Competitor Backlink Analysis: Find the Links You Are Missing

Link building without direction is expensive. Studying competitor links gives you direction in three ways.

It reveals what the market considers link-worthy. If your competitors' links come mostly from local news sites, trade associations and supplier pages, that tells you what kind of content and relationships earn links in your niche. If they come from a few great guides or tools, that tells you something different.

It surfaces willing publishers. Cold outreach to a stranger has a low success rate. Outreach to a site that already links to three similar businesses has a much better one, because the question ("would you consider including us too?") is natural.

It shows the shape of the gap. If a competitor has links from 400 domains and you have 40, you are not going to close that in a month. Knowing the real size of the difference lets you plan realistically, and lets you explain to a client or manager why results take time.

The common mistake is to copy a competitor's link profile wholesale. A good analysis is not about copying; it is about finding relevant, achievable targets that you do not yet have.

Step 1: Define who your competitors are

Add competitor domains to the project. Use the sites that actually appear above you for your important keywords, which are not always the businesses you think of as competitors. Rank tracking and the competitor SEO analysis feature help identify them.

Step 2: Collect competitor links

Run the analysis for a competitor. The platform queries its configured web search and link data sources to collect pages that link to that competitor's domain, and stores each linking page with its domain, title and a snippet so you can see context. The data is stored per competitor, so you can compare them.

Step 3: Run the gap analysis

The gap analysis compares the linking domains for all active competitors with the domains that already link to your project (links recorded as live or submitted). Domains that link to competitors but not to you become gaps, and the analysis notes which competitors each domain links to. A domain that links to three of your four competitors is a much stronger target than one that links to a single competitor.

Step 4: Turn gaps into opportunities

Each gap becomes a "competitor gap" opportunity in the opportunity finder, where it is scored for quality and risk, can be dismissed or added to a campaign, and can be pursued with outreach. Gaps already present as opportunities are not duplicated.

• A competitor list with status. Choose which competitors are active in the analysis.
• Linking domains per competitor. See which domains link to each competitor and sample pages.
• A ranked gap list. Domains linking to multiple competitors rise to the top.
• Context for each target. Page title and snippet help you judge relevance without opening every page.
• Scored opportunities. Gaps feed into quality and risk scoring, so you can see which are worth pursuing.
• Outreach support. Drafts for personalised pitches, and campaign tracking from first email to live link.

Plan on an hour for the first analysis and fifteen minutes per month afterwards.

A local accounting firm

The firm compares itself with four local competitors. The gap list shows that a regional chamber of commerce directory, a small-business advice blog and two local news sites link to three of the four. The firm joins the chamber (a legitimate membership with a directory listing), contributes a guest tax-deadline checklist to the advice blog, and is later included in a local news roundup.

An e-commerce brand

An outdoor gear brand finds that many gift-guide and "best of" articles link to competitors. Rather than cold-emailing everyone, it sends samples and honest product information to the five most relevant writers, and creates a clear press page with images and facts. Some link, some do not; the list gave it focus.

A SaaS company

The gap list shows that comparison and "alternatives" articles link to competitors. The company writes an honest comparison page and pitches the authors, offering a free account so they can verify claims themselves.

Agencies can use competitor gap lists as the backbone of monthly link-building proposals.

Freelancers can show clients concrete, named targets instead of vague promises.

Businesses entering a new market can learn what links competitors have before spending anything.

Content teams can see which types of content attract links in their niche and plan accordingly.

Manual research still has value because it teaches you the niche. Automation removes the repetitive extraction and comparison.

Benefits

• Concrete, relevant targets instead of guesswork.
• Overlap across competitors is a strong relevance signal.
• Integrated with scoring, outreach and monitoring.

Limitations

• Partial data. It does not show every competitor link.
• Gaps are not guarantees. A site linking to competitors may be paid, sponsored or no longer accepting contributions.
• Quality varies. Always review the target.
• Competitor selection matters. A poor competitor list gives a poor gap list.
• Plan limits apply to backlink scans and workflow features.

1. Use real search competitors, not just brand rivals.
2. Weigh overlap heavily: three competitors beats one.
3. Create something worth linking to before outreach.
4. Check whether a competitor link is editorial or paid/sponsored.
5. Do not mimic spammy tactics just because a competitor uses them.
6. Re-run quarterly and watch for new patterns.

• Pursuing every gap, instead of the best twenty.
• Pitching without an asset worth linking to.
• Treating a competitor's paid links as a model.
• Ignoring relevance because a domain looks strong.
• Forgetting to verify links after outreach succeeds.