Anchors

‌‌
This endpoint will provide you with a detailed overview of anchors used when linking to the specified website with relevant backlink data for each of them.

checked POST
Pricing

Your account will be charged for each request.
The cost can be calculated on the Pricing page.

All POST data should be sent in the JSON format (UTF-8 encoding). The task setting is done using the POST method. When setting a task, you should send all task parameters in the task array of the generic POST array.

Description of the fields for setting a task:

Field name Type Description
target string domain, subdomain or webpage to get anchors for
required field
a domain or a subdomain should be specified without https:// and www.
a page should be specified with absolute URL (including http:// or https://)
limit integer the maximum number of returned anchors
optional field
default value: 100
maximum value: 1000
offset integer offset in the results array of returned anchors
optional field
default value: 0
if you specify the 10 value, the first ten anchors in the results array will be omitted and the data will be provided for the successive anchors
internal_list_limit integer maximum number of elements within internal arrays
optional field
you can use this field to limit the number of elements within the following arrays:
referring_links_tld
referring_links_types
referring_links_attributes
referring_links_platform_types
referring_links_semantic_locations

default value: 10
maximum value: 1000
backlinks_status_type string set what backlinks to return and count
optional field
you can use this field to choose what backlinks will be returned and used for aggregated metrics for your target;
possible values:
all – all backlinks will be returned and counted;
live – backlinks found during the last check will be returned and counted;
lost – lost backlinks will be returned and counted;

default value: live

filters array array of results filtering parameters
optional field
you can add several filters at once (8 filters maximum)
you should set a logical operator and, or between the conditions
the following operators are supported:
regex, not_regex, =, <>, in, not_in, like, not_like, ilike, not_ilike, match, not_match
you can use the % operator with like and not_like to match any string of zero or more characters
example:
["referring_links_types.anchors",">","1"]

[["broken_pages",">","2"],
"and",
["backlinks",">","10"]]

[["first_seen",">","2017-10-23 11:31:45 +00:00"],
"and",
[["anchor","like","%seo%"],"or",["referring_domains",">","10"]]]

The full list of possible filters is available here.

order_by array results sorting rules
optional field
you can use the same values as in the filters array to sort the results
possible sorting types:
asc – results will be sorted in the ascending order
desc – results will be sorted in the descending order
you should use a comma to set up a sorting type
example:
["backlinks,desc"]
note that you can set no more than three sorting rules in a single request
you should use a comma to separate several sorting rules
example:
["backlinks,desc","rank,asc"]
backlinks_filters array filter the backlinks of your target
optional field
you can use this field to filter the initial backlinks that will be included in the dataset for aggregated metrics for your target
you can filter the backlinks by all fields available in the response of this endpoint
using this parameter, you can include only dofollow backlinks in the response and create a flexible backlinks dataset to calculate the metrics for
example:
"backlinks_filters": [["dofollow", "=", true]]
include_subdomains boolean indicates if the subdomains of the target will be included in the search
optional field
if set to false, the subdomains will be ignored
default value: true
include_indirect_links boolean indicates if indirect links to the target will be included in the results
optional field
if set to true, the results will include data on indirect links pointing to a page that either redirects to the target, or points to a canonical page
if set to false, indirect links will be ignored
default value: true
exclude_internal_backlinks boolean indicates whether the backlinks from subdomains of the target are excluded
optional field
if set to false, the backlinks from subdomains of the target will be ommited and you won’t receive the same domain in the response;
default value: true
rank_scale string defines the scale used for calculating and displaying the rank, domain_from_rank, and page_from_rank values
optional field

you can use this parameter to choose whether rank values are presented on a 0–100 or 0–1000 scale

possible values:
one_hundred — rank values are displayed on a 0–100 scale
one_thousand — rank values are displayed on a 0–1000 scale

default value: one_thousand

learn more about how this parameter works and how ranking metrics are calculated in this Help Center article

tag string user-defined task identifier
optional field
the character limit is 255
you can use this parameter to identify the task and match it with the result
you will find the specified tag value in the data object of the response

‌‌‌‌‌‌
As a response of the API server, you will receive JSON-encoded data containing a tasks array with the information specific to the set tasks.

Description of the fields in the results array:

Field name Type Description
version string the current version of the API
status_code integer general status code
you can find the full list of the response codes here
Note: we strongly recommend designing a necessary system for handling related exceptional or error conditions
status_message string general informational message
you can find the full list of general informational messages here
time string execution time, seconds
cost float total tasks cost, USD
tasks_count integer the number of tasks in the tasks array
tasks_error integer the number of tasks in the tasks array returned with an error
tasks array array of tasks
        id string task identifier
unique task identifier in our system in the UUID format
        status_code integer status code of the task
generated by DataForSEO; can be within the following range: 10000-60000
you can find the full list of the response codes here
        status_message string informational message of the task
you can find the full list of general informational messages here
        time string execution time, seconds
        cost float cost of the task, USD
        result_count integer number of elements in the result array
        path array URL path
        data object contains the same parameters that you specified in the POST request
        result array array of results
            target string target in the post array
            total_count integer total number of relevant items in the database
            items_count integer number of items in the results array
            items array items array
               type string type of element = ‘backlinks_anchor’
               anchor string anchor of the backlink
               rank integer rank of the anchor links
rank volume that referring websites pass to the target through links with a particular anchor
rank is calculated based on the method for node ranking in a linked database – a principle used in the original Google PageRank algorithm
learn more about the metric and how it is calculated in this help center article
               backlinks integer indicates the number of backlinks
               first_seen string date and time when our crawler found the backlink with this anchor for the first time
in the UTC format: “yyyy-mm-dd hh-mm-ss +00:00”
example:
2019-11-15 12:57:46 +00:00
               lost_date string date and time when the last backlink with this anchor was lost
indicates the date and time when our crawler visited the page and it responded with 4xx or 5xx status code or the last backlink was removed
in the UTC format: “yyyy-mm-dd hh-mm-ss +00:00”
example:
2017-01-24 13:20:59 +00:00
               backlinks_spam_score integer average spam score of all backlinks with this anchor
learn more about how the metric is calculated on this help center page
               broken_backlinks integer number of broken backlinks
number of broken backlinks pointing to the target
               broken_pages integer number of broken pages
number of pages that respond with 4xx or 5xx status codes where backlinks are pointing to
               referring_domains integer indicates the number of referring domains
               referring_domains_nofollow integer number of domains pointing at least one nofollow link to the target
               referring_main_domains integer indicates the number of referring main domains
                referring_main_domains_nofollow integer number of main domains pointing at least one nofollow link to the target
               referring_ips integer number of referring IP addresses
number of IP addresses pointing to this page
               referring_subnets integer number of referring subnetworks
               referring_pages integer indicates the number of pages pointing to target with this anchor
               referring_links_tld object top-level domains of the referring links
contains top level domains and referring link count per each
               referring_links_types object types of referring links
indicates the types of the referring links and link count per each type
possible values:
anchor, image, link, meta, canonical, alternate, redirect
               referring_links_attributes object link attributes of the referring links
indicates link attributes of the referring links and link count per each attribute
               referring_links_platform_types object types of referring platforms
indicates referring platform types and and link count per each platform

possible values: cms, blogs, ecommerce, message-boards, wikis, news, organization

               referring_links_semantic_locations object semantic locations of the referring links
indicates semantic elements in HTML where the referring links are located and link count per each semantic location

you can get the full list of semantic elements here
examples:
article, section, summary

               referring_links_countries object ISO country codes of the referring links
indicates ISO country codes of the domains where the referring links are located and the link count per each country
               referring_pages_nofollow integer number of referring pages pointing at least one nofollow link to the target with this anchor

‌‌

Instead of ‘login’ and ‘password’ use your credentials from https://app.dataforseo.com/api-access

# Instead of 'login' and 'password' use your credentials from https://app.dataforseo.com/api-access 
login="login" 
password="password" 
cred="$(printf ${login}:${password} | base64)" 
curl --location --request POST "https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/backlinks/anchors/live" 
--header "Authorization: Basic ${cred}"  
--header "Content-Type: application/json" 
--data-raw "[
    {
        "target": "forbes.com",
        "limit": 4,
        "order_by": ["backlinks,desc"],
        "filters": ["anchor","like","%news%"]
    }
]"
<?php
// You can download this file from here https://cdn.dataforseo.com/v3/examples/php/php_RestClient.zip
require('RestClient.php');
$api_url = 'https://api.dataforseo.com/';
// Instead of 'login' and 'password' use your credentials from https://app.dataforseo.com/api-access
$client = new RestClient($api_url, null, 'login', 'password');
$post_array = array();
// simple way to get a result
$post_array[] = array(
   "target" => "forbes.com",
   "limit" => 4,
   "filters" => ["anchor","like","%news%"],
   "order_by" => ["backlinks,desc"]
);
try {
   // POST /v3/backlinks/anchors/live
   // the full list of possible parameters is available in documentation
   $result = $client->post('/v3/backlinks/anchors/live', $post_array);
   print_r($result);
   // do something with post result
} catch (RestClientException $e) {
   echo "n";
   print "HTTP code: {$e->getHttpCode()}n";
   print "Error code: {$e->getCode()}n";
   print "Message: {$e->getMessage()}n";
   print  $e->getTraceAsString();
   echo "n";
}
$client = null;
?>
const post_array = [];

post_array.push({
  "target": "forbes.com",
  "limit": 4,
  "order_by": ["backlinks,desc"],
  "filters": ["anchor","like","%news%"]
});

const axios = require('axios');

axios({
  method: 'post',
  url: 'https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/backlinks/anchors/live',
  auth: {
    username: 'login',
    password: 'password'
  },
  data: post_array,
  headers: {
    'content-type': 'application/json'
  }
}).then(function (response) {
  var result = response['data']['tasks'];
  // Result data
  console.log(result);
}).catch(function (error) {
  console.log(error);
});
from client import RestClient
# You can download this file from here https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/_examples/python/_python_Client.zip
client = RestClient("login", "password")
post_data = dict()
# simple way to set a task
post_data[len(post_data)] = dict(
    target="forbes.com",
    filters=["anchor","like","%news%"],
    limit=4,
    order_by=["backlinks,desc"]
)
# POST /v3/backlinks/anchors/live
# the full list of possible parameters is available in documentation
response = client.post("/v3/backlinks/anchors/live", post_data)
# you can find the full list of the response codes here https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/appendix/errors
if response["status_code"] == 20000:
    print(response)
    # do something with result
else:
    print("error. Code: %d Message: %s" % (response["status_code"], response["status_message"]))
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace DataForSeoDemos
{
    public static partial class Demos
    {
        public static async Task backlinks_anchors_live()
        {
            var httpClient = new HttpClient
            {
                BaseAddress = new Uri("https://api.dataforseo.com/"),
                // Instead of 'login' and 'password' use your credentials from https://app.dataforseo.com/api-access
                DefaultRequestHeaders = { Authorization = new AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("login:password"))) }
            };
            var postData = new List<object>();
            // simple way to get a result
            postData.Add(new
            {
                target = "forbes.com",
                limit = 4,
                filters = new object[]
                {
                    new object[] { "anchor", "like", "%news%" }
                }
            });
            // POST /v3/backlinks/anchors/live
            // the full list of possible parameters is available in documentation
            var taskPostResponse = await httpClient.PostAsync("/v3/backlinks/anchors/live", new StringContent(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(postData)));
            var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<dynamic>(await taskPostResponse.Content.ReadAsStringAsync());
            // you can find the full list of the response codes here https://docs.dataforseo.com/v3/appendix/errors
            if (result.status_code == 20000)
            {
                // do something with result
                Console.WriteLine(result);
            }
            else
                Console.WriteLine($"error. Code: {result.status_code} Message: {result.status_message}");
        }
    }
}

The above command returns JSON structured like this:

{
  "version": "0.1.20230825",
  "status_code": 20000,
  "status_message": "Ok.",
  "time": "1.1820 sec.",
  "cost": 0.02012,
  "tasks_count": 1,
  "tasks_error": 0,
  "tasks": [
    {
      "id": "09291840-1535-0272-0000-7977cbcf0524",
      "status_code": 20000,
      "status_message": "Ok.",
      "time": "1.1266 sec.",
      "cost": 0.02012,
      "result_count": 1,
      "path": [
        "v3",
        "backlinks",
        "anchors",
        "live"
      ],
      "data": {
        "api": "backlinks",
        "function": "anchors",
        "target": "forbes.com",
        "limit": 4,
        "order_by": [
          "backlinks,desc"
        ],
        "filters": [
          "anchor",
          "like",
          "%news%"
        ]
      },
      "result": [
        {
          "target": "forbes.com",
          "total_count": 83736,
          "items_count": 4,
          "items": [
            {
              "type": "backlinks_anchor",
              "anchor": "news",
              "rank": 277,
              "backlinks": 4186,
              "first_seen": "2019-01-16 05:58:32 +00:00",
              "lost_date": null,
              "backlinks_spam_score": 24,
              "broken_backlinks": 21,
              "broken_pages": 13,
              "referring_domains": 835,
              "referring_domains_nofollow": 146,
              "referring_main_domains": 773,
              "referring_main_domains_nofollow": 138,
              "referring_ips": 757,
              "referring_subnets": 648,
              "referring_pages": 3946,
              "referring_links_tld": {
                "com": 1931,
                "org": 1141,
                "de": 369,
                "net": 74,
                "blogspot.com": 72,
                "edu": 65,
                "info": 59,
                "pt": 18,
                "co.uk": 12,
                "": 10
              },
              "referring_links_types": {
                "anchor": 3945,
                "image": 1
              },
              "referring_links_attributes": {
                "nofollow": 804,
                "noopener": 368,
                "noreferrer": 126,
                "ugc": 85,
                "external": 43
              },
              "referring_links_platform_types": {
                "unknown": 1525,
                "organization": 1231,
                "blogs": 1042,
                "cms": 851,
                "news": 291,
                "message-boards": 98,
                "ecommerce": 3,
                "wikis": 2
              },
              "referring_links_semantic_locations": {
                "": 2592,
                "article": 1075,
                "section": 159,
                "main": 109,
                "aside": 7,
                "details": 3,
                "header": 1
              },
              "referring_links_countries": {
                "": 2454,
                "US": 817,
                "DE": 369,
                "WW": 75,
                "GB": 32,
                "CA": 21,
                "IN": 20,
                "PT": 18,
                "TR": 11,
                "IR": 11
              },
              "referring_pages_nofollow": 940
            },
            {
              "type": "backlinks_anchor",
              "anchor": "Forex news",
              "rank": 39,
              "backlinks": 4111,
              "first_seen": "2021-11-01 01:35:42 +00:00",
              "lost_date": null,
              "backlinks_spam_score": 15,
              "broken_backlinks": 0,
              "broken_pages": 0,
              "referring_domains": 1008,
              "referring_domains_nofollow": 1004,
              "referring_main_domains": 1005,
              "referring_main_domains_nofollow": 1001,
              "referring_ips": 1021,
              "referring_subnets": 809,
              "referring_pages": 3763,
              "referring_links_tld": {
                "com": 2079,
                "in": 143,
                "org": 112,
                "ru": 89,
                "net": 72,
                "com.br": 65,
                "pt": 45,
                "com.co": 44,
                "nl": 40,
                "de": 39
              },
              "referring_links_types": {
                "anchor": 3763
              },
              "referring_links_attributes": {
                "nofollow": 3754,
                "noopener": 82,
                "noreferrer": 1
              },
              "referring_links_platform_types": {
                "cms": 3443,
                "blogs": 3433,
                "organization": 422,
                "unknown": 300,
                "news": 55
              },
              "referring_links_semantic_locations": {
                "article": 2871,
                "": 481,
                "main": 249,
                "section": 161,
                "header": 1
              },
              "referring_links_countries": {
                "": 2047,
                "IN": 192,
                "WW": 161,
                "ID": 97,
                "RU": 89,
                "BR": 71,
                "GB": 61,
                "MX": 58,
                "AU": 56,
                "CO": 55
              },
              "referring_pages_nofollow": 1886
            },
            {
              "type": "backlinks_anchor",
              "anchor": "More news from Forbes»",
              "rank": 246,
              "backlinks": 1509,
              "first_seen": "2019-01-24 07:04:48 +00:00",
              "lost_date": null,
              "backlinks_spam_score": 23,
              "broken_backlinks": 0,
              "broken_pages": 0,
              "referring_domains": 1,
              "referring_domains_nofollow": 0,
              "referring_main_domains": 1,
              "referring_main_domains_nofollow": 0,
              "referring_ips": 1,
              "referring_subnets": 1,
              "referring_pages": 1509,
              "referring_links_tld": {
                "com": 1509
              },
              "referring_links_types": {
                "anchor": 1509
              },
              "referring_links_attributes": null,
              "referring_links_platform_types": {
                "blogs": 1509,
                "cms": 1509,
                "organization": 1509
              },
              "referring_links_semantic_locations": {
                "footer": 1509
              },
              "referring_links_countries": {
                "": 1003,
                "US": 506
              },
              "referring_pages_nofollow": 554
            },
            {
              "type": "backlinks_anchor",
              "anchor": "Philanthropy - The latest news and trends in philanthropy from Forbes.com and its partner publications.",
              "rank": 0,
              "backlinks": 1152,
              "first_seen": "2022-01-03 00:49:08 +00:00",
              "lost_date": null,
              "backlinks_spam_score": 39,
              "broken_backlinks": 691,
              "broken_pages": 1,
              "referring_domains": 2,
              "referring_domains_nofollow": 1,
              "referring_main_domains": 2,
              "referring_main_domains_nofollow": 1,
              "referring_ips": 3,
              "referring_subnets": 3,
              "referring_pages": 1152,
              "referring_links_tld": {
                "net": 1151,
                "ru": 1
              },
              "referring_links_types": {
                "anchor": 1152
              },
              "referring_links_attributes": {
                "nofollow": 1
              },
              "referring_links_platform_types": {
                "unknown": 1152
              },
              "referring_links_semantic_locations": {
                "": 1152
              },
              "referring_links_countries": {
                "": 691,
                "KE": 460,
                "RU": 1
              },
              "referring_pages_nofollow": 0
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}