How to Check Competitor Backlinks

Your competitors have already done the hard work of finding link opportunities. Checking their how to check competitor backlinks starts with understanding backlinks shows you exactly which sites link to businesses like yours.

On this page

1. Why Check a Competitor’s Backlinks
2. Pick the Right Competitors First
3. How to Check Competitor Backlinks in 4 Steps
4. Method 1: Free Google Search Operators
5. Method 2: Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker
6. Method 3: Google Search Console (Your Own Site Baseline)
7. Method 4: Paid Tools for Deep Analysis
8. What to Do With Competitor Backlink Data
9. Reading Anchor Text Patterns Like a Detective
10. How to Spy on Competitor Link-Building Campaigns
11. Frequently Asked Questions

This guide covers every method — from free Google tricks to professional tools — and more importantly, what to do with the data once you have it.

Why Check a Competitor’s Backlinks

Competitor backlink analysis answers three questions that guesswork can’t:

Where should I get links? Sites linking to two or three competitors have proven they’ll link to businesses in your space. That’s a warmer prospect than any cold list.

What content earns links in my niche? Their most-linked pages reveal what the market considers link-worthy. That’s your content roadmap.

Am I actually behind? You might feel like competitors are “everywhere” when the real gap is 30 referring domains, not 3,000. Knowing the actual number turns anxiety into a plan.

The goal isn’t to copy every link. It’s to find the replicable ones — the guest posts, resource pages, and directories you can earn too — while ignoring the PR coverage and brand mentions you can’t replicate.

Pick the Right Competitors First

This step matters more than the tool you use. Pick wrong competitors and the data misleads you.

Choose businesses your size. Don’t analyze backlinks of the biggest brand in your industry if you’re a small team. Their profile is built on decades of PR, brand searches, and press coverage you can’t replicate. Pick companies roughly your size that outrank you for keywords you want.

Pick 2–3, not 10. Two or three competitors give you enough data to spot patterns without drowning in spreadsheets. You can always expand later.

Make sure they’re actually competitors. Search your target keywords and see who ranks. Those are your SEO competitors — which may differ from your business competitors. A company selling the same product but targeting different keywords has a link profile that won’t help you.

How to Check Competitor Backlinks in 4 Steps

1. Pick the right competitors — choose 3-5 sites ranking for your target keywords.
2. Use free methods first — Google search operators and Ahrefs free backlink checker reveal the basics.
3. Go deeper with paid tools — Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz for full backlink profiles and historical data. If you’re choosing between the two big names, see our Ahrefs vs Semrush comparison first.
4. Analyze and act — study anchor text patterns, find link gaps, and replicate their best links.

Method 1: Free Google Search Operators

No budget? Google itself can reveal a surprising number of competitor backlinks. These operators find mentions, guest posts, and press coverage that tools sometimes miss:

Find guest posts: Search "competitor.com" + "guest post" or site:competitor.com alternatives. Better: search "written by [founder name]" to find their guest contributions across the web.

Find brand mentions: Search "Competitor Name" -site:competitor.com. This shows who’s talking about them. Some mentions will have links; others are unlinked opportunities you can claim for yourself.

Find resource page links: Search "competitor.com" + intitle:resources. This surfaces resource pages linking to them — pages that might link to you too.

Limitations: Google retired the link: operator years ago, so this won’t show every link. It’s slow, misses nofollowed links, and gives you no authority metrics. But it’s free, and it surfaces the context of links (the actual page, the anchor, the surrounding content) which is more useful for outreach than a spreadsheet row.

Method 2: Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker

Ahrefs offers a free backlink checker showing the top 100 backlinks to any domain — no signup needed. For quick competitor research, this is often enough.

You can check backlinks and site authority for free with our website authority checker.

How to use it:

Step 1: Enter the competitor’s root domain (not a specific page — you want the full profile).

Step 2: Sort by Domain Rating, highest first. These are the links that matter most.

Step 3: Filter for dofollow links. Nofollow links can drive traffic but pass less ranking value — prioritize dofollow for link building.

Step 4: Note the anchor text patterns. Are they branded? Keyword-rich? This tells you whether the links are earned naturally or built deliberately.

Step 5: Click through to the linking pages. Don’t just collect domains — look at the actual page. Is it a real article or a link farm? Would you be proud to have your link there?

Limitation: 100 links is a sample, not the full picture. For a site with 5,000 backlinks, you’re seeing the top 2%. It’s enough to spot patterns and find opportunities, but not enough for a complete audit.

Method 3: Google Search Console (Your Own Site Baseline)

Before analyzing competitors, understand your own profile. Google Search Console (under Links) shows every link Google knows about pointing to your verified site — free and unlimited.

Export your top linking sites and top linked pages. This is your baseline. When you later compare against competitors, you’re looking for the gap: domains linking to them but not to you. You can’t find the gap without knowing your own numbers first.

Search Console also reveals your anchor text distribution. If 80% of your anchors are exact-match keywords, that’s a red flag for over-optimization — something competitor analysis alone won’t tell you.

Method 4: Paid Tools for Deep Analysis

When free methods aren’t enough, paid tools unlock the full picture:

Ahrefs Site Explorer (paid) gives you every backlink, not just the top 100. The Link Intersect tool is the killer feature: enter 2–3 competitors and see which domains link to them but not to you. That list is pure gold — pre-qualified prospects who’ve already shown they’ll link to your type of business.

Semrush Backlink Analytics offers a similar Backlink Gap tool with a cleaner interface. It also tracks new and lost backlinks over time, so you can see when a competitor launches a link-building campaign and react quickly.

Moz Link Explorer is weaker on index size but useful for spam score analysis. If you’re evaluating whether a competitor’s links are legitimate or manipulated, Moz’s spam metrics help.

When to pay: If you’re doing competitor analysis more than twice a month, a paid tool pays for itself in time saved. The free methods work, but they’re slow. An hour in Ahrefs replaces a day of Google operator searches.

What to Do With Competitor Backlink Data

Data without action is trivia. Here’s the prioritized workflow:

First: Build the intersect list. Domains linking to 2+ competitors but not you go to the top. These are proven linkers in your niche. Research each one: what did they link to, and why? Can you offer something better or complementary?

Second: Categorize by link type. Sort opportunities into buckets: guest posts, resource pages, directories, press mentions, tool roundups, podcast interviews. Each bucket needs a different outreach approach. Guest posts need pitches; resource pages need a polite suggestion; directories just need a submission.

Third: Prioritize by authority and relevance. A DR 60 site in your niche beats a DR 80 site in an unrelated industry. Score each prospect on both axes and start with high-authority, high-relevance targets. To score a whole prospect list at once, run it through a bulk DA/DR checker.

Fourth: Check before you pitch. Visit every site before contacting them. Is it still active? Does the linking page still exist? Is the content quality something you’d associate your brand with? This step takes time but prevents embarrassing pitches to dead sites or link farms.

Fifth: Track and follow up. Most link builders give up after one email. A polite follow-up 7–10 days later doubles response rates. Track every pitch in a spreadsheet: who, when, what you pitched, and the outcome.

Reading Anchor Text Patterns Like a Detective

Anchor text — the clickable words in a link — reveals how a competitor earned their links. Different patterns tell different stories:

Mostly branded anchors (company name, domain name) means links were earned naturally. People link to brands they know. This is the healthiest pattern and the hardest to replicate quickly — it comes from brand building, not link building.

Keyword-rich anchors (“best CRM software,” “cheap flights”) suggest deliberate link building. Someone is actively placing these links with SEO in mind. This is good news for you: it means the links are replicable through outreach, because they were built through outreach.

Generic anchors (“click here,” “read more,” “this article”) are typical of editorial links from journalists and bloggers. These come from having genuinely useful content. If a competitor’s profile is full of these, their content strategy is working — study what they’re publishing.

Red flag: 90%+ exact match. If nearly every link uses the same keyword anchor, that’s manipulation. Google’s Penguin algorithm targets this pattern. Don’t copy it — learn from their other tactics instead.

When you find a competitor with healthy, diverse anchors, that’s your model. When you find one with spammy anchors still ranking, don’t assume it’s safe to copy — they may be one algorithm update away from a penalty.

How to Spy on Competitor Link-Building Campaigns

Competitor analysis isn’t a one-time task. Set up ongoing monitoring to catch their new links as they happen:

Set up alerts. Ahrefs and Semrush both offer new-backlink alerts. Add your top 3 competitors and get notified when they earn links from high-authority domains. A sudden spike often signals a PR campaign, a new content piece, or a partnership — all things you can learn from.

Watch for lost links. When a competitor loses a link, that’s your opportunity. The linking site has a gap where relevant content used to be. Pitch your content as a replacement — the site owner already wanted to link to something on this topic.

Monthly comparison. Once a month, compare referring domain counts: you vs. each competitor. Are you gaining or losing ground? Which link types are they earning that you’re not? This 30-minute exercise keeps your strategy grounded in reality instead of assumptions.

To learn more about evaluating the links you find, read our guide to what backlinks are and our backlink gap analysis walkthrough.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I check a competitor’s backlinks for free?

Use Ahrefs’ free backlink checker (top 100 links, no signup) for quick lookups. For deeper free research, use Google search operators like “competitor.com” + intitle:resources to find resource page links, or “Competitor Name” -site:competitor.com to find brand mentions. Google Search Console is free and unlimited but only works for sites you own.

What is a backlink gap analysis?

A backlink gap analysis identifies domains that link to your competitors but not to you. These are your highest-priority link prospects because they’ve already proven willing to link to businesses like yours. Ahrefs’ Link Intersect and Semrush’s Backlink Gap tools automate this, but you can do it manually by comparing referring domain lists in a spreadsheet.

How many competitors should I analyze?

Start with 2–3 competitors roughly your size who outrank you for target keywords. More than that creates data overload without better insights. You can expand to 5+ once you’ve worked through the initial opportunities. Quality of analysis beats quantity of competitors.

Should I try to get every link my competitor has?

No. Many competitor links aren’t replicable — press coverage from a product launch, brand mentions from partnerships, or links from personal relationships. Focus on the replicable ones: guest posts, resource pages, directories, and tool roundups. In my experience, only a minority of a competitor’s links are worth pursuing; the rest is noise.

How often should I check competitor backlinks?

Monthly for the full analysis, with automated alerts for new high-authority links in between. If a competitor suddenly earns 50 new links in a week, you want to know what they’re doing — that kind of spike usually means a campaign you can learn from or an opportunity you can replicate.