Semrush · Backlink Audit
Semrush Backlink Audit, and why the toxic score is not an instruction
Part of the Semrush tool listing, 18 in-depth guides plus the full review.
The short answer
Backlink Audit crawls your backlink profile, scores each link for toxicity, and can send your selections to Google's disavow tool for you. The scoring is a useful triage. The disavow button is not a fix, because Google ignores most spam links already and a wrong disavow removes links that were helping. Connecting it also means adding a Semrush address as a verified owner of your Search Console property.
Backlink Audit does two things. The first one is useful and the second one can cost you rankings, and the interface presents them with the same confidence.
It scores your links for toxicity, which is a reasonable way to sort a few thousand of them. Then it offers to file a disavow with Google on your behalf, which is a decision most sites should never make and which this tool makes about four clicks easy.
What the toxic score is
A 0 to 100 model built from signals about the linking site: spam markers, anchor-text patterns, link-farm and private-network indicators, and a few dozen more. The higher the number, the more Semrush thinks the link looks unnatural.
It’s a triage tool and it’s good at that job. Sorting 4,000 links by a plausible risk score puts the 50 worth looking at on the first screen.
What it is not is a verdict from Google. Semrush cannot see how Google treats a specific link, so the score describes how the link looks to a model, and “looks spammy” and “is hurting you” are different claims. Google has said for years that it ignores the overwhelming majority of low-quality links without being told to.
Read “flagged” as “look at this”
The flagged list is a reading list. Work through it and ask one question per link: did I, or somebody I paid, build this?
Yes. That’s a real candidate for removal or disavowal, because it’s a link you can be held responsible for.
No, it just showed up. Leave it. Scraper sites, directory spam and auto-generated pages link to everything. Every site above a certain size has thousands and Google discounts them without comment.
No, but there are ten thousand of them pointing at one page. Now you have something worth investigating, and the pattern is the finding rather than any individual link.
The reason to be this careful is asymmetry. Ignoring a spam link costs you close to nothing. Disavowing a link that was helping costs you the link, and disavow files are slow and awkward to unwind. One direction has a floor, the other doesn’t.
Disavow properly belongs to one situation: you have a manual action in Search Console, or you know a link campaign happened. I have written up what losing all my traffic to a penalty actually looked like, and a toxic score is not that.
The Search Console step deserves a pause
To pull the toxic data Search Console holds, and to submit a disavow automatically, the tool asks you to connect your property. The way it does this is worth understanding before you click.
Semrush hands you an email address. You go into your Search Console property settings as a verified owner and add that address as a user. That is not an OAuth scope you revoke from a permissions screen in ten seconds. It’s an account on your property.
That may well be a trade you’re happy with, and plenty of agencies make it daily. Make it knowingly rather than as step four of a wizard, and take it off again when the audit is finished.
Most weeks you want the other tool
Backlink Audit runs on a project, which means your own site, and cleanup is occasional work. Backlink Analytics runs on any domain, and studying how a competitor earned their links is what actually produces a plan.
If you’re opening the backlink section of Semrush without a specific cleanup reason, you almost certainly want Backlink Analytics, the Link Building Tool, or Backlink Gap. Audit is the tool you reach for when something is already wrong.
What this looks like on screen
Each clip opens at the minute the thing above happens, not at the start of the recording.
Questions
What is a bad Semrush toxic score?
Semrush scores links 0 to 100 from signals like the linking site's spam markers, anchor patterns and link-farm membership, and flags the higher end for review. Read "flagged" as "look at this", not as "remove this". The score is Semrush's opinion about a link, not Google's.
Should I disavow the links Semrush flags?
Almost certainly not, not in bulk. Google ignores the vast majority of spam links without being asked, and a disavow file cannot be undone quickly. Disavowing is for a specific situation: a manual action, or links you or someone you hired actually built. Otherwise leave it alone.
Does Semrush Backlink Audit need Search Console access?
For the toxic data Search Console holds and for the automatic disavow submission, yes. It gives you an email address to add as a user on your property, and you have to be a verified owner to do it. Decide consciously, because that is standing access to your own search data.
Is Backlink Audit the same as Backlink Analytics?
No. Backlink Audit works on a project, meaning your own site, and is about cleanup. Backlink Analytics works on any domain and is about research. Most weeks the second one is the more useful tool.
Sources
Each one says which claim on this page it stands behind, and when it was read.
- Semrush knowledge base Verifies features · read 20 August 2026
- Semrush pricing page Verifies plans, limits · read 20 August 2026
Where to go next
- Semrush: the full listing What it does, what it costs, and what it cannot do, with every field dated.
- Semrush Domain Overview and the Authority Score trap Where a backlink total shows up as a number with no composition behind it.
- What Semrush costs, and which reports are locked where Backlink Audit is a project tool, so it counts against plan limits.
- I lost 100 percent of traffic to a Google penalty What an actual penalty looks like, versus what a toxic score looks like.
- The full Semrush listing Every field, with the date it was checked.