How to Find Your Competitors' Backlinks (and Win the Best Ones)

Your competitors have already done the hardest part of link building for you: they've proven which sites in your niche will link to companies like yours. A backlink gap analysis turns that proof into a target list.

Done well, it's the fastest way to find links that are realistic to earn and relevant enough to move rankings. Done badly, it produces a 4,000-row spreadsheet nobody acts on. Here's how we run it for clients.

Step 1: Pick the right competitors

Your business competitors and your search competitors are often different companies. For link building, you want the second group: the sites that outrank you for the keywords you care about.

Search 10–15 of your most valuable keywords and note who appears on page one. Pick the 3–5 domains that show up most often. Include at least one site that is roughly your size. Copying the link profile of a giant like HubSpot is rarely realistic.

Step 2: Pull the link gap

Every major SEO tool has a gap feature. In Ahrefs it's Link Intersect. In Semrush it's Backlink Gap. Enter your domain and your chosen competitors, and the tool lists sites that link to them but not to you.

Two settings make the output far more useful:

• Filter to sites linking to two or more competitors. A site that links to three of your rivals is a strong signal that it covers your space and links out freely.
• Look at referring domains, not individual backlinks. You want a list of sites to approach, not 40 links from the same blog.

Step 3: Filter out the noise

Most gap lists are 70% junk. Before anyone sends an email, remove:

• Directories, scrapers and spam. Auto-generated pages and "SEO stats" sites add nothing.
• Sites with no real traffic. If a site has under 1,000 monthly organic visitors, its links rarely carry much value.
• Irrelevant sites. A link from a recipe blog to a cybersecurity tool looks unnatural, whatever its DR.
• Obvious link sellers. "Write for us" pages that list prices are a red flag, and Google's spam policies treat paid links as link schemes. Our guide to spotting PBNs and link farms covers the warning signs in detail.

What's left is usually a few hundred sites. That's a real list.

Step 4: Find out why each site linked

This is the step most teams skip, and it's the one that matters. Open the actual linking page and ask: why did they link to my competitor?

The answer tells you exactly what to pitch. The reasons usually fall into a few patterns:

Why they linked	What you pitch
Listed in a "best tools" roundup	Ask to be added, with a clear reason you belong
Cited a statistic or study	Offer your own data, or a newer number
Guest post by the competitor's team	Pitch a better, more specific article
Resource or integration page	Request inclusion with a ready-to-use description
Quote in a journalist's article	Offer an expert for the next piece

Tag every prospect with its pattern. Patterns become outreach templates you can personalize, instead of one generic pitch.

Step 5: Prioritize by impact

Not every gap is equal. We score prospects on three things:

1. Relevance: how closely the site matches your audience.
2. Traffic: real organic visitors, not domain rating alone.
3. Effort: a roundup update takes one email. A guest post takes a week.

Start with high-relevance, low-effort wins like roundup and resource pages. They build momentum while longer pitches are in progress.

Step 6: Turn it into a 90-day plan

A gap analysis is only useful if it drives action. Split your list into three monthly batches, map each prospect to a target page on your site, and plan your anchor text so it stays natural.

Then track everything: who you pitched, when, what they said, and which links went live. Re-run the gap analysis every quarter. Your competitors keep earning links, and you want to see what's new.

A quick note on ethics

Winning a competitor's link doesn't mean asking a site to remove theirs, and it never means paying for placements. The goal is to show an editor that your resource deserves a spot too. Earn it with something genuinely useful and the link tends to last.

If you'd rather have this done for you, our free link audit includes a competitor gap analysis and a 90-day plan.