How to Do a Competitor Backlink Gap Analysis (Step by Step)

By Salman Mirza · October 20, 2026

Most link prospecting starts with a blank page: brainstorming sites that might link to you and sending cold emails into the void. A competitor backlink gap analysis flips that around. Instead of guessing who might link to you, you find the sites that already link to your competitors but not to you, and you start there.

Ahrefs defines it plainly: a backlink gap analysis is the process of finding great links your competitors have that you do not. A site that has already linked to two or three businesses like yours is a far warmer prospect than a site you found through a Google search.

This matters because random prospecting burns time and reply rates. Editorial.Link's research puts it well. Targeting websites that already link to similar content makes the backlink easier to secure, because the editorial decision has effectively been made before you arrive. That is exactly how our link building services start every engagement, with a full competitor gap analysis first, and only then sites matched to your budget. For the wider picture, see what link building services are and how they work.

What a Competitor Backlink Gap Analysis Actually Is

A gap analysis compares your backlink profile against your competitors' and surfaces the difference: a list of referring domains, each tagged with how many of your competitors it links to. In Ahrefs this is the Intersect number.

The analysis also works in reverse. Search Engine Journal points out that backlinks you earn which your competitors do not have are extremely valuable, driving trust signals and referral traffic to you alone. The gap analysis does two jobs: it shows which gaps to close, and over time where you have opened a gap of your own.

Picking the Right Competitors

The analysis is only as good as the competitors you feed it. Your business competitors are not always your search competitors. For a gap analysis, search competitors matter more, because they hold the links you are trying to win.

A practical way to build the list:

1. Search your most valuable keywords and note which domains actually outrank you. Those are your true SERP competitors.
2. Confirm the list in your SEO tool. In Ahrefs Site Explorer, the Organic Competitors report shows who competes with you for the same keywords. Ahrefs' gap guide recommends picking competitors with higher authority than you but in a similar bracket for site size. Do not analyse a giant publisher if you run a small service site.
3. Filter for niche fit. Editorial.Link advises checking that each domain is in the same industry and targets the same audience before you spend time on its profile. A site that looks like a competitor on metrics but serves a different audience will hand you irrelevant prospects.
4. Keep the list tight: three to five competitors for Ahrefs, up to four for Semrush. More introduces noise. Fewer gives you a thin pool.

Running the Analysis in Ahrefs With Link Intersect

Link Intersect lives under Competitive Research in Ahrefs. Here is the exact workflow, following Ahrefs' published gap guide:

Step 1: Enter your domain in the top field, then add your three to five competitors below.

Step 2: Set the report to referring domains, not referring pages. Domain level first keeps the list clean. You drill down to page level later.

Step 3: Click Show link opportunities. Ahrefs returns every referring domain that links to your competitors but not to you, each with an Intersect score.

Step 4: Refine with filters. Domains linking to all your competitors are high priority. Domains linking to at least two are medium priority. Then filter to dofollow domains only. If the list is still long, set a Domain Rating floor, Ahrefs suggests fifty as a starting point, or a domain traffic floor of one thousand monthly visitors, adjusted to your niche.

Step 5: Check relevance by eye. Open each domain and ask three questions, straight from the Ahrefs guide. Is it about your industry. Is it a business directory. Is it a high quality site that can build your brand. If the answer to all three is no, move on.

Step 6: Record the survivors in a spreadsheet. For each domain note the site, its Domain Rating, its domain traffic, a status of To Outreach, a priority of High, Medium or Low, and the target page on your site.

Step 7: Switch to referring pages mode and repeat. You need the exact linking page when your outreach asks for a link insertion into an existing article.

Running the Analysis in Semrush With Backlink Gap

The Semrush workflow follows the same logic with its own interface:

1. Open the Backlink Gap tool, enter your domain and up to four competing domains, then click Find prospects.
2. Read the six tabs: Best (links to all competitors but not you), Weak (links to you less than to competitors), Strong (links only to you), Shared (links to everyone), Unique (links to only one domain), All (everything).
3. Start on the Best tab: domains that do not link to you but are likely willing to. A site linking to four of your competitors has a high chance of linking to you too, as Backlinko's Semrush guide notes.
4. Filter by Authority Score and relevance to trim the list to prospects worth contacting.
5. Tick the checkboxes next to your chosen prospects and click Start outreach to send them into Semrush's Link Building Tool.

Semrush's backlink database holds more than forty three trillion links, so coverage is rarely the problem. Judgement is. Your filters decide which prospects deserve an email.

Exporting, Deduping and Prioritising Prospects

A raw gap export is a starting point, not a prospect list. Run it through three passes before anyone writes an outreach email.

First pass: dedupe. Remove every domain that already links to you, every domain you have already contacted, and any domain you cannot work with.

Second pass: score by intersect. A domain linking to four competitors has made the same editorial decision four times. Work the list from the highest intersect down. Every gap you close is a win, and every link you earn that competitors lack opens a gap in your favour.

Third pass: apply quality filters. Keep prospects that clear all four:

1. Topical relevance. The site covers your industry or a closely adjacent one. A DR sixty site outside your niche passes weaker signal than a DR forty site inside it, so relevance outranks raw authority.
2. Real organic traffic. Search Engine Journal suggests one thousand monthly organic visitors as a great starting point. A high authority score with zero traffic is often a link farm, an expired domain, or a dead site.
3. Dofollow status. Nofollow links can send traffic, but the gap analysis is about ranking power, so dofollow comes first.
4. Attainability. A national newspaper linking to all four competitors is a real gap, but if you have nothing newsworthy to offer, it belongs at the bottom of the list.

A simple priority table keeps the team aligned:

Map every surviving prospect to a link target: the specific page on your site the link should point to.

Turning Gaps Into Links: Outreach or Linkable Assets

Finding the gap is half the job. The other half is giving the site a reason to link to you, and that starts with understanding why it linked to your competitor. Open the linking page and read the context. Was it a listicle mention, a statistic citation, a resource page listing, or a founder quote. Your pitch has to match the reason.

If your existing content deserves the same placement, outreach is the move. Reference the exact page, explain what your content adds, and make the yes easy. The site has already decided this topic deserves links. You are joining an existing conversation, not starting one.

If your content does not deserve the placement yet, build the asset first. Gap analyses repeatedly surface the same linkable formats: original research, comprehensive guides, free tools and templates, and definitive resource pages. When a competitor's resource keeps earning links, that content type is proven in your niche, so building your own version is a sound investment, as Search Engine Journal's backlink analysis guide notes. You can then pitch your improved asset to the same sites linking to the older piece.

Match the tactic to the gap type:

1. Listicles and comparison articles mentioning competitors but not you: pitch for inclusion, or publish a better resource and suggest it as an addition.
2. Resource pages: suggest your guide or tool as a new entry. These pages exist to be comprehensive, which makes them the friendliest outreach target on the list.
3. Broken links on gap domains: find pages where the competitor's link is dead and offer your page as the replacement. Semrush's Indexed Pages report surfaces competitor pages with broken backlinks to work from.
4. Expert quotes, interviews and podcasts: if competitors earned links by being quoted, get yourself quoted. Respond to journalist requests and podcast pitches in your niche.
5. Legitimate directories and association listings: unglamorous, quick to win, and worth doing once.

Outreach at any real volume is a full time job, which is what link building services handle day to day. Our guide to what link building services cover explains where the line usually falls.

Common Mistakes That Waste a Gap Analysis

Chasing every gap. A four hundred row export is not a four hundred prospect list. The analysis earns its keep in the filtering, not the exporting. Work thirty sharp prospects, not three hundred vague ones.

Ignoring relevance. An off topic link from a strong domain looks good in a report and does little for rankings. Relevance is what makes a link move the needle in your niche. When in doubt, the niche relevant DR forty site beats the generic DR seventy site.

Copying toxic links. Competitor profiles contain links you should never replicate: paid link networks, private blog networks, spammy directories, footer link schemes. Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links primarily to manipulate rankings, and list buying or selling links for ranking purposes among the examples. Vet every prospect. If money changes hands for a placement, that link must carry a rel sponsored or rel nofollow attribute.

Over optimising anchor text. When you win gap links at scale, keep anchors natural. Search Engine Journal's backlink value guide recommends a mix of branded, natural and exact match anchors, warning that a small site collecting dozens of identical exact match anchors looks suspicious.

Treating it as a one off exercise. Competitors keep building links after your analysis, so set up new backlink alerts for your competitor set and repeat the intersect quarterly. If you outsource any of this, our guide to how to choose a link building agency covers the checks that matter first.

How Often Should You Repeat It

Quarterly is the right cadence for most sites: frequent enough to catch new competitor links while fresh, spaced enough that each cycle has time to produce results. Between cycles, set alerts for new backlinks on your competitor domains.

Repeat the full analysis after any major event: a big content launch, a rankings drop, a new competitor entering your SERPs, or a change in your target keyword set. Give each cycle room to breathe. Outreach, negotiation, content creation and indexing take weeks, and ranking movement takes longer. Our timeline guide on how long link building takes maps the full wait from first email to visible movement.

Get Your Competitor Gap Analysis Done for You

A gap analysis is straightforward in theory and time consuming in practice. The research, the filtering, the relevance checks, the outreach, the follow ups. Most teams do not have someone free to run it properly every quarter.

That is what we do. LinkTrixx runs a full competitor backlink gap analysis at the start of every engagement, then matches link opportunities to your budget instead of handing you a random site list. If you want the gaps found, filtered and worked by people who do it daily, talk to us through our link building services. For a broader market view, see our roundup of the best link building services for 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a competitor backlink gap analysis?

It is the process of finding links your competitors have that you do not. Compare your backlink profile against three to five competitors, find the referring domains linking to them but not to you, filter for relevance and quality, and turn the survivors into an outreach list.

Which tools can run a backlink gap analysis?

Ahrefs has Link Intersect, Semrush has Backlink Gap, and Moz, Majestic and Ubersuggest offer equivalents. For a free option, Bing Webmaster Tools lets you compare your site against up to two competitors and filter for domains not linking to your site.

How do you choose which competitors to analyse?

Pick search competitors, the domains outranking you for your target keywords, not just business rivals. Use the Organic Competitors report in your SEO tool, choose sites with higher authority in a similar size bracket, confirm they serve the same niche and audience, and keep the list to three to five domains.

What filters should you apply to gap results?

Start with intersect count: domains linking to all competitors first. Then keep only dofollow links, apply a Domain Rating floor suited to your tier, require real organic traffic, and check every surviving domain by eye for topical relevance before it goes on the outreach list.

Should you copy every link your competitors have?

No. Competitor profiles contain irrelevant, unattainable and toxic links you should never replicate. Paid link networks and spammy directories in a competitor's profile are their problem, not your opportunity. Vet every prospect, and qualify any paid placement with rel sponsored or rel nofollow.

What is the best way to win a gap link: outreach or new content?

It depends on why the site linked. If your existing page deserves the same placement, do targeted outreach referencing the exact page. If it does not, build the linkable asset first: original research, a comprehensive guide, a free tool or a definitive resource, then pitch it to the sites linking to the older piece.

How often should you repeat a backlink gap analysis?

Quarterly works for most sites, with new backlink alerts running on your competitors between cycles. Repeat the full analysis after major events like a big content launch, a rankings drop, or a new competitor entering your search results.