Three tools tied for the top of this category: Ahrefs, Linkody, and Semrush were each named in 5 of the 6 buyer questions we put to ChatGPT and Gemini on 4 August 2026, an 83% hit rate apiece.
We asked the same category six different ways, from the plain "best backlink analysis tools" through "best for small teams," "most affordable," and "best free," and both ChatGPT and Gemini ran one live web search per question. Across those 6 answers, 17 distinct products were named and 15 distinct source domains were cited. Every number on this page comes from that one run.
The result worth staring at is Linkody. It matched Ahrefs and Semrush at 5 of 6 answers (83%), even though it is a smaller and cheaper tool than either giant. Being the biggest name in the category is not what earned the mention. Frequency came down to which pages the assistants read, and Linkody was on them.
Below the top three the drop is steep. Google Search Console, SE Ranking, and Ubersuggest each landed in 3 of 6 answers (50%). AIOSEO, BuzzSumo, and Majestic each appeared in 2 of 6 (33%). Eight more tools were named exactly once. So of the 17 products, only 6 cleared the halfway mark of showing up in three or more answers.
The shortlist shifts when the question changes
The most useful thing we found is that there is no single shortlist. The word a buyer adds to "backlink analysis tools" changes who gets named, and the count of named products swung from 3 to 8 across the six questions. Plain "best backlink analysis tools" returned 8 products. "Best for small teams" also returned 8, but three of them appeared nowhere else. "Best free" returned only 3, and replaced the list entirely.
"Best free backlink analysis tools" is the cleanest break. It named only 3 products, and all 3 were free-tier labels that appear in no other answer: Majestic Free Backlink Checker, Ahrefs Webmasters Tool, and Majestic Site Explorer. The paid flagships that dominate every other question, Ahrefs, Semrush, and Linkody under their own names, all vanished from the free answer. The word "free" did not filter the list, it swapped it.
"Most affordable" behaved nothing like "free." That answer named 6 products and kept the paid names: Semrush, Ubersuggest, Linkody, Ahrefs, Majestic, and Google Search Console. So "affordable" held onto the flagship paid tools and just reshuffled them, while "free" dropped every one of them for free-tier variants. If you sell here, "affordable" and "free" are two different shelves, and you need a different page to land on each.
Several tools owe their whole appearance to one phrasing. Moz Pro, CognitiveSEO, and Monitor Backlinks were named only in the "small teams" answer. BuzzStream and Pitchbox, both outreach tools, showed up only in "what backlink analysis tools should I use." The three free-tier labels appeared only in "best free." That is 8 of the 17 products riding on a single question each. Miss that one phrasing and they are invisible.
Two brands were counted under more than one name, and we kept them separate on purpose. Ahrefs was named as "Ahrefs" in 5 answers and as "Ahrefs Webmasters Tool" in 1. Majestic appeared as "Majestic" in 2 answers, "Majestic Free Backlink Checker" in 1, and "Majestic Site Explorer" in 1. We did not add these up, because each label was said a specific number of times and summing them would invent a total the run does not show.
The source map: who fed the answers
The answers leaned on community first. Reddit and Quora were each cited in all 6 of 6 answers (100%), the joint most-cited domains in the run. Whatever these assistants decided the best backlink tools were, they read forum threads to get there, in every single answer.
Independent roundup and SEO-content sites did the next layer. neilpatel.com and seoreviewtools.com were each cited in 5 of 6 answers (83%). Further back sat youtube.com (3 of 6), designrush.com (2 of 6), and a long tail of single-citation sites such as saasylinks.com, seoprofy.com, and heroicrankings.com.
Here is the finding a vendor should not miss. Semrush's own domain, semrush.com, was cited in all 6 of 6 answers, tied for the most-cited source in the run, and Semrush the product was named in 5 of 6. Its own content is helping write the answer. SE Ranking shows the same loop on a smaller scale: seranking.com was cited in 4 of 6 answers and SE Ranking was named in 3. ahrefs.com was cited in 3 of 6 and Ahrefs named in 5. When your domain is one of the sources, you tend to show up in the answer.
One absence stands out. No software review directory appeared at all: not G2, not Capterra, not Trustpilot, in any of the 6 answers. In plenty of categories those sites are the backbone of AI recommendations. For backlink analysis tools, on this run, they contributed nothing. The citations came from forums, creator roundups, and the vendors themselves.
What gets a tool named here
The pattern across all 6 answers is blunt: the source list decides who gets named, not market share. The tools named most often are the ones living on the pages the assistants actually read, the Reddit and Quora threads (6 of 6 each), the Neil Patel and SEO Review Tools roundups (5 of 6 each), and their own domains. Linkody is the proof: it is not the market leader, yet it hit 5 of 6 because it was present in those sources.
So if you sell a backlink tool, the work is concrete. Get named in the Reddit and Quora threads that surfaced in every answer. Get into the neilpatel.com and seoreviewtools.com roundups that fed 5 of 6. Publish your own comparison and pricing pages, the way semrush.com earned a citation in all 6. And build a real free tier with its own named page, because "best free" was a separate answer with its own 3-tool shortlist that no paid flagship reached.
And measure more than one phrasing. A tool that looks invisible under "best backlink analysis tools" might be quietly winning "for small teams" or losing "free" badly. On this run the named set changed on almost every question, swinging between 3 and 8 products. You cannot see any of that from a single query.
The full list, counted
| Product | Named in | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Linkody | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Semrush | 5 of 6 | 83% |
| Google Search Console | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| SE Ranking | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| Ubersuggest | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| AIOSEO | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| BuzzSumo | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| Majestic | 2 of 6 | 33% |
These are the 9 most-named products. Ahrefs and Majestic also carry extra rows further down the run under their free-tier labels (Ahrefs Webmasters Tool at 1, Majestic Free Backlink Checker and Majestic Site Explorer at 1 each), which we counted separately rather than folding in.
Where Glotier fits
Glotier is not a backlink analysis tool, so it is correctly absent from all 6 of these answers. We would be worried if it turned up. We run this category the way we run every other: ask the assistants, record what they name, publish the raw counts.
But the run itself is exactly what we do for the category you actually sell in. We put your buyers' questions to ChatGPT and Gemini, show you which products get named and which sources feed the answers, and you find out whether you are on the list or, like 8 of these 17 tools, riding on a single phrasing. The check is free, needs no account, and takes about a minute.