How to Analyse Competitor Backlinks and Build a Link Strategy

Goal: To develop a clear and structured overview of your competitors’ backlink authority and link-building strategy.

Ideal Outcome: You create a document that summarises your competitors’ backlink performance, identifies their strategies, and includes a classified list of all discovered backlinks.

Prerequisites or Requirements:

You will need the following:

• Access to an Ahrefs account.
• Access to Google Sheets or a similar spreadsheet tool.

Why This Is Important:

Analysing competitor backlinks helps you:

• Understand the level of authority your competitors possess.
• Estimate the effort required to compete with them in search rankings.
• Identify link-building strategies that are working within your industry.
• Discover link opportunities you may be able to replicate.

Where This Is Done:

• Ahrefs
• Google Sheets

When This Is Done:

• When starting SEO work on a new website.
• Repeated every three months to monitor changes in competitor strategies.

Who Does This:

• SEO specialist
• Digital marketing specialist
• Website manager responsible for SEO performance

Included Resource

Competitor Backlink Strategy Template

Identify Your Competitors

Choose the scenario that best applies to your situation:

• Option 1: Identify competitors for a specific keyword.
• Option 2: Identify competitors across all keywords your site ranks for.

Option 1: Finding Competitors for a Specific Keyword

If you want to identify competitors targeting a specific keyword:

• Open Google in Incognito Mode.
• Search for your target keyword.

• Review the organic search results on the first page.

Important:

Ensure your IP address corresponds to the market you are targeting.

Example:

• If targeting the United States market, use a US-based VPN.
• If targeting Australia, ensure your IP location is Australian.

You can verify your IP address using an online IP lookup tool.

Next:

• Review the websites ranking on the first page.
• Select competitors that are slightly larger or similar in size to your business.

Avoid selecting extremely large brands such as:

• Wikipedia
• Coca-Cola
• Amazon

These organisations typically have significantly larger marketing resources and backlink profiles, making them unrealistic benchmarks for most businesses.

Add the selected competitors to your Competitor Backlink Strategy Template.

Option 2: Identifying Competitors Across All Keywords

If you want to find competitors based on your overall keyword landscape:

• Open Ahrefs.
• Enter your domain in the search bar.

• Navigate to Organic Search.
• Select the country market you are targeting.

Ahrefs will display a list of Top Competitors based on overlapping keywords.

Next:

• Review the list of domains.
• Select competitors that are comparable or slightly larger than your website.
• Avoid selecting extremely large global brands unless they are genuine direct competitors.

Add these domains to your Competitor Backlink Strategy Template.

Prepare Your Spreadsheet

Once your competitors are identified:

• Duplicate the Competitor Sheet for each competitor.

Rename each sheet using the competitor’s name.

Example:

• Competitor – ExampleSite
• Competitor – IndustryLeader
• Competitor – LocalRival

Each competitor should have their own analysis sheet.

Analyse Your Competitors’ Link Profiles

Perform the following process for each competitor.

Step 1: Analyse Core Backlink Metrics

Search the competitor’s domain in Ahrefs.

At the top of the report, record the following metrics:

• Ahrefs Rank (AR)
  Indicates the strength of a website’s backlink profile relative to all other websites.
  Lower numbers indicate stronger backlink authority.
• Domain Rating (DR)
  Measures the strength of a website’s backlink profile on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.
• URL Rating (UR)
  Measures the strength of the backlink profile for a specific page.
• Backlinks
  Total number of backlinks pointing to the domain.
• Referring Domains
  Number of unique websites linking to the domain.

Add these metrics to your spreadsheet.

Step 2: Review the Link Acquisition Timeline

Scroll down to view the Backlinks Growth Timeline.

What to analyse:

• Sudden increases in backlinks.
• Periods where a large number of links were acquired quickly.

These spikes may indicate:

• A successful marketing campaign.
• A content marketing initiative.
• Digital PR activity.
• Partnerships or sponsorships.

Record relevant observations in the comments section of your spreadsheet.

Step 3: Analyse Geographic Link Distribution

Review the Country TLD Distribution Map.

This visualisation shows the geographic origin of backlinks.

Typical patterns include:

• Global brands receiving links from many countries.
• Local businesses receiving links primarily from their target country.

Potential warning signs include:

• Large volumes of backlinks from unrelated countries.

Example:

If a website targeting Spain receives the majority of links from Russia (.ru) domains, this may indicate an unnatural backlink profile.

Add observations to your spreadsheet comments.

Step 4: Analyse Anchor Text Distribution

Navigate to the Anchors Report.

Analyse the most frequently used anchor texts linking to the site.

A natural anchor profile typically includes:

• Brand name anchors
• Generic anchors (e.g., “here”, “website”, “click here”)
• URL anchors

Potential warning signs include:

• A high concentration of exact-match keyword anchors.
• Repetitive commercial keywords.
• Irrelevant or unusual anchor text.

Examples of possible explanations:

• Aggressive SEO link building
• Historical rebranding
• Mergers or acquisitions
• Negative SEO activity

Record key insights in the spreadsheet.

Export the Backlink Profile

To export backlink data:

1. In Ahrefs, navigate to Backlinks.
2. Apply the filter One link per domain.

This ensures each referring domain appears only once.

1. Click Export.
2. Download the data as a CSV file.

Import Data Into Your Spreadsheet

Open your Competitor Backlink Strategy Template.

• Navigate to the sheet for the competitor.

• Ensure the cursor is placed in Cell A1.

• Click File → Import. Select the CSV file you exported.

Choose the option:

• Replace data at selected cell

Then click Import Data.

The backlink data will populate automatically if the column headers align correctly.

Important:

Do not modify the column headers in the template.

Classify Each Backlink

Review each backlink and complete the following fields.

Link Type

Classify the type of link.

Examples:

• Directory
• Forum
• Blog article
• Comment
• Review
• Testimonial
• Partnership
• Affiliate
• Podcast
• App store listing
• Social media
• Guest article

Spam

Evaluate whether the link appears spammy.

Indicators of spam include:

• Gambling or adult websites
• Pharmaceutical spam
• Pages containing dozens or hundreds of outbound links
• Low-quality or irrelevant content
• Suspicious or poorly structured domains

Mark these links accordingly.

Attainable

Determine whether you could realistically acquire a similar backlink.

Examples:

• Business directory listings
• Industry forums
• Guest blogging opportunities
• Partnerships or sponsorships

Consider your current resources and capabilities.

Action to Take

Identify any strategic actions you may want to pursue based on the discovered links.

Example actions include:

• Listing your business in the same directories.
• Creating similar content that attracted backlinks.
• Launching campaigns similar to successful competitor initiatives.
• Reaching out to websites linking to competitors.

Example:

If a competitor launched a public health campaign that generated significant media coverage, you may consider launching a similar initiative and contacting those publications.

Final Outcome

At the end of this process, you will have:

• A comprehensive overview of competitor backlink authority.
• A detailed breakdown of their link-building strategy.
• A classified backlink database.
• A list of realistic link opportunities for your own SEO strategy.