Honest comparison
LinkGlow vs Ahrefs for placement checks
Ahrefs is a web-scale SEO platform. Its backlink index is built to discover referring domains you may not know about. LinkGlow does not compete with that index. It renders one public URL, classifies every captured link, and monitors the placements you already bought.
| Job | Ahrefs | LinkGlow |
|---|---|---|
| Find unknown backlinks | Yes — crawl/index of the web | No. We never claim a backlink index. |
| Verify a known placement is still on the page | Indirect (URL seen in index) | Yes — rendered HTML of that page |
| rel tokens (nofollow, sponsored, ugc) | Profile-level filters | Per-link on the captured page |
| JavaScript-rendered links | Depends on how the URL was crawled | Server-side render of the URL you paste |
| Alert when one paid placement flips | New/lost referring pages, not your contract | Tracked link + scheduled monitor |
| Price shape | Suite pricing for SEO teams | Pro $19/mo after a 14-day trial |
Use Ahrefs when
- You need to discover unknown backlinks or compare referring-domain graphs.
- You want keyword, content, and sitewide competitive research in one suite.
- You care about domain-level new/lost backlink counts, not one guest-post URL.
Use LinkGlow when
- You already have the host URL and target URL from an insertion order.
- You need to see follow / nofollow / sponsored / UGC on the rendered page.
- You want an email the day that specific placement drops, breaks, or flips rel.
This is not an Ahrefs killer page. If you need a backlink index, keep Ahrefs (or Semrush, Majestic). Add LinkGlow when the job is “is the link I paid for still the link on that page?”