data collection step and ensures reports are always based on current data.

Automated monthly report generation

Schedule a script to run on the first of each month that:

• Pulls all links for each client from /api/v1/links
• Calculates portfolio health metrics: total links, active dofollow count, lost links, attribute changes
• Pulls the alert history for the month from /api/v1/alerts
• Generates a PDF or Google Slides report using your template
• Emails the report to the client automatically

Key metrics to include in client reports

The metrics that resonate most with clients are: total active dofollow links (the core deliverable), links lost and recovered this month (demonstrates active management), average DR of the portfolio (shows quality trajectory), and attribute change incidents (demonstrates the value of monitoring over manual checks).

Storing historical data for trend analysis

The API returns current state, not historical snapshots. To track trends over time — portfolio growth, DR improvement, loss rate by publisher — you need to store API responses in your own database. A simple daily snapshot job that writes the portfolio summary to a time-series table gives you the data foundation for meaningful trend charts in client reports.

Frequently Asked Questions