XenonFlare

Guides

Agency backlink monitoring

Track new and lost inbound links per client property — discovery finds candidates, sync verifies them, and snapshots feed client reports.

How the index grows

XenonFlare builds a self-growing backlink index per website property — not a global Ahrefs-scale crawl. Two jobs power the workspace:

  • Backlink discovery (backlink-discovery) — Common Crawl CDX, web mention search, referring-domain expand, and optional GSC page seeds enqueue candidate URLs.
  • Backlink sync (gsc-links-sync) — fetches candidates, probes live links, and persists new/lost/broken diffs per snapshot.

Google Search Console Links data is not available via API — GSC only seeds on-site crawl paths. See Agency portfolio monitoring for batch scans and webhooks on SEO crawls.

Agency plan limits

Backlinks require Starter or above per client property. For multi-client portfolios, Agency provides:

  • Unlimited monthly backlink syncs (manual + scheduled)
  • 100 discovery queries per org per month
  • Up to 10,000 pending candidates per property
  • Scheduled discovery + sync when each property has a scan schedule (daily/weekly)

Client-facing delivery uses the same white-label reports as SEO audits — Agency client reports.

Workspace API

Load the property backlink workspace (latest snapshot, discovery stats, monthly usage) in one call:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $XF_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.xenonflare.com/api/v1/properties/$XF_PROPERTY_ID/backlinks/workspace"

Discovery stats & enqueue

Check queue depth, source breakdown, and remaining discovery quota before enqueueing jobs:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $XF_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.xenonflare.com/api/v1/properties/$XF_PROPERTY_ID/backlinks/discovery/stats"

Enqueue discovery and sync separately — sync drains the candidate queue:

curl -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $XF_API_KEY" \
  https://api.xenonflare.com/api/v1/properties/$XF_PROPERTY_ID/backlinks/jobs/backlink-discovery

Poll GET /jobs/:id until completed. Register a webhook for job.completed to fan out across many client properties without N+1 polling.

Link neighborhood graphs

Beyond the backlinks table, each property has a link neighborhood graph in the web app (Backlinks → Graph). The Developer API exposes the same flat node payloads for custom dashboards:

  • GET …/backlinks/graph — property at center, referring domains on a ring, changeSummary from the latest snapshot (Starter+)
  • GET …/backlinks/graph/neighbors?domain= — outbound targets from referrer crawl (Growth+)
  • GET /organization/backlinks/portfolio-graph — Agency map of all client properties and shared referring domains (purple nodes link to 2+ clients)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $XF_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.xenonflare.com/api/v1/properties/$XF_PROPERTY_ID/backlinks/graph"

In the app, graphs auto-refresh when discovery or sync jobs complete. Open Portfolio → Link neighborhood on Agency to spot press or directory domains linking multiple clients.

Typical agency workflow

  1. Add each client domain as a verified website property in your Agency workspace.
  2. Set a scan schedule (daily or weekly) — scheduled backlink sync and discovery run automatically on Growth+.
  3. Run an initial manual discovery + sync for high-priority clients, then rely on the schedule.
  4. Include backlink new/lost counts in client report emails or your internal dashboard from workspace payloads.

Ops & tuning

Internal XenonFlare staff use Ops → Growth → Backlink discovery for fleet KPIs. Plan limit tuning playbook: docs/backlink-discovery-tuning.md in the monorepo (not customer-facing).

Create an API key

Backlink jobs need jobs:write and properties:read on your Developer API key.

Developer API access requires Starter, Growth, or Agency. Free tier includes the web app and free marketing tools — not API keys.

Create API key in appAPI referenceDeveloper settings →