Off-Page SEO & Link BuildingCompetitor backlink analysis and planning · Lesson 16 of 17
Competitor backlink analysis
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Competitor backlink analysis
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0:00 Competitor backlink analysis
Your competitors have already run hundreds of link building experiments. The results are sitting in plain sight in their backlink profiles. In this lecture you'll learn how to reverse engineer how competitors earned their links, find sites that link to them but not to you, avoid copying their mistakes, and turn it all into a short, prioritised list of opportunities.
0:26 Three questions
Why does this matter? Because it answers three questions quickly. Who links in our space? What content earns those links? And where are the gaps we can realistically close? It's also a reality check on what it takes to compete. But it's only valuable if you qualify what you find. A raw competitor export is a list of places to look, not a to do list.
0:55 Choose competitors
Start by choosing the right competitors. Your search competitors may differ from your business competitors. For a Karachi digital agency, the pages ranking for technical SEO audit might include global software blogs, a UK agency and a news publisher. So pick three to five sites ranking for your priority query groups, one or two direct business competitors of similar size, and one aspirational leader.
1:23 Watch the game film
Here's the analogy. Think of competitor analysis like studying the game film of rival teams. You don't copy every move. Some moves were lucky, and some would get you penalised. You look for the patterns that consistently work and that fit your players. The five steps are: profile overview, top linked pages, link intersect, link types, and anchor and target patterns.
1:50 Steps 1–2
Step one, the profile overview. Look at the referring domains trend: growing, flat or falling. New and lost domains per month, anchor text distribution, follow and nofollow mix, and top countries of linking sites. A sudden spike of referring domains with exact match anchors may indicate paid links, so don't copy it. A steady climb often reflects content and PR. Step two, top linked pages. Classify them: data studies, tools and guides are usually replicable. Home page links reflect partnerships and brand. Press about funding is situational.
2:28 Step 3: link intersect
Step three is the heart of it: the link intersect, or link gap. Find domains linking to two or more competitors but not to you. These sites are demonstrably willing to link in your space. Most tools have this report built in. The lesson also shows how to do it in pandas from referring domain exports, which is handy when you want more competitors or want to merge the result with your audit sheet. Either way, qualify every domain with your checklist and assign a tactic.
3:05 Example 1 (simple)
Worked example one, simple. A pet grooming salon in Leeds checks two nearby competitors. The intersect shows four domains linking to both: a local pet adoption charity's resources page, a community events site, a vet practice's recommended services page, and a dog walking blog. All four are relevant and legitimate. The salon plans a free grooming day for adopted dogs with the charity, lists it on the events site, and asks the vet about a genuine referral partnership.
3:39 Example 2 (illustrative)
Worked example two, realistic and illustrative. An Abu Dhabi dental clinic compares itself with three competitors that rank in the local pack and organic results. The intersect surfaces a community health portal listing clinics, two local parenting blogs that reviewed family dentists, and a university dental faculty page listing training partners. But one competitor's profile also contains dozens of links from unrelated overseas guest post blogs with keyword anchors. That goes in the notes as a risk pattern, not a tactic.
4:14 Steps 4–5
The clinic's plan targets the health portal as a legitimate listing, creates a genuinely useful children's dental care guide for the parenting blogs, and proposes a training partnership with the faculty. Steps four and five complete the picture. Sample thirty to fifty competitor links manually to estimate their mix of media, resource pages, partners and questionable sources. And check which pages get links and with what anchors, and how competitors pass value from content assets to commercial pages with internal links.
4:49 Is it replicable?
Let's pause and practise classification. A competitor's top linked page is a free VAT calculator for the UAE and Saudi Arabia with links from accounting blogs and a government small business portal. Is it replicable? Maybe. Ask whether you can build something meaningfully better, newer or more specific, like one that also covers e-invoicing requirements, with sources. If you can, it's an asset opportunity, not an outreach one. If you can't, don't just copy it. Look at the next page on the list. Competitor analysis often reveals content gaps, not just outreach targets.
5:29 Follow the value
One more subtle insight. Look at where competitors' links point. If most land on content assets, like guides and studies, check how those assets link internally to commercial pages. That internal path is how link value reaches the pages that make money. If your own assets earn links but don't link to your service pages, you're leaving value on the table. Sometimes the fastest win from a competitor analysis isn't a new link at all. It's adding three internal links from your best linked page to the service pages that need a boost.
6:09 Watch me do it: link gap to action list
Watch me do it. I'll run a link gap for a Leeds physiotherapy clinic against three competitors. First, I export referring domains for our site and each competitor from the same backlink tool, and save them as four CSV files in an exports folder, named by domain. Next, I check the domain column name in the export and set it at the top of the pandas script. I run it. It prints: sixty four domains link to two or more competitors but not to us. I open link gap dot CSV. Then I qualify, starting with domains that link to all three. The local council's active travel page lists clinics that run free running injury talks. That's a tactic: offer a talk. A running club's partners page, a relationship. A sports science department's placements page, a genuine partnership. Two overseas article directories with keyword anchors, which I mark as a risk pattern, not a target. I fill the tactic and decision columns for the top thirty. Finally, I turn the best eight into the prioritised table: opportunity, tactic, effort, expected value, owner and date. Sixty four raw rows became eight real actions.
7:32 AI-era extension + mistakes
A new extension for the AI era. For your key buyer questions, note which sources AI answers cite when they mention competitors: review sites, trade media, forums, YouTube channels. Those sources often overlap with your link gap, and they show you where your brand is simply absent from the conversation. Now the common mistakes. Choosing only business competitors. Copying competitors' spammy link sources. And handing a client a raw export of thousands of unqualified domains.
8:05 Recap
Recap. Pick search competitors that actually rank, plus a couple of business rivals and one leader. Analyse trends, top pages, the link intersect, link types and anchors. Qualify every gap and never copy spam. End with a short, prioritised list: opportunity, tactic, effort, expected value, owner and target date. Try this now. Run a link intersect for your site against three search competitors and qualify the top thirty domains into tactic buckets.
What competitor analysis tells you
Competitor backlink analysis answers three questions: who links in our space, what content earns those links, and where are the gaps we can realistically close. It is also a reality check on the link profile needed to compete.
Choose the right competitors
Your search competitors may differ from your business competitors. For a Karachi digital agency, the pages ranking for "technical SEO audit" might include global SaaS blogs, a UK agency and a news publisher. Pick:
- 3–5 sites ranking for your priority query groups (from Search Console and a rank tracker).
- 1–2 direct business competitors of similar size.
- 1 aspirational leader.
The analysis workflow
Step 1: Profile overview
For each competitor, from one tool: referring domains trend (growing, flat, falling), new and lost domains per month, anchor text distribution, follow/nofollow mix, top countries/TLDs of linking sites.
Look for patterns: a sudden spike of referring domains with exact-match anchors may indicate paid links (do not copy it); a steady climb often reflects content and PR.
Step 2: Top linked pages
The "best by links" report shows which pages attract links. Classify each:
| Page type | Example | Replicable? |
|---|---|---|
| Data study | "State of e-commerce in the Gulf 2025" | Yes — with our own better or more specific data |
| Free tool | Keyword density checker | Maybe — is there a better angle? |
| Guide | "What is hreflang?" | Yes — if we can be better or more localised |
| Home page | Brand links, directories, partners | Partly — partnerships and mentions |
| Press/news | Funding announcement | No — situational |
Step 3: Link gap (link intersect)
Find domains linking to two or more competitors but not you. These sites are demonstrably willing to link in your space.
Link intersect: target = ours.example
Competitors: comp-a.example, comp-b.example, comp-c.example
Filter: domains linking to ≥2 competitors, not linking to us
Output columns: domain, linked competitors, linking page, link type, estimated trafficQualify every result with the link opportunity checklist. Classify by the tactic that could win it: resource page, industry directory (legitimate, curated), media coverage, partner listing, conference sponsor, guest contribution, podcast.
Step 4: Link types and tactics
Sample 30–50 competitor links manually. Estimate what share come from: editorial media, resource pages, partners/integrations, events, directories, guest posts, and questionable sources. This reveals their strategy — and what you should not imitate.
Step 5: Anchor and target patterns
Which pages receive links, and with what anchors? If competitors' commercial pages get links directly, how (partners, directories)? If links flow mainly to content assets, how do they pass value to commercial pages through internal linking?
Reading the results sensibly
- Do not chase parity for its own sake. A competitor's 5,000 referring domains may include many low-value ones. Focus on relevant, reachable, high-quality gaps.
- Watch for spam footprints in competitor profiles. Seeing competitors "get away with" paid links is not a reason to follow; the links may already be ignored, and your client bears the risk.
- Consider content gaps too. If competitors earn links with data you do not have, the solution may be a new asset, not outreach.
Worked example (illustrative)
An Abu Dhabi dental clinic compares itself with three competitors ranking in the local pack and organic results. The link intersect shows several relevant opportunities: a community health portal listing clinics, two local parenting blogs that reviewed family dentists, and a university dental faculty page listing training partners. One competitor's profile contains many links from unrelated overseas "guest post" blogs with keyword anchors — noted as a risk, not a tactic. The plan targets the health portal (legitimate listing), a genuinely useful children's dental care guide for the parenting blogs, and a training partnership with the faculty.
Output
End the analysis with a short, prioritised list:
Opportunity | Tactic | Effort | Expected value | Owner | Target dateHands-on: a link intersect in pandas
Most backlink tools have a built-in link intersect report. When you need it across tools, for more competitors or combined with your audit sheet, do it yourself from referring-domain exports (one CSV per site; adjust the column name to your tool):
from pathlib import Path
import pandas as pd
DOMAIN_COL = "Domain" # adjust to your export's column name
ours = "ours.example"
competitors = ["comp-a.example", "comp-b.example", "comp-c.example"]
def domains(site: str) -> set[str]:
df = pd.read_csv(Path("exports") / f"{site}.csv")
return set(df[DOMAIN_COL].str.lower().str.removeprefix("www."))
ours_set = domains(ours)
counts: dict[str, list[str]] = {}
for comp in competitors:
for d in domains(comp) - ours_set:
counts.setdefault(d, []).append(comp)
gap = (pd.DataFrame([{"domain": d, "links_to": ", ".join(c), "n_competitors": len(c)}
for d, c in counts.items()])
.query("n_competitors >= 2")
.sort_values("n_competitors", ascending=False))
gap["tactic"] = "" # resource page, directory, media, partner, event, podcast...
gap["decision"] = "" # filled in after the quality checklist
gap.to_csv("link_gap.csv", index=False)
print(f"{len(gap)} domains link to 2+ competitors but not to us")Then qualify the output with your link opportunity checklist and assign a tactic to each domain. The raw export is a list of places to look, not a to-do list.
Competitor analysis for AI visibility
Extend the analysis beyond links: for your prompt panel's key questions, note which sources AI answers cite when they mention competitors (review sites, trade media, forums, YouTube). Those sources often overlap with your link gap — and they tell you where your brand is simply absent from the conversation.
Common mistakes
- Choosing only business competitors, missing the sites that actually rank.
- Copying competitors' spammy link sources.
- Presenting raw link gap exports with thousands of unqualified domains.
Key takeaways
- Pick search competitors that actually rank for your priority queries, not only business rivals.
- Analyse profile trends, top linked pages, link intersect gaps, link types and anchor patterns.
- Qualify every gap with your quality checklist; never copy spam footprints.
- Turn findings into a short prioritised list of opportunities, tactics and owners.
Check your understanding
Quick questions to lock in the lesson. They don’t count towards your certificate.
Put it into practice
Run a link intersect for your site against three search competitors and qualify the top 30 domains into tactic buckets.
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