How to Find Backlinks Using Google (No Paid Tools Needed)
Google – the most underrated tool ever. And I say that because people often see it only as a platform for ranking, and not as a free SEO backlinking tool that can actually help boost rankings.
In fact, I’ve been building backlinks for clients for years, and I can say this is something that one hundred percent works – which is why I still use it in my workflow today.
So what am I saying exactly? You don’t need expensive SEO tools to check or find backlink opportunities.
In this guide, I’ll show you three methods for how to use Google the right way to discover link-building prospects and track new backlinks, all without spending a cent.
Google Alerts
“✅ TL;DR: Use Google Alerts to automatically notify you of any unlinked brand mentions so you can reach out and request proper credit with a backlink.”
Google Alerts is a free notification tool from Google that notifies you automatically whenever a specific keyword or phrase appears on the web – including mentions of your brand.
And that’s really valuable because here’s the thing: not every website that mentions your brand links back to you. In other cases, you might have been featured in an interview or article, but the publisher forgot to include a backlink to your site.
With Google Alerts, you get notified in real-time, allowing you to reach out quickly and request proper credit before the article loses visibility.
Here’s how to set up Google Alerts:
Go to Google Alerts.
Enter your brand name or website URL in the search bar.
Fine-tune your results by clicking "Show options.” Here’s what to adjust:
How often: You may set it to "As it happens" for real-time tracking, although you can choose “At most once a day” or “At most once a week”
Sources: Choose “News,” “Blogs,” and “Web” to focus on written content.
Language: Select your preferred language.
Region: If your audience is local, specify your country.
How many: Choos “All Results” for more opportunities
Deliver to: Use your email for notifications or opt for RSS feeds if you prefer organizing alerts elsewhere.
Click "Create Alert.", and wait for the notifications to come.
Google has a guide on how to edit or delete an alert if you ever need to make changes.
Tracking unlinked mentions is not the only thing that Google Alerts does excellently. Here are more ways you can do to make the most out of it:
Manage Misinformation and PR Issues
In most cases, your website is mentioned as a source, but sometimes, it’s brought up in misinformation, spam links, or other misleading contexts. Google Alert’s real-time notifications allow you to quickly address these issues to protect your reputation.
Find New Link-Building and PR Opportunities
On top of your own brand, you can set alerts for specific industry- or niche-related keywords that could be an opportunity for backlinks.
For example, if you run a bakery and set up an alert for “best local bakeries in New York,” you might discover a food blog mentioning bakeries in your area but not yours. That’s your chance to reach out and introduce yourself.
Monitor Competitor Mentions
You can even track competitor mentions by setting up alerts for their brand name. If they’re getting backlinks from certain articles, those same websites might be open to linking to you as well.
⚠️Caveat: Google Alerts doesn’t catch everything. It only tracks sources indexed by Google (which means it won’t pick up mentions on social media or gated content). It can also miss mentions that aren’t exact matches for your alert keywords.
Time-Filtering
“✅ TL;DR: Use time-filtering in Google Search to instantly find newly indexed backlink opportunities and have more control over refining search results.”
As useful as Google Alerts’ automatic notifications are, you don’t have to wait for it to find backlink opportunities. Google’s time-filtering feature lets you actively search for fresh backlink sources on demand.
More specifically, it allows you to narrow down search results to show only pages published within a specific timeframe, whether in the last 24 hours, past week, or past month.
The more current the content, the better your chances of hearing back from site owners who are still engaged and probably more open to making content updates – including adding your backlink.
Here’s how to use this feature to check for potential backlink sources:
Go to Google and enter a relevant search query.
If you’re checking brand mentions, search for your website name or domain.
If you’re looking for backlink prospects, use keywords related to your niche.
For instance, “best coffee shops in Austin” or “roofing companies in Dallas.” These searches may lead to guides or reviews, but you can tweak the keywords to find directories, events, or news features instead.
Click on ‘Tools’ below the search bar.
Use the ‘Any time’ dropdown to filter results. Skim through them to look for link opportunities.
Past 24 hours: Best for tracking brand mentions and responding to trending topics, where timely outreach could land you a backlink before the discussion cools down.
Past week: Practical for finding fresh backlink prospects newly published blog posts, listicles, or resource pages. If a website has just published an article relevant to your niche, you can reach out while they’re still making updates and ask to be included.
Past month: Great for spotting industry roundups, evergreen content, or expert guides that have had time to gain traction.
Time-filtering offers the same benefits as Google Alerts, like finding fresh backlink opportunities, managing PR issues, and tracking competitor mentions – although manual effort is required. But why bother doing it manually? Three key reasons:
As mentioned, time-filtering gives you results immediately after searching. Meanwhile, Google Alerts sends emails passively and only notifies you at scheduled intervals.
With time-filtering, you can refine your searches by tweaking keywords and search operators, excluding certain domains, and applying custom date changes. Google Alerts sometimes misses mentions and may even send irrelevant results.
If you've been featured in an article or responded to a PR exposure opportunity, time-filtering lets you quickly check if your backlink has gone live – without waiting for Google Alerts (or Google Search Console) to catch up.
With that being said, these two approaches can complement each other, especially when integrated into a solid backlink strategy. You can use Google Alerts to keep track of ongoing mentions passively and use time-filtering when you need more immediate, hands-on searching.
⚠️Caveat: Like I said, time-filtering requires manual effort, and the quality of your results depends on how well you use search operators. If your queries are too broad, you’ll get irrelevant results – too narrow, and you might miss good backlink opportunities altogether.
Here’s how to fine-tune your searches and make time-filtering more effective…
Google Search Operators
“✅ TL;DR: Use Google Search Operators to refine search results further and find pages that give you the best chances of earning backlinks.”
If you want precise backlink opportunities that match your criteria, Google search operators are the way to go. These special search commands help you filter out irrelevant results, so you’re not stuck sifting through thousands of pages that don’t actually help your backlink strategy.
What do I mean by this? Let’s look at an example.
Let’s say you want to find fashion blogs that accept guest posts so you can contribute an article and earn a backlink. You go to Google and type “fashion blog” – and here’s what you get:
The first few results are actual fashion blogs, but they’re personal or branded blogs, not necessarily places where you can submit a guest post or request a backlink.
Some results lead to general fashion discussions, like Reddit threads, which may be interesting but don’t directly help with backlink outreach.
There’s no clear way to tell which sites accept guest contributions, so you’d have to click through each result and manually check.
Now, let’s compare this with a more refined search query: fashion blog "write for us" OR "guest post" OR "contribute an article" -site:quora.com -site:reddit.com -site:fiverr.com -site:upwork.com
With this, your results are much more targeted. Instead of generic fashion blogs, job sites, forums, and social media platforms, you get pages that explicitly invite guest contributions.
I get that this search query might look a little overwhelming if you’re new to search operators. You can start with this guide from Ahrefs to help you understand the basics. But for now, here are three simple but powerful search operators you can try:
1. "[your brand]" -site:yourwebsite.com
This filters out your own website and only shows external sites mentioning your brand. Apply time filtering to find fresh mentions where you can request a link.
2. "yourcompetitor.com" -site:yourcompetitor.com
This shows pages that link to your competitor’s website but not yours. If they linked to your competitor, there’s a good chance they might link to you too—or even better, you can reach out before your competitors do.
3. ("experts weigh in" OR "industry experts" OR "expert roundup") AND "[your niche]"
Okay, this one depends on your niche as different industries use different phrasing for expert roundups. If you can figure out the right terms for your industry, this is hands down one of the best ways to get backlinks. Bloggers frequently publish expert opinion pieces, and with this search, you can find them before submissions close.
At the end of the day, search operators act like steroids for your Google Alerts and time-filtering strategies. With all three, you’ve got what I’d call the holy trinity of free backlink discovery.
⚠️ Caveat: Expect a bit of a learning curve to mastering search operators, but once you get the hang of them, they make a huge difference.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve discussed, Google isn’t just a search engine. It’s a free tool to help you find fresh backlink prospects. And if you’re responding to PR opportunities, guest posts, or expert roundups, these methods make sure no backlink opportunity goes unnoticed.
But here’s something important to remember: finding backlink opportunities is one thing – actually securing them is another challenge entirely. Most sites won’t just hand out backlinks. To actually get them, you usually need to:
Reach out to site owners and craft the perfect pitch that convinces them to link to you.
Offer value – whether that’s contributing a guest post, providing expert insights, or offering unique data.
Follow up persistently – because not every site responds on the first try.
At Repulinks, we take all these hassles out of backlink building, so you don’t have to waste hours searching, pitching, and following up. Instead, you get high-quality, strategic backlinks that actually move the needle for your SEO.
Choose from our SEO packages to find one that fits your needs and budget – or better yet, book a call to discuss how we can help boost your website’s authority.
