Competitor Backlink Analysis: How to Find Links You Can Win

Your competitor outranks you with a thinner page.

You check their content. It's fine, not brilliant.

So why do they win?

Often the answer sits off their site, in who links to them.

Competitor backlink analysis shows you that list, and more usefully, which parts of it you could match.

I run this check as part of my own competitor research pipeline. These are the eight steps behind it, written so you can run them with any backlink tool.

What Competitor Backlink Analysis Should Tell You

Before you export anything, be clear about the questions:

1. Which sites link to several of my competitors but not to me?
2. How did each competitor earn its links?
3. Which competitor pages attract the most links, and why?
4. Which of those links could I realistically win?

The last question is the one that matters.

A link you can't win is just trivia.

If you want the wider picture first, my guide to SEO competitor analysis covers pages, structure and content alongside links.

Step 1: Choose Competitors With Comparable Link Profiles

Pick three to five competitors that outrank you for terms that bring you money.

Then sense-check each one.

A national brand with decades of press coverage will have links you can't copy. So will a huge marketplace or a government site.

Swap those for businesses closer to your size and model.

You want rivals whose links came from things you could also do: local partnerships, industry listings, a useful guide, a supplier page.

Step 2: Export Referring Domains, Not Backlinks

Every major backlink tool has two reports: backlinks and referring domains.

Use referring domains.

One blog that links to a competitor from every page footer can show up as thousands of backlinks. It is still one website and one relationship.

Export for each competitor:

• Referring domain
• Number of links from that domain
• Whether the main link is followed or qualified (nofollow, sponsored, UGC)
• A traffic or authority estimate from the tool
• First seen date

Save each export with the competitor name and date.

Step 3: Cut the Noise Before You Read Anything

Raw referring domain lists contain a lot of rubbish.

Filter out:

• Scraper and spam sites that copy content and links automatically.
• Domains with no organic traffic at all, which usually means nobody reads them.
• Link farms and obvious paid link networks.
• Sites in languages or countries irrelevant to you.

Keep a note of qualified links rather than deleting them.

Google's guide to qualifying outbound links says links marked sponsored, UGC or nofollow will generally not be followed. They still show you where a competitor is visible, and a listing can send real visitors.

If a domain looks dubious, check it properly. My process for checking backlink quality works just as well on a competitor's links as on yours.

Step 4: Find Domains Linking to Several Competitors but Not You

This is the most valuable step.

Merge the cleaned lists. For each domain, count how many of your competitors it links to.

Then remove every domain that already links to you.

Sort by competitor count, highest first.

A site that already links to three of your rivals writes about what you do.

You have a genuine reason to get in touch. Check too whether it already mentions you without a link. Those are the easiest wins of all, and unlinked brand mentions shows how to claim them.

Many of the top rows will be directories and listings. For those, the process in finding directory listing opportunities takes it from here.

Step 5: Sort Every Link by How It Was Earned

A domain count tells you who links. It doesn't tell you why.

Open the linking page for each shortlisted domain and label it:

That last row matters.

Google's spam policies define link spam as links created mainly to manipulate rankings, and buying links that pass ranking credit is one of its examples.

If a competitor's profile leans on paid links, don't follow them. Those links can be ignored or worse, and you can't control when that happens.

Step 6: Study the Pages That Attract Their Links

Now flip the view from domains to pages.

Most backlink tools have a "best by links" or "top linked pages" report. Run it for each competitor.

You'll usually find that a handful of pages hold most of the links.

Look at what they are:

• A free tool or calculator
• An original survey or data study
• A definitive guide that others cite as a reference
• A local resource, like a list of grants or regulations

This tells you what kind of content earns links in your market.

If every competitor's most-linked page is a cost calculator, that's a strong hint.

Ask yourself whether you could build something better, not just similar. That's the core of most link building strategies that still work.

Also check for linked pages that now return a 404. Those links are going nowhere, and you may be able to offer a replacement. My guide to broken link building covers how.

Step 7: Read the Anchor Text and Timing

Two quick checks add context to everything above.

Anchor text. Look at the words competitors are linked with.

Mostly brand names and URLs is normal and healthy.

Lots of exact-match money phrases like "best emergency plumber Leeds" usually means links were placed, not earned.

Timing. Sort links by first seen date.

A steady trickle points to ongoing work: PR, content, partnerships.

A sudden spike points to a single event: a launch, a viral study, a campaign. Find out what it was.

Neither check is a verdict on its own. Together they help you separate tactics worth learning from ones to avoid.

Step 8: Score What You Can Win and Build the List

Now turn the analysis into a shortlist.

Score each remaining prospect on three things:

1. Relevance. Does the site serve your audience or industry?
2. Reachability. Is there a clear route in: a submission form, an editor, a relationship?
3. Real value. Does the site have readers, and would they click through to you?

Keep the prospects that score well on all three.

Group them by action: submit a listing, pitch an editor, offer a replacement resource, ask a partner.

Check every prospect by hand before you contact it.

Tools misclassify pages, and an email to the wrong person or a dead site wastes your time and theirs.

When you want this run at scale, link prospecting automation handles the merging, classifying and checking across many competitors.

Mistakes to Avoid

• Counting backlinks instead of domains. It inflates sitewide links and hides real relationships.
• Chasing every link a competitor has. Some came from things you can't or shouldn't copy.
• Ignoring qualified links. Not every useful listing passes ranking credit, and some still send customers.
• Skipping the "why". Without knowing how a link was earned, you can't plan how to earn yours.
• Copying spam. If a rival ranks despite paid links, that is a risk they carry, not a strategy. My guide to toxic backlinks explains why most of them are simply ignored, and when they are not.

Start With One Competitor and One Overlap List

You don't need five competitors and a full classification on day one.

Pick the rival that outranks you most often.

Export their referring domains and your own, then list domains that link to them and not you.

Open the top twenty. You'll quickly see how they earn links, and which of those routes are open to you.

When you're ready to run it across your whole market, my competitor analysis automation includes backlink gap checks alongside each rival's page map and rankings.

The prospects it finds can feed a link building campaign, or you can work through them yourself. If you'd like to see what the data would show first, start with an automated look at your competitors.