A hundred links from one domain still count as one domain.
Total backlinks can climb while your actual reach stays flat, if most of it comes from a handful of repeat sources. Referring domains shows the real spread: how many unique sites link to you, how their authority breaks down, and how much of your profile carries spam risk.
The moments this actually gets used.
Links up, rankings flat
- Backlink count keeps rising but it's the same twelve domains linking again and again.
A directory push feels risky
- A campaign added hundreds of domains fast. Worth knowing what share of them are actually low-authority or spammy before it becomes a problem.
Where's the authority gap?
- Plenty of mid-tier domains, almost nothing at the top. Useful to see before setting an outreach target.
See the real spread of who links to you, not a total that a handful of repeat domains can inflate.
Every domain is counted once, broken down by authority tier, spam exposure and link velocity, checked against the live index.
What the breakdown looks like.
Illustrative figures, not live data.
Not a total. The actual shape of it.
Domain count
- Total unique referring domains, active and lost
- Net gain or loss across the tracking period
- Average domain and page authority
Authority tiers
- Domain count across ten DA bands
- Where the profile is top-heavy or thin
- Comparison against a healthy spread
Spam & recency
- Spam score per domain and as an average
- First seen and last seen per domain
- Filters for high-spam, high-DA, and recent domains
Coverage is the map. Here's what to do with it.
What is Referring Domains in SEORCE?
Referring Domains is the domain-level view of a backlink profile: every unique site linking to you, counted once regardless of how many times it links. It breaks the profile down by domain authority tier, spam exposure, and link velocity, so a rising backlink count can be checked against whether it's actually coming from a broader set of sources or the same few domains linking more.
Key facts
- Domains are counted once each, separate from total backlink count
- Authority distribution shown across ten DA tiers, 0 to 100
- Average domain authority and page authority reported across the profile
- Spam score shown per domain and as a profile-wide average
- Domains tracked as active or lost, with first-seen and last-seen dates
- Full list is filterable, sortable and exportable
Last reviewed 20 September 2026 by the SEORCE team.
Frequently asked about referring domains.
A backlink is a single link. A referring domain is a unique site linking to you, which might link many times. A hundred links from one domain still count as one referring domain, and that concentration is itself a signal worth watching.
An average can hide the shape of the profile. A handful of very high-authority domains and a long tail of low-authority ones can average out to look the same as an evenly distributed profile, but the two are very different in practice.
Spam score reflects signals associated with low-quality or manipulative link sources across a domain's linking history. It's shown per domain and as an average across the whole referring-domain set.
Yes. The domain list can be filtered by spam exposure, authority tier, or recency, so you're not scrolling the full set to find what needs attention.
Yes. Referring domains are tracked as active or lost, so a shrinking domain count is visible as it happens rather than only showing up in a lower total later.
See the real spread. Not just the count.
Get the domain-level breakdown behind your backlink total: authority tiers, spam exposure, and velocity.