A Guide To Competitor Link (Backlink) Analysis

Since Google baked consensus into the algorithm, prioritized certain domains in a topics linkgraph and started moving more and more towards AI, understanding what domains power your industry’s rankings has become more important.

By reverse engineering what’s already working for the sites outranking you, you skip the guesswork and get a front row seat to what’s actually moving the SERPs (search engine result pages) in your niche.

And whether you’re doing client SEO, affiliate, EComm, or local, learning how to dissect and deploy insights from your competitors’ backlink profiles will give you a better understanding of what your own site needs to rank.

Because you can’t outrank what you don’t understand.

What Is Competitor Link Analysis

Competitor link analysis is the process of analyzing where your competitors are getting their backlinks, and using that data to power your own link building campaigns.

It works because backlinks are still the core currency of trust in Google’s algorithm.

So if your top ranking competitors are showing up in Forbes, sponsoring niche podcasts, getting featured in roundups, or racking up links from industry associations… That’s your blueprint.

But the best part?

You don’t need to invent anything new.

You just:

  • Steal what’s working

  • Improve the pitch

  • Add your spin

  • Earn the same link (or an even better one)

When done right, competitor link analysis will tell you:

  • Which content formats win backlinks in your niche

  • What anchor text ranges your competitors are leaning on

  • Which domains link to multiple competitors (aka prime targets)

  • Which tactics (guest posts, niche edits, sponsorships, press releases etc) are getting the most traction

It’s not guesswork. It’s proven, repeatable, and scalable.

And PressWhizz can do this for you, for FREE! No Ahrefs or SEMRush subscription required!

All you have to do is signup for an account and search your biggest competitors names into our “Search by Keywords” tool on the marketplace homepage –

Once you’ve got your results back, you can further drill them down by refining your specific criteria around DR, DA, organic traffic and spam score.

In this case, I went with 888 Casino and got back over 150 results. Once I’ve refined my search down a little more, I can choose any site I’d like and view the keyword matches –

I can then choose to build a niche edit on the exact page my competitor is mentioned on, or build a niche edit on an even higher authority/value/traffic page on the same site or just build a fresh guest post that I can 100% control the content of.

How To Identify The Right Competitors

Before you start analyzing links, you need to make sure you’re targeting the right competitors.

Sounds obvious, right? Yet this is where most SEOs screw up…

They look at the biggest brand ranking for their money keyword, and think that’s their main backlink rival.

You don’t want to just look at who has the biggest budget. You want to find who is ranking with backlinks you can realistically replicate, outclass, or outmaneuver.

Step 1: Define SERP Based Competitors, Not Market Based

We care about the websites ranking above us on Page 1, not necessarily the household brands in the niche.

Here’s how to find them:

Open an incognito tab, Google your main commercial and informational keywords, and note down:

  • Who’s ranking in organic (ignore paid)

  • Who’s in the Map Pack (for local)

  • Who’s in People Also Ask / Featured Snippets

  • Who’s sitting in the AI Overview carousel (if live)

💣 Pro Tip: Use country specific proxies or location emulation (via an extension) in Chrome to get accurate SERPs if you’re targeting localized or international markets, especially when working with clients.

Step 2: Filter for Backlink Driven Rankings

Some sites rank off pure domain age and brand signals.

We want the ones ranking due to links!

Here’s how to spot them:

  • Plug them into Ahrefs or Semrush and look for high Referring Domain counts

  • Check their link velocity, did they gain 50+ RDs in the last 90 days?

  • Are they getting links to deep pages (not just homepage)? That’s a sign of intentional link building

  • Do the anchors match money keywords? Hello links!

If they’re sitting pretty at the top of the SERPs and racking up links on a weekly basis, they’re your backlink rival.

Step 3: Build a Competitor List You Can Actually Act On

Final filter: Can you actually reverse engineer their links?

You want a list of 5-10 competitors that:

  • Rank for your target keywords ✅
  • Are close to your level (or within striking distance) ✅
  • Don’t have a moat of un-replicable authority (i.e., not government or mega publishers only) ✅
  • Are building links from real, reachable websites ✅

No scraping. No outreach. No guesswork.

How To Analyze Competitor Backlinks

Now that you’ve got your competitor list dialed in, it’s time to dig into their links.

But let’s be clear: You’re not here to count domains like a vanity metric obsessed amateur.

You’re here to figure out why those links are helping them rank, how they got them, and what you can do to beat them.

Here’s my step-by-step process:

Step 1: Categorize Their Link Types (And Group By Intent)

Not all links are created equal, and Google weighs link type just as much as link quantity.

You want to break their profile down by format and acquisition method.

What was earned? What was paid for? What was obviously inserted?

Start categorizing links by type:

  • Guest Posts – Usually on blogs with editorial tone, branded author bios, content with internal links

  • Niche Edits – Mid-paragraph links in older posts, no author, context-added after publishing

  • Resource Pages – Lists like “Best Tools for X”, “Top Agencies in Y”

  • PR & News Mentions – From news sites, often with branded anchors or quote attribution

  • Directories & Citations – Common in local SEO

  • Forum / Comment / Web 2.0 – Typically low quality unless part of niche communities

  • Sponsorships / Scholarships / Events – Often .edu or .org sites with high trust metrics

  • Parasites – Medium, LinkedIn, Substack etc., used for juicing tiered pages

Once you’ve got these down, it’s time to get a measure for the average quality of competitor links.

Step 2: Examine Link Placement Quality

Not all links are passed equally, where they appear matters too.

You want to audit link placements across:

  • Homepage vs. Inner Page – Homepage links carry more juice, but are rarer and higher risk

  • In-content vs. Footer/Sidebar – In-content = contextual + natural, Sidebar = obvious footprint

  • Fresh Content vs. Edited Archives – The latter is almost always a niche edit

  • Link Position – Above-the-fold carries more weight (and CTR), especially if followed by relevancy

If you spot your competitor getting links in 3-year-old posts from sites that now rank for nothing but crypto spam, you already know what’s up.

Step 3: Anchor Text Distribution Audit

Backlink strategy isn’t just where you link from. It’s how you label that link.

Analyze their anchor text breakdown across the board:

  • Exact Match – “best car insurance quotes UK”

  • Partial Match – “compare UK car insurance providers”

  • Branded – “Aviva”

  • Naked URLs – “www.aviva.co.uk”

  • Generic – “click here”, “more info”

Now tie that to where the anchor is being used. Exact match on parasite SEO? Fine. On the homepage of a DR88 publisher? Asking for a penalty.

Step 4: Find Domains Linking to Multiple Competitors

This is where you unlock unfair advantages.

If a domain is linking to two or more of your direct competitors, it’s a red-hot signal that:

  • The site is niche relevant

  • It’s clearly open to outreach

  • You’re being left behind (for now)

And the best part?

Ahrefs’ Link Intersect Tool (recently changed to Competitor Analysis) makes this stupidly easy.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Head to Ahrefs > Competitor Analysis > Link Intersect – Link Here.

  2. Enter up to 3 competitors

  3. Leave your domain blank (you’re finding gaps)

  4. Click search

Here’s an example for my own site:

Boom, you now have a list of sites linking to your competitors, but not you.

Filter them by:

  • Domain Rating (but don’t be DR-blind, focus on relevance)

  • Traffic (do they get real users?)

  • Context (where on the site are the links placed?)

  • Opportunity type (guest post, edit, resource?)

You can even take it a step further:

  • Export the results into Sheets or Airtable

  • Tag link types manually

  • Sort by outreach difficulty or cost (if paid)

💣 Pro Tip: Cross-reference this Ahrefs list with what’s already available inside PressWhizz. If any of those intersect domains are marketplace inventory, you can just buy the same link your competitor earned, without sending a single email.

How To Reverse Engineer Competitor Link Acquisition

This is where the real fun begins, and where most SEOs half-ass it.

They spot a competitor link on some roundup or obscure blog and immediately think, “Cool, I’ll just pitch that too.”

Nah.

You’re not here to blindly copy links. You’re here to decode the strategy behind them. What’s actually working in your niche isn’t just the site they got the link from, it’s the way they got the link.

You need to reverse engineer the playbook.

Look At The Path, Not Just The Destination

Ask:

  • How old is the linking post?

    • If it’s fresh, there’s probably still an editor or contributor accepting pitches.

    • If it’s years old and surrounded by odd insertions? Niche edit.

  • What kind of page is it?

    • Blog post, roundup, resource list, author profile, news release, parasite?

  • Is the link contextual or forced?

    • Contextual links are placed within content that matches the target page’s theme. Forced links scream paid insertion or desperate outreach.

  • Is there a pattern across their backlinks?

    • 7 out of 10 links on .co.uk domains?

    • Loads of regional newspaper sites?

    • Same contributor name popping up across publications?

You’re not just studying links, you’re profiling their entire outreach strategy.

Identify Repeatable Tactics

Your goal is to steal the tactic, not just the target.

Common strategies include:

  • Guest Posting via Contributor Accounts
    If the same author has links across multiple high-DA blogs, they’ve probably built up contributor status. Time to create your own alias and replicate.

  • Mass Press Release Syndication
    If the same press release shows up across 10+ news sites? That’s a syndication play. You can buy the same distribution package.

  • Roundup Inclusion via Outreach
    If they keep popping up on “Top X in Y” listicles, they’re cold pitching. You can too (or skip the queue and use PressWhizz if that site’s in inventory).

  • Edu/Org Sponsorship
    If they’ve got .edu/.org links with “event sponsor” or “scholarship” in the anchor/context, that’s your clue. These take budget but bring insane trust scores.

  • Parasite Publishing
    Competitor ranking on Medium, LinkedIn, or Newsbreak? Reverse engineer the content and keywords, clone it, 301 it, or out-optimize it. Simple.

Build Your Own Strategy Map

Once you’ve dissected 3-5 competitors thoroughly, you should be staring at a strategic pattern.

Now replicate it, but smarter:

  1. List every tactic they’re using

  2. Group by cost, difficulty, and control

    • High control, low cost = 🔥

    • Low control, high cost = ⚠️

  3. Rank each based on scalability and SERP impact

  4. Overlay your own resource stack (budget, time, team)

Then start executing tactically, not emotionally.

💣 Pro Tip: If your competitor got a link from a DR70 guest post on a SaaS blog… Don’t just pitch that blog. Pitch the same author with a better guest post idea and offer a quote for their next article. Outmaneuver, don’t just copy, and scoring more links from the same domain just boosts the campaign even more.

Monitor Competitors For New Link Targets

Link building isn’t static. It’s a living, breathing, ongoing arms race. Your competitors are constantly acquiring new links, testing new tactics, and leveraging relationships you haven’t built yet – or paying someone to do it for them.

And unless you’re actively monitoring that activity, you’re missing out on the golden opportunities they’re spending hours finding for you to pick up in minutes.

Here’s how to stay ahead without spending 4 hours a week buried in Ahrefs exports:

Tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, and SEO SpyGlass’ Link Alerts let you set up competitor tracking so you get pinged every time they snag a new backlink:

Pro setup:

  • Track your Top 5-10 backlink rivals

  • Set alerts to ping daily or weekly

  • Filter for DR20+ or sites w/ traffic > 1k/mo

  • Create a “New Link Target” tab in your outreach CRM or Sheet

  • Assign a time slot, a team member or a VA to investigate link type + replicate if valuable

You’ll build a rolling pipeline of fresh link opportunities without having to manually dig.

Final Thoughts: Competitors Are A Blueprint

You don’t need a massive budget. You don’t need a magic SEO tool. You don’t even need to “outsmart” Google.

You just need to understand who’s winning in your niche, why they’re winning, and how to replicate and improve what they’re doing, consistently.

Every link they earn is a clue.
Every pattern they reveal is a shortcut.
Every new placement they score is a gap you can close.

So whether you’re:

  • Grinding on affiliate sites

  • Running local lead gen

  • Scaling an agency

  • Or just trying to recover client’s rankings after a core update…

Competitor link analysis is the most ROI positive, scalable, and battle tested tactic in modern SEO.

And if you’re using PressWhizz? You’ve already got all the tools you need, for FREE, at your disposal.

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