Referring Domains

DataForSEO

Find the domains linking to a site or page and compare their authority and link counts.

Capability: Backlink analysis
Current price: $0.0336/call
Availability: Ready to run

What this API does

Returns a bounded list of referring domains with DataForSEO Rank, backlink counts and first-seen or lost timing.

Agents select this operation with tool ID dataforseo.referring-domains, then inspect its current executable contract before a run.

Public input and output shape

Input

backlinks_status_typestring · optional

Value supplied for backlinks status type.

enum: all, live, lost

include_subdomainsboolean · optional

Value supplied for include subdomains.

limitinteger · optional

Value supplied for limit.

minimum: 1 · maximum: 1000

offsetinteger · optional

Value supplied for offset.

minimum: 0 · maximum: 100000000

order_byarray · optional

Value supplied for order by.

maxItems: 3

rank_scalestring · optional

Value supplied for rank scale.

enum: one_hundred, one_thousand

targetstring · required

Domain, subdomain or absolute page URL.

minLength: 1 · maxLength: 2000

Output

itemsarray

Returned items value.

items_countnumber

Returned items count value.

total_countnumber

Returned total count value.

Example request and output

This reviewed worked example is shared with inspect. Inspect also returns the current executable schema and price estimate before a paid run.

Request

{
  "tool_id": "dataforseo.referring-domains",
  "input": {
    "limit": 1,
    "target": "dataforseo.com"
  }
}

Output

{
  "items": [
    {
      "rank": 40,
      "domain": "ipip.la",
      "backlinks": 1,
      "first_seen": "2026-08-11 13:37:57 +00:00",
      "referring_domains": 1
    }
  ],
  "items_count": 1,
  "total_count": 3471
}

Teaching errors and limitations

configuration_error: DataForSEO account access, funding or cost controls blocked the request.Verify and fund the server-side DataForSEO API-access credentials, then retry unchanged.
invalid_input: DataForSEO rejected a target, location or bounded result control.example: {"target":"dataforseo.com","limit":1}

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