How to see backlinks in GA4

January 18, 2026
  • First Published: January 18, 2026
  • Last Modified: January 20, 2026

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) isn’t primarily an SEO tool. If you want to check your domain authority or see every single link pointing to your site, you are better off with dedicated software like Search Console or SERanking (yes, that’s an affiliate link, get over it)

But if you want to understand quality over quantity, GA4 is essential.

While SEO tools tell you a link exists, GA4 tells you if that link is actually doing its job.

Is it driving traffic? Are those visitors engaging? Are they converting? This actually shows you links that drive traffic and conversions, not just vanity numbers.

We’re going to look at how to use the Traffic Acquisition report to analyse your referral traffic, and I’ll share a clever “Explore” report technique to turn broken backlinks into fresh opportunities.

Table of Contents

Prefer to watch a video about it?

Key Takeaways

  • Quality over Quantity: GA4 helps you identify which backlinks drive actual engagement and revenue, not just “link juice.”

  • The Referral Filter: You can isolate backlink traffic by filtering the Traffic Acquisition report for the ‘Referral’ channel.

  • Spam Control: Use these reports to spot low-quality spam traffic or payment gateways that skew your data.

  • The 404 Trick: A custom Explore report can reveal external sites linking to broken pages on your site—a quick win for reclaiming lost traffic.

Can you find backlinks on Google Analytics?

Yes, The standard reports in GA4 are capable of handling this, provided you know where to look.

Perhaps the terminology is different as we aren’t looking for a dedicated “Backlinks” tab; instead, we are looking at Referral traffic within the acquisition section.

As Google says “Referral is the channel by which users arrive at your site via non-ad links on other sites/apps (e.g. blogs, news sites)”

Step 1: Access the Traffic Acquisition Report

Head to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.

By default, you’ll see a messy chart with everything from Organic Search to Direct traffic. We need to clear that noise.

Step 2: Filter for Referrals

We need to tell GA4 to only show us users who arrived via a link on another site.

  1. Click the Add filter + button at the top of the report.
  2. In the ‘Build filter’ menu on the right, set the dimension to Session default channel group.
  3. Set the match type to exactly matches.
  4. Select Referral from the dropdown list.
  5. Click Apply.

Step 3: Drill Down into the Sources

Now you have a list of all referral traffic. But seeing “Referral” isn’t enough; you want to know which websites are sending the traffic.

  • In the first column (likely showing ‘Session default channel group’), click the dropdown arrow.
  • Change this to Session source / medium.

You will now see a list of specific domains (e.g., hubspot.com / referral or wikipedia.org / referral). This is your list of active backlinks that are driving actual visits.

Referral Traffic as backlinks

In the report above, you can see AI traffic coming through as Referral, so in time it might be more advantageous to create an AI specific channel.

Analysing the Data

Once you have this view, you can stop guessing which partnerships are working.

1. The High Performers

Look at the Key Events (formerly conversions) column. You might find that a small blog with low domain authority is sending you highly qualified leads, while a massive industry publication sends high traffic but zero conversions. This data is gold for deciding where to spend your PR budget next quarter.

2. The “Nuisance” Traffic

You will often see things that shouldn’t be there.

  • Self-referrals: If you see your own domain listed, your tracking code might be firing incorrectly on certain pages.
  • Payment Gateways: seeing paypal.com or stripe.com? This means a user paid, left your site to verify, and came back. GA4 treats this as a “new” session from a “new” source, which breaks your attribution. You should add these to your Unwanted Referrals list in the Admin settings.
  • Spam: If you see dodgy-looking domains sending 0-second engagement visits, you can identify them here and look into excluding them.

Finding Broken Backlinks (404s)

This is a specific tactic that I really like. It allows you to find external sites that are linking to pages on your site that no longer exist. And this is actual traffic – not just links from a random blog post written 15 years ago that gets 0 traffic.

If a high-authority site is linking to a blog post you deleted three years ago, you are losing value.

They are sending users to a 404 error page.

Here is how to find them using the Explore section:

  1. Go to Explore and create a blank report.
  2. Dimensions: Add Page title and Landing page + query string. Add Session Default Channel Group
  3. Metrics: Add Sessions or Views
  4. Filter: Drag Page title into the Filters section. Set the condition to contains and type “404” or “Page Not Found” (whatever your website actually displays in the browser tab when a page is broken).
  5. Filter: Filter by Session Default Channel Group exactly matches Referral.

What this tells you

This report will generate a list of 404 pages that people are actually landing on. Once you add Referral traffic filter, it shows you the backlinks that are 404s.

The fix

Once you identify a high-traffic 404 landing page, set up a 301 redirect pointing that URL to the most relevant existing page on your site. You instantly reclaim that lost traffic and SEO equity.

Backlink Checker in explore reports

Analysing the Data: Beyond the Basic Table

Once the data flows in (usually after 24-48 hours), you can do more than just stare at a bar chart.

Comparison & Customisation 

In the standard report, you can add a secondary dimension. For example, you might want to see Age broken down by Gender.

  • Click the + (plus) icon next to the primary dimension in the table.
  • Search for “Gender”.
  • Now you can see if your 25-34 age bracket is predominantly male or female.

 

Accuracy

It is worth noting that this method won’t catch everything.

Direct Traffic vs. Referrals

If a website uses a rel=”nofollow” tag on their link to you, or if the user is moving from a secure (HTTPS) site to a non-secure (HTTP) site, the referral data is often stripped out. These visitors will likely appear as Direct traffic in your reports.

This is why GA4 is a companion to tools like Ahrefs, not a replacement. Use Ahrefs to find the links; use GA4 to measure the human behaviour resulting from them.

Summary

While dedicated SEO tools are brilliant for mapping out your link profile, they can’t tell you the whole story.

They show you the potential; GA4 shows you the reality.

By using the Traffic Acquisition report, you move beyond vanity metrics and start measuring the human impact of your backlinks.

You can spot which partners drive genuine revenue, which are simply inflating your traffic stats, and which broken links are silently wasting your opportunities.

Remember, the goal isn’t just to accumulate more links. It is to understand which ones actually move the needle for your business so you can do more of what works.

So, open up a new tab, head to the Explore section, and build that 404 report.

You might be surprised at how much lost traffic is waiting to be reclaimed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my referral traffic dropping in GA4?

This is often due to cookie consent banners. If a user denies cookies, GA4 cannot track the source effectively, often categorising them as Direct traffic or “Unassigned.”

Can I see the exact URL of the referring page?

Not easily in the standard reports. The standard report usually shows the domain (Session source). To see the full referring URL, you often need to use the “Explore” reports and look at the Page Referrer dimension, though even this is often truncated by privacy policies.

How do I exclude internal traffic?

Go to Admin > Data Streams > Configure Tag Settings > Show All > Define Internal Traffic. You can then define your office IP addresses to ensure your team’s clicks aren’t muddying the data.

Kyle

Author

Hello, I'm Kyle Rushton McGregor!

I’m an experienced GA4 Specialist with a demonstrated history of working with Google Tag Manager and Looker Studio. I’m an international speaker who has trained 1000s of people on all things analytics.

Find out more About me
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