---
title: "How to Do a Backlink Audit with Semrush in 2026"
date: "2026-09-25"
meta_description: "Learn how to do a backlink audit with Semrush step by step. Find toxic links, disavow them, and protect your site's SEO in 2026."
tags: ["backlink audit", "semrush", "link building", "seo audit", "toxic links"]
category: "reviews"
affiliate_links_used: ["semrush"]
---
How to Do a Backlink Audit with Semrush in 2026
Your site could be bleeding rankings right now because of toxic backlinks you have not looked at in months. A proper backlink audit fixes that. It also shows you which links are actually driving authority, so you stop guessing and start making decisions with real data.
I have run audits for sites with under 100 backlinks and sites with over 50,000. The process is the same. Semrush makes it faster than any other tool I have used, and this guide walks you through every step without skipping the parts that actually matter.
What You Need Before Starting
You need a Semrush account with at least a Pro plan. The free tier limits your data too aggressively to run a meaningful audit. If you are auditing a client site, grab their Google Search Console access too because you will need it for disavow confirmation later.
Have your domain ready and block off about 90 minutes for a first audit. Rushing this process is how people accidentally disavow links they should keep.
Step-by-Step Backlink Audit with Semrush
Step 1: Set Up Your Backlink Audit Project (10 minutes)
Log into Semrush and click Projects in the left sidebar. Create a new project for your domain if you do not have one already. Once the project is created, find the Backlink Audit tool inside your project dashboard and launch it.
Semrush will ask you to connect Google Search Console. Do it. This pulls in data that Semrush's crawler might miss and gives you a more complete picture of your link profile. Skip this step and you are auditing with one eye closed.
Step 2: Configure Your Audit Settings (5 minutes)
Before the tool runs, you set your target categories. Semrush lets you choose which types of links to flag as risky based on your niche. For most sites, leave the default toxicity scoring enabled.
You can also whitelist domains you trust, like links from your own properties or well-known publishers you have worked with. Add those now so they do not show up cluttering your toxic list later.
Step 3: Run the Audit and Wait for Data (15 minutes)
Click Start Backlink Audit and let Semrush do the crawl. Depending on your link profile size, this takes anywhere from a few minutes to about 15 minutes. Do not close the tab.
When it finishes, you land on the Overview page. You will see your total backlinks, referring domains, a toxicity score, and a breakdown of link categories. The toxicity score is the number to focus on first.
Step 4: Review Your Toxicity Score and Flagged Links (20 minutes)
Click into the Audit tab. Semrush sorts links into three buckets: Toxic, Potentially Toxic, and Non-Toxic. Start with the Toxic links at the top of the list.
For each flagged link, look at the reason Semrush gives. Common reasons include low authority scores, unnatural anchor text patterns, links from spam networks, and links from sites with no real traffic. Do not blindly trust every flag. Some legitimate sites score poorly because they are small, not because they are spammy.
Click through to the actual linking page when something looks borderline. Spend real time here. A bad disavow decision is worse than doing nothing.
Step 5: Check Anchor Text Distribution (10 minutes)
Click the Anchors tab. You are looking for over-optimization. If more than 30% of your anchors are exact-match keywords, that is a red flag for Google even if the links themselves are clean.
A healthy profile has a mix of branded anchors, naked URLs, generic phrases, and some keyword-rich anchors scattered in. If yours looks lopsided, note it. You cannot fix over-optimized anchors from the past, but you can build better links going forward to dilute the ratio.
Step 6: Review Lost and New Backlinks (10 minutes)
Go to the Lost and Found section inside Semrush's Backlink Analytics (not the audit tab, the separate tool under the main menu). This shows you links that disappeared recently. Lost links from strong domains are worth reclaiming. Send a quick email to the webmaster asking them to restore the link if the page still exists on your end.
New links that appeared suddenly in large numbers are worth investigating. A spike of 500 new links in a week from random sites is often a negative SEO attack, not good news.
Step 7: Build Your Disavow List (15 minutes)
Back in the Backlink Audit tool, select every link you want to disavow by checking the boxes next to them. You can disavow at the URL level or the domain level. Disavow at the domain level when an entire site is clearly spam. Do not disavow strong domains just because one page on their site linked to you oddly.
Semrush lets you export a disavow file directly from the tool. Click Send to Disavow and export the file in the format Google Search Console accepts.
Step 8: Submit Your Disavow File to Google Search Console (10 minutes)
Go to Google Search Console, navigate to the Disavow Links tool (search for it in Google since it is buried), upload your file, and confirm. Google does not give you a confirmation email. It just processes it over the next few weeks.
Do not resubmit a new disavow file without including your old one. Each upload replaces the previous file completely. Many people make this mistake and accidentally undo previous disavows.
Step 9: Schedule Recurring Audits (5 minutes)
Inside your Semrush project, set the Backlink Audit to run monthly. New toxic links appear constantly, especially if your site is growing. Catching them early is much easier than doing a cleanup six months later when hundreds of bad links have piled up.
Quick Reference Table
| Step | Action | Time Needed |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Set up Backlink Audit project in Semrush | 10 minutes |
| 2 | Configure audit settings and whitelist trusted domains | 5 minutes |
| 3 | Run the audit and review overview data | 15 minutes |
| 4 | Review toxic and potentially toxic links manually | 20 minutes |
| 5 | Analyze anchor text distribution | 10 minutes |
| 6 | Check lost and new backlinks | 10 minutes |
| 7 | Build your disavow list inside Semrush | 15 minutes |
| 8 | Submit disavow file to Google Search Console | 10 minutes |
| 9 | Set up monthly recurring audits | 5 minutes |
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Disavowing too aggressively. I have seen site owners disavow links from news sites, niche blogs, and even their own press coverage because the Semrush toxicity score was slightly elevated. The score is a starting point, not a verdict. Always click through before disavowing.
Ignoring the anchor text data. People run audits, clean up toxic links, and call it done. Anchor text over-optimization is just as risky as a bad link and most people completely skip that part.
Forgetting to recheck after Google processes the file. Submit your disavow and then run another audit in 30 to 45 days. Confirm that the flagged links are no longer influencing your score. Semrush will update its toxicity readings as Google processes the disavow.
Replacing your disavow file instead of appending to it. Every time you upload a new disavow file, it wipes the old one. Export your existing disavow file from Search Console first, add new entries to it, then upload the combined file.
Pro Tips
Pair your Semrush audit with Surfer SEO for a full-picture view of your site's health. Surfer handles on-page signals while Semrush handles off-page. Running both tools together gives you a much clearer answer for why a page is underperforming.
If you write link-building outreach emails at scale, use Jasper to draft personalized outreach faster. Generic outreach emails get ignored. Jasper helps you customize at volume without sounding like a bot.
For reporting your backlink audit results to clients or your team, Copy.ai is useful for turning raw data into readable summaries quickly. Clients do not want to read a Semrush export. They want a one-page summary that tells them what happened and what you did about it.
Set a calendar reminder to export your disavow file from Search Console before every new audit. This takes 30 seconds and saves you from a very costly mistake.
Bottom Line
A backlink audit is not a one-time task. It is ongoing maintenance, like checking your tire pressure before a long drive. Skip it and you might make it fine. Skip it for a year and something breaks at the worst possible moment.
Semrush is the best tool I have found for running these audits quickly and accurately. The toxicity scoring is not perfect, but no tool's scoring is. What matters is using it as a filter to direct your attention, then making the final call yourself.
Run your first audit this week. You will almost find something worth fixing.
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