How to Analyse Your Competitor’s Backlinks: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026)
Learn competitor backlink analysis step by step to uncover valuable link opportunities, improve your SEO strategy, and outrank competitors in 2026.
How to Analyse Your Competitor’s Backlinks: A Step-by-Step Guide (2026)
If your competitors are consistently ranking above you on Google, their backlink profiles can give you useful clues about what is helping them compete.
Who is linking to them? Which pages are attracting those links? And why are other websites choosing to reference them?
Competitor backlink analysis helps you answer these questions and find realistic link-building opportunities for your own website. The goal isn't to copy every backlink your competitors have. It's to understand what is working in your niche and use those insights to build better content and earn relevant links.
In this guide, I'll show you how to find your competitors' backlinks, evaluate the websites linking to them, identify useful opportunities, and avoid wasting time on links that aren't worth pursuing.
What Is Competitor Backlink Analysis?
Competitor backlink analysis means researching the websites that link to your competitors and understanding why those links exist.
Instead of looking only at how many backlinks a competitor has, you can look at:
Who is linking to them
Which pages are attracting the most links
Why those pages are being referenced
How relevant and useful those links are
What link-building patterns you can learn from
This gives you a clearer picture of how competitors are earning links and where potential opportunities may exist for your own website.
Why Is Competitor Backlink Analysis Important?
A competitor's backlink profile can show you opportunities that you might not find by researching your own website alone.
For example, you may discover:
Websites that regularly publish content in your niche
Resource pages or articles that link to several competitors
Topics that attract links from other websites
Content formats that people are willing to reference
Link-building patterns that you could potentially pursue
The goal isn't to copy every backlink your competitors have. It's to understand why they earned those links and decide which opportunities actually make sense for your website.
How to Analyse Competitors’ Backlinks: Step-by-Step
Before you start analysing backlinks, you need to know which competitors to look at and where to find their backlink data. The process below takes you from identifying the right competitors to evaluating which links may actually be useful for your website.
Step 1: Determine Your SEO Competitors
Your SEO competitors aren't necessarily the businesses you compete with directly. They are the websites competing with you in Google search results for the keywords and topics you want to rank for.
For example, if you run a website about digital marketing, your SEO competitors could include marketing blogs, SaaS companies, educational websites, or industry publications. They may not sell the same products or services as you, but they are competing for the same search visibility.
Start by searching a few of your important keywords and note the websites that consistently appear in the results. Then shortlist 3–5 relevant competitors to analyse.
How to Find Your Competitors' Backlinks
Once you have your competitors, the next step is finding the websites that link to them.
You can use tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz Link Explorer, Ubersuggest, or SE Ranking. The exact features available will depend on the tool and your plan, but the process is generally similar.
Start by entering a competitor's domain into the tool and opening its backlink or referring-domain report.
From there, look at:
Referring domains:
Which websites are linking to your competitor?
Linking pages:
Which specific pages contain those backlinks?
Target pages:
Which pages on your competitor's website are receiving the links?
Anchor text:
What words or phrases are used in the links?
Link context:
Why does the website link to that particular page?
Step 2: Analyse the Backlink Profile
Once you have the backlink data, don't focus only on the total number of backlinks. Start by looking at who is linking to your competitor and which pages are receiving those links.
Tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz Link Explorer, Ubersuggest, and SE Ranking can provide information about:
Referring domains: websites linking to your competitor
Linking pages: the pages where those links appear
Target pages: pages on your competitor's site receiving the links
Anchor text: the words used in the links
Link context: why the website linked to that particular page
The goal at this stage isn't to collect the biggest possible list of backlinks. It's to understand the types of websites, pages, and content that are earning links in your niche.
Don't judge a backlink by a single metric. A high-authority website isn't automatically a valuable opportunity if the website has little relevance to your topic.Step 3: Find the Pages That Earn the Most Backlinks
Step 3: Find the Pages That Earn the Most Backlinks
After looking at the backlink profile, find out which pages on your competitor's website are attracting the most links.
These pages can reveal what other websites consider useful enough to reference. Look for patterns such as:
Original research or data
Detailed guides
Useful tools or calculators
Statistics and resources
Templates or downloadable resources
Industry studies or reports
Well-researched list posts
Then ask:
Why did this particular page earn links?
For example, a competitor's guide might have earned backlinks because it contains original data that other articles reference. In that case, simply writing another guide on the same topic may not be enough. You would need to offer something useful of your own, such as better research, updated information, a useful resource, or a different perspective.
The objective is to understand what made the page link-worthy, rather than simply copying its format.
Step 4: Evaluate the Quality and Relevance of the Backlinks
Not every backlink your competitor has is worth pursuing. Once you have a list of referring websites, evaluate each opportunity using more than a single SEO metric.
Look at:
Relevance: Is the website related to your industry or topic?
Linking page: Is the page itself useful, relevant, and legitimate?
Context: Why is the website linking to your competitor?
Link placement: Is the link part of the main content or simply placed in a low-value area?
Organic visibility: Does the website appear to have genuine search visibility and useful content?
Replicability: Is this a link you could realistically earn?
Metrics such as Domain Rating or Domain Authority can help you compare websites, but they shouldn't decide everything for you.
For example, a relevant industry website with a lower third-party authority score may be a more sensible opportunity than a high-DR website that has no connection to your topic.
The goal isn't to find the website with the highest score. It's to find the most relevant and realistic opportunities.
If you're researching SEO opportunities for a newer website, you can also look at my guide on finding low-competition keywords for a new blog.
A Backlink Gap Is Not Automatically an Opportunity
Backlink gap analysis can show you websites that link to your competitors but don't link to your website. However, not every gap is worth closing.
A competitor may have a backlink from:
An outdated article
An irrelevant website
A low-quality directory
A page that no longer receives meaningful traffic
A website that you have no realistic reason to pitch
Instead of adding every backlink to a spreadsheet and sorting them by Domain Rating, look for patterns.
If the same website links to several competitors in your niche, that's more interesting. If it links to them because they contributed original research, were included in a resource list, or provided a useful tool, you can investigate whether you have something genuinely useful to offer as well.
Think of the backlink gap as a list of things to investigate, not a list of links you need to copy.
This is a genuinely useful distinction and makes the article more than another "find competitor backlinks and email everyone" guide.
Step 5: Find Realistic Link-Building Opportunities
Finding a list of websites linking to your competitors is only the beginning. The goal isn't to copy every backlink they have. Instead, look for patterns and opportunities that make sense for your own website.
Start by identifying websites that link to multiple competitors. These websites may already be interested in your industry, so they can be worth investigating further.
Then look at why those websites linked to your competitors.
Did they:
Reference original research?
Link to a detailed guide?
Recommend a useful resource?
Include a tool or calculator?
Mention a company or expert?
Add the page to a resource list?
Once you understand the reason for the link, ask whether your own website has something genuinely useful that could contribute to the conversation.
The goal is not to reproduce your competitor's backlink profile. It's to understand what earned their links and find opportunities where your own content can provide value.
Step 6: Analyse Anchor Text for Context
Anchor text is the clickable text used in a hyperlink.
Looking at the anchor text in your competitors' backlinks can help you understand how other websites describe and reference their content.
For example, you might notice that competitors are being linked to using:
Their brand name
The title of a resource
A descriptive phrase
A generic phrase such as "this guide" or "learn more"
Use this information as context when evaluating the backlinks. Don't try to copy your competitor's anchor-text pattern or force keywords into every backlink.
The focus should remain on earning relevant links from useful content, not manipulating the wording of those links.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
When analysing competitor backlinks, avoid these mistakes:
Chasing every backlink instead of focusing on relevant opportunities
Building links to weak pages that don't offer much value
Buying low-quality backlinks just to increase your backlink count
Focusing only on DR or DA instead of relevance and context
Trying to copy your competitor's entire backlink profile
The goal isn't to collect as many backlinks as possible. Focus on creating useful content and earning relevant links naturally.
Tools for Competitor Backlink Analysis
There are several SEO tools that can help you analyse competitor backlinks. The right one depends on how much data you need and whether you're using a free or paid plan.
Ahrefs: Useful for detailed backlink, referring-domain, and competitor analysis.
Semrush: Useful for backlink research, competitor comparisons, and identifying link gaps.
Moz Link Explorer: Useful for exploring backlinks and comparing website authority.
SE Ranking: Useful for backlink monitoring and competitor research.
Ubersuggest: A simpler option for basic backlink research, especially if you're just getting started.
You don't need to pay for an expensive SEO tool immediately. Free plans and limited reports can be enough to learn the basics and understand what you're looking for.
Don't Have Ahrefs or Semrush?
You don't need an expensive SEO subscription to start learning competitor backlink analysis.
Free or limited versions of tools such as Ubersuggest, Moz Link Explorer, and SE Ranking can provide some backlink data, although the amount of information will be limited.
For your own website, Google Search Console can show the backlinks Google has discovered. It's useful for understanding your existing backlink profile, but it won't let you analyse a competitor's complete backlink profile.
If you're starting, focus on learning how to evaluate a backlink, rather than collecting as many links as possible.
Conclusion
Competitor backlink analysis isn't about copying every link your competitors have.
It's about understanding who links to them, what content earns those links, and why those links exist. Once you know that, you can focus on the opportunities that are actually relevant to your website and create content worth linking to.
Start with a few genuine SEO competitors, analyse their strongest backlinks, and look for patterns rather than trying to replicate everything you find.
