Ever wonder how your competitors keep landing high-authority, contextual backlinks while you’re stuck with low-DR links?

The smartest SEO pros know the secret to outranking your competition lies in their backlink profiles.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to spy on competitors’ backlinks, reverse-engineer their link strategies, and turn them into link-building opportunities.

Let’s get started!

TL;DR - How to Find Competitor Backlinks

For those short on time, here’s a simple guide to help you find competitor backlinks:

1. Know your competitors
2. Analyze backlink data
3. Look for link patterns
4. Identify top-referring domains
5. Monitor changes in the backlink profiles

If you’re looking to analyze your competitors’ backlinks for insights into refining your link-building strategy, get expert insights.

At Profit Engine, we have 10+ years of experience helping online businesses find competitors’ backlinks and pursue similar or higher-quality placements to gain an edge. We leverage AI and SEO tools to identify and seal link gaps so that you can outrank your competitors in relevant searches.

Schedule a free call today to start working on the competitor backlink audits!

What Is Competitor Backlink Analysis?

Competitor backlink analysis simply means auditing external links pointing to websites in your niche. It is also known as link gap analysis, as it seeks to identify high-quality backlinks leading to your competitors’ website but not yours.

A comprehensive competitor backlink analysis should answer the following questions:

• Where do competitors get their backlinks?
• Which backlinks offer the most SEO value?
• How can we get similar or superior backlinks to get an edge?

Benefits of Spying on Competitor Backlinks

Next, let’s outline the key advantages of analyzing your competitors’ backlinks:

• Identify Link Gaps: Analyzing competitors’ link-building strategies helps you find ‘low-hanging fruits’ you could pursue for quick backlink placements. This is because most domains linking to competitors’ websites will likely link to yours if your content aligns with their audience’s interests.
• Benchmarking: Evaluating your competitors' backlinks helps you distinguish between high-authority and low-quality links. This way, you can prioritize backlinks that promise the highest SEO value.
• Diversifying Your Backlink Profile: If you have a strong link-building strategy, you might run out of ideas to improve your backlink profile further. Spying on competitors’ backlinks helps you identify new ways to reinforce your link-building strategy to get an edge. For example, you could learn how they use tiered links to create a network of high-quality backlinks across their sites.

What to Look for in a Competitor’s Backlink Profile

Analyzing competitors' backlinks goes beyond examining the number of links. You should assess the backlink profile holistically to determine why your competitors outrank or don't outrank you.

Here are essential metrics to consider:

• Referring Domains: Assess the total backlinks volume and unique domains to determine how often competitor websites receive high-DR links.
• Domain Authority: Check the domain authority (DA) and rating (DR) of the websites linking to your competitors and how they impact SEO performance.
• Dofollow Links: Determine the percentage of competitor backlinks that are dofollow vs. nofollow. A high dofollow link ratio means your competitors receive strong SEO link juice from the referring domains.
• Anchor Text Analysis: Check for patterns in your competitors’ anchor text usage, such as branded terms, exact-match keywords, and broad-match phrases, to understand how your competitors optimize their backlink placements.
• Contextual Backlinks Placement: Evaluate your competitors’ contextual link-building strategies to see whether the backlinks are inserted within content, in footers, or sidebars.

How to Spy on Your Competitors' Backlinks

Analyzing your competitors’ backlinks is the best way to determine their edge. It provides insight into improving your link-building strategy to close the gap.

Below is a step-by-step guide for auditing your competitors’ backlink profiles:

1. Know Your Competitors

Identify websites that rank high on SERPs for your target keywords or those operating in your niche. Focus on websites that appear consistently on multiple search engine queries.

You could search high-ranking websites manually when targeting a handful of keywords or leverage link building tools for a comprehensive search.

2. Analyze Backlink Data

Conduct a general backlink analysis of the identified competitors, focusing on the following metrics:

• Referring domains
• Domain authority
• Dofollow vs. nofollow links
• Anchor text usage
• Backlink relevance

3. Look for Link Patterns

Identify backlink gaps to find domains linking to your competitors’ websites but not yours. Determine whether your competitors rely on guest posting, niche edits, or brand mentions to secure backlink placements.

Also, analyze your competitors’ linked pages to determine the content they publish to attract organic backlinks. For instance, are most of their linked pages research papers or backlink magnets like free templates and calculators?

4. Identify Top-Referring Domains

Create a list of high-quality domains with several outbound links to your competitors’ web pages. Next, assess the referring domains’ content type and audience interests. This will help you determine the content you need to secure backlinks, especially for guest posting.

Finally, start preparing your link-building outreach strategy to get backlink placements in the referring domains. Choose the right link-building agency to help you craft winning outreach and follow-up emails so you land genuine backlinks quickly.

5. Monitor Changes in the Backlink Profiles

Evaluate your competitors’ backlink profiles regularly to track changes in their link-building strategy and impact on SEO performance. This helps you evolve your backlinking strategy quickly so you don’t lag behind.

Suppose you notice competitors have started pursuing backlink placements in .gov websites. You might also want to include a few backlinks from these high-PR domains to neutralize the competitive edge. 

Competitor analysis can be time-consuming, especially in a flooded niche or market segment. You might need to track 10+ competitors with hundreds or thousands of backlinks.

Partner with Profit Engine so we can help you conduct a comprehensive competitor backlink analysis to gain insights on refining your link-building strategy. We’ll also help you tailor a results-focused link-building strategy to outrank your competitors.

Turn your website into a backlinks magnet—book a free call today!

Turning Spy Data into a Link Building Strategy

Now that you have analyzed your competitors’ backlink profiles, it is time to use the insights to improve your link-building strategy and get an edge.

Below are practical tips to exploit your competitors’ backlink profiles for your website’s SEO gain:

• Spot Broken Links: Identify lost outbound links pointing to your competitors’ websites and approach the referring domain owners with an offer to replace the backlink(s) with yours.
• Use the Skyscraper Technique: Find the highest-quality, link-worthy blogs published by your competitors and write even better articles that offer more value to your readers. Next, reach out to high-PR domain owners and pitch the content for backlinking opportunities.
• Analyze Anchor Text Distribution: Check how your competitors optimize their anchor texts and the resultant SEO performance. For example, what percentage of their anchor texts are exact-match, broad-match, or branded keywords? Benchmark against your anchor texts and ensure you aren’t overoptimizing yours.
• Create an Outreach List: Identify high-quality links from authoritative, niche-relevant domains and add them to your outreach list.
• Track Progress Regularly: Benchmark your link-building strategy against your competitors’ at least quarterly for additional insights into refining your backlinks profile. This lets you address any arising link gaps to maintain your competitive edge.

Ethical Considerations in Competitor Backlink Analysis

Competitor backlink analysis is generally acceptable and a common strategy for brands running link-building or SEO campaigns. However, you must not engage in shoddy activities that harm your competitors’ SEO performance.

Here are common ethical standards that govern competitor backlink analysis:

• Avoid Deceptive Tactics: Do not deliberately harm your competitors’ backlink profiles. For example, using link farms and PBNs to spike your competitors’ backlink profiles with toxic links is unethical.
• Transparent Reporting: Any reporting or sharing of competitor data should be accurate and unbiased. Also, be transparent about the methods and sources used in your backlink analysis to maintain industry trust and relationships.
• Respect Competitor Privacy: Avoid unethical practices like coercing, duping, or bribing your competitors’ staff for unauthorized access to their link-building strategies. 
• Use the Data Responsively: Do not use your competitors’ backlinks for other purposes beyond identifying link gaps or refining your link-building strategy. For example, selling your competitors’ backlink data to third parties is unethical.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Got additional questions?

This section answers commonly asked questions about spying on competitors' backlinks:

Is It Legal to Analyze Competitor Backlinks?

Yes. It is legal to analyze competitor backlinks so long as you do not interfere with their domain(s). 

We recommend analyzing your competitors’ link-building strategies to find missed backlinking opportunities you could use for your website.

Should I Prioritize Dofollow or Nofollow Links In Competitor Profiles?

Prioritize dofollow links when analyzing competitor backlinks for two main reasons:

• Dofollow links from high-PR websites mean you also have an opportunity to get a dofollow backlink placement from the site.
• Dofollow links pass invaluable link juice to your competitors’ domains, boosting their PageRank. You can achieve the same for your site.

What’s the Best Free Competitor Backlink Checker to Use?

Majestic is the best free competitor backlink checker to use. 

It provides a free-for-life version for analyzing competitor backlinks, making it suitable for small businesses with limited budgets.

Can I Automate Competitor Backlink Monitoring?

Yes. You can automate competitor backlink monitoring. 

Link-building tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs let you request automated weekly or monthly reports to track your competitors’ backlinking strategies.

Conclusion

This guide should help you spy on your competitors’ backlinks and leverage the findings to refine your link-building strategy. Focus on high-quality backlinking opportunities to quickly boost your website’s SEO performance.

Also, we recommend working with a link-building agency to help you get the most out of the analysis findings.

At Profit Engine, we help online businesses and SEO agencies with clients struggling to rank. Our link-building process involves analyzing competitors’ backlinks to find high-quality placements.

Book a free call today so we can help you build a backlink profile that gives you a competitive advantage!