How to Do a Competitor Backlink Analysis with Ahrefs Step by Step
By By NextGen Seo Team | 2026-10-29
If a competitor keeps outranking you, there is a good chance their backlinks are part of the reason. The good news is that you can see exactly where those links come from, and use that information to build a smarter link building plan of your own. This guide shows you how to do a competitor backlink analysis in Ahrefs, step by step, from finding the right competitors to turning your findings into outreach.
What Is a Competitor Backlink Analysis?
A competitor backlink analysis is the process of studying which websites link to your competitors, what kind of links they are, and which of those opportunities you can realistically win for yourself. Done well, it answers three questions:
- Where are my competitors getting their links from?
- Which links do they have that I do not?
- Which of those links are worth going after?
The goal is not to copy every link. It is to find the patterns, spot the gaps, and focus your effort on links that are relevant and achievable. If you would rather skip the manual work, you can also browse quality, relevant placements in the NextGen SEO backlinks marketplace and get started faster.
What You Need Before You Start
- An Ahrefs account with access to Site Explorer and Link Intersect (full access to these tools generally requires a paid plan, so check the current plan details on Ahrefs)
- Your own website's domain
- A list of 3 to 10 competitors (Step 1 shows you how to find them)
- A spreadsheet to record and sort your findings
Ahrefs menus and labels can change over time, but the core tools covered here, Site Explorer and Link Intersect, are the heart of this process.
How to Do a Competitor Backlink Analysis in Ahrefs (8 Steps)
Follow these eight steps, from finding the right competitors to building your outreach plan.
Step 1: Find Your Real Competitors
Your business competitors and your search competitors are not always the same. A company you compete with for clients may not rank for your keywords, and a blog or directory you never thought about might be outranking you every day.
To find your search competitors:
- Open Site Explorer in Ahrefs and enter your domain.
- In the left menu, go to Organic search and open Competing domains.
- Review the list of sites that rank for similar keywords to yours.
Pick 3 to 10 domains that are genuinely relevant. Skip huge general sites such as big news publishers or marketplaces unless they truly compete with you. If you are building links to one specific page, use Competing pages instead, which shows page-level competitors.
Add the chosen domains to your spreadsheet.
Step 2: Check Each Competitor's Backlink Profile
Now look at each competitor one by one. Enter their domain into Site Explorer and review the overview. Note down:
- Domain Rating (DR): a rough measure of overall link strength
- Referring domains: the number of unique websites linking to them
- Backlinks: the total number of links
- Link growth over time: are they gaining links steadily, or in sudden spikes?
The number of referring domains is usually more useful than the total number of backlinks, because one site can link to a competitor hundreds of times. This step also tells you how big the gap is between you and each competitor, so you know how much work is realistic.
Step 3: Review Their Referring Domains
Open the Referring domains report for each competitor. This shows the websites that link to them. Sort and filter the list so you can find the good stuff quickly:
- Sort by DR to see their strongest linking sites
- Filter for dofollow links, since these pass the most value
- Look at how relevant each site is to your industry
- Check whether the site has real traffic and real content
You will quickly start to see patterns. Maybe most of a competitor's best links come from industry blogs, or from resource pages, or from news mentions. Those patterns tell you which link building methods are working in your niche.
Step 4: Find Link Gaps with Link Intersect
This is the step that saves the most time. Link Intersect shows you websites that link to your competitors but not to you, which makes them natural targets for outreach.
- In Ahrefs, open Link Intersect.
- Enter your competitors' domains in the top fields. You can compare up to 10.
- Enter your own domain in the field for sites that do not link to you.
- Run the report.
The results show the websites linking to your competitors that have no link to you. Pay special attention to sites that link to several of your competitors. If a website has linked to three or four businesses like yours, it is clearly open to linking to businesses in your space, which makes it a strong opportunity.
Step 5: Look at Their Best Pages
Your competitors' most linked pages show you what kind of content earns links in your niche. In Site Explorer, open the Best by links report for each competitor and look at the top pages.
Ask yourself:
- Are these guides, tools, statistics pages, or case studies?
- Could I create something better, clearer, or more up to date?
- Which sites link to these pages, and would they link to mine?
This step helps you decide not only where to get links but what to create so people want to link to you.
Step 6: Study Anchor Text and Link Types
Look at how competitors are being linked to. Check the anchor text report and note whether links use the brand name, the URL, or descriptive phrases. Most healthy profiles are dominated by branded and natural anchors, with only a small share of exact-match keywords.
Also sort the links by type. Common ones include:
- Guest posts
- Resource page links
- Business directory listings
- News and press mentions
- Links from partners, tools, or reviews
- Journalist-request (HARO-style) mentions
This shows you which tactics your competitors rely on, and which ones are realistic for you.
Step 7: Filter and Prioritize Your Opportunities
Not every link is worth chasing. Export your Link Intersect results and score each opportunity in your spreadsheet. A simple checklist works well:
- Relevance: Does the site cover your industry or a closely related topic?
- Quality: Does it have real traffic, real content, and a clean look?
- Authority: Is its DR reasonable for your goals? Do not chase DR alone.
- Spam signals: Avoid link farms, sites full of unrelated outbound links, and obvious paid-link networks.
- Achievability: Can you realistically earn a link here, and how?
A useful spreadsheet has columns for the domain, DR, traffic, link type, how many competitors it links to, the contact or page to approach, and the status of your outreach. Not sure what separates a safe link from a risky one? Read our guide to white hat backlinks before you start outreach.
Step 8: Turn Your Findings Into an Outreach Plan
Group your opportunities by link type, then match each group with a method:
- Guest post opportunities: pitch relevant, useful topics to sites that accept contributors
- Resource pages: suggest your page as a helpful addition to their list
- Broken links: offer your content as a replacement for a dead link
- Digital PR and expert quotes: respond to journalist requests with real expertise
- Content opportunities: create a better version of a page that earns links for competitors
Write every outreach message for a real person. Explain why your content or contribution is useful to their readers, keep it short, and never rely on a copy-paste template that ignores who you are writing to.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Copying every competitor link. Many of their links are low quality or impossible to replicate.
- Chasing DR only. A relevant link from a smaller site often beats an unrelated link from a bigger one.
- Ignoring relevance. Links from unrelated sites add little and can look unnatural.
- Comparing yourself to giants. Analyze competitors you can realistically compete with.
- Doing it once. Competitor profiles change constantly, so one analysis goes stale.
How Often Should You Repeat It?
Run a full analysis every three to six months, and a quick Link Intersect check each month if you are actively building links. This keeps your list of opportunities fresh and shows you when a competitor starts a new campaign.
Quick Checklist
- Find 3 to 10 relevant search competitors
- Record their DR, referring domains, and link growth
- Review their referring domains and spot patterns
- Run Link Intersect to find your link gaps
- Study their best-performing pages
- Check anchor text and link types
- Filter and score the opportunities
- Build an outreach plan and track it in a spreadsheet
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a paid Ahrefs plan?
Full access to Site Explorer and Link Intersect generally requires a paid subscription. Check Ahrefs' current plans and limits before you subscribe.
How many competitors should I analyze?
About 3 to 10 is a good range. Fewer than that gives you too little data, and more than that becomes hard to manage.
Is it safe to copy competitor backlinks?
It is safe to learn from them, but not to copy them blindly. Focus on relevant, real websites and avoid spammy or paid-network links that could put your site at risk.
Can I do this without Ahrefs?
Yes. Other SEO tools offer similar backlink gap features, but the process stays the same: find competitors, review their links, spot the gaps, and prioritize.
Need Help Turning Competitor Data Into Links?
Analysis is only the first half of the job. The harder part is the outreach, the placements, and the follow-up. At NextGen SEO, we run competitor backlink analysis and build white hat links based on what we find. Visit our backlinks marketplace to talk about your goals.