This article covers the Backlink Overview, monitoring alerts, disavow, and link data accuracy.
⚠️ Error 1: Backlink Overview fails to load or shows an error
What's happening:
A brief database interruption is preventing data from loading.
Steps to try:
- Hard-refresh the page.
- Wait 5 minutes and try again.
- Try a shorter date range or navigate to Site Metrics → Backlinks (Referring domains tab).
- Check if the issue is site-specific by viewing a different project's backlinks.
- Contact support with your site URL if the overview has been failing for more than 30 minutes.
📊 Error 2: My backlink count is much lower than Ahrefs or SEMRush
What's happening:
This is normal. Every tool has a different web crawler and database — counts will differ.
What to do:
- Focus on trends over time within Search Atlas rather than comparing absolute counts to other tools.
- Use Referring Domains as a more stable metric than raw link count.
- Confirm you're looking at the same domain version (www vs. non-www) in both tools.
- No action needed — cross-tool count differences are an industry-wide reality.
🔔 Error 3: Backlink monitoring alerts aren't being sent
What's happening:
Alerts may be misconfigured or the emails are landing in spam.
Steps to try:
- Check spam for emails from our Intercom live chat (click the messenger icon — type Human Teammate when the chatbot responds to reach a human agent).
- For Slack alerts, confirm the Search Atlas app is still authorized in your Slack workspace.
🆕 Error 4: New backlinks I built aren't appearing
What's happening:
Our crawler needs time to discover and index newly published pages.
Steps to try:
- Allow 7–14 days after a new link is published — this is normal crawler delay.
- Confirm the linking page is publicly accessible (not behind a login or paywall).
- Confirm the link is dofollow.
- Verify the link points to your exact domain with correct protocol (https vs. http, www vs. non-www).
- Cross-reference in GSC — if Google sees it, SearchAtlas will find it soon too.
⚠️ Error 5: Ahrefs data columns show empty or zero values
What's happening:
The Ahrefs API account may have hit its monthly row limit, or the API key needs renewal.
Steps to try:
- Refresh and try again — brief API timeouts resolve quickly.
- Try a different domain in Site Explorer to confirm the issue is widespread.
- If only Ahrefs data is missing while other data loads, contact support — the Ahrefs integration may need attention.
- Use the SearchAtlas native Domain Authority metric as a fallback while Ahrefs data is unavailable.
📥 Error 6: Backlink data export is incomplete
What's happening:
Most export formats have a row limit, or your filter is narrowing the results.
Steps to try:
- Clear all active filters before exporting to get the full dataset.
- Check if there's a row limit in export settings — standard exports often cap at 10,000 rows.
- For large profiles, export in segments using date range filters.
- Try exporting by Referring Domain instead of individual links for a smaller file.
- Use CSV format instead of Excel — CSV has no row limit.
🔁 Error 7: Duplicate backlink records appearing in the report
What's happening:
A data processing issue created duplicate entries, or the same link exists on multiple pages of the same domain.
Steps to try:
- Apply the "One link per domain" filter in the Backlinks table to deduplicate at the domain level.
- Check if the duplicates are truly the same link or the same domain linking from multiple pages (which is valid).
- If filtering confirms actual duplicates (identical URL, identical date), contact support with a screenshot.
Most backlink issues are not errors—they are a reflection of how web crawlers discover, index, and process link data over time.
Differences between tools, delays in discovery, and variations in data coverage are expected across the industry.
Focus on trends, domain quality, and consistency rather than isolated data points.