AI SEO Tools: Link building and backlink tools

A fourth kind is a marketplace or exchange. Serpzilla is a marketplace where SEO professionals buy backlinks from publishers. FatGrid compares backlink prices for link builders. Ranking Raccoon is an exchange community where SEOs give and receive links without cold emails, and Linktopia is a give-to-get community for SaaS startups. Collaborator is a digital PR and content distribution marketplace. Read each marketplace's terms before you buy or swap links.

Then there are the specialists. DataForSEO is a source of raw search data delivered through an API, used by developers and by people who build SEO software. Visual SEO Studio is a desktop crawler for Mac or Windows. SeoTools for Excel puts marketing functions into spreadsheet formulas. DomCop is a search tool for expired and expiring domain names. ListingBott is a directory submission service. Promptmonitor and AIrefs sit at the edge of this category, because they watch what AI answers say about a brand while also touching backlinks.

When you compare products here, start with the features that decide how you will work. An API or MCP server means you can pull link data into your own reports or connect AI agents to it, which suits developers and reporting teams. Built for agencies means white-label reports or client accounts, which matters if you manage more than one site. A free plan lets you test the data before you pay. A free trial is time or credit limited, so plan your tests before you start it. A browser extension puts link data beside the page you are reading.

The cited-by figure beside each product is the number of published guides that name it. Majestic is cited by 15 guides, BuzzStream and DataForSEO by 8 each. That measures how often a tool is mentioned, not how well it works. Use the product notes and the feature labels to shortlist, then try the free plan or trial of two or three before deciding.