Member Avatar for MktgRob

In the ongoing effort to gain maximum page rank, analysis of all available information to determine the future steps to be taken. But is anyone analyzing their competitors efforts? Link quantity & quality, anchor text & relevance are the four components of link popularity with anchor text and location are the two biggest factors. Google has acknowledged as much.

Link building campaign professionals state that if your competitors are ranking well on a certain phrase, you should look to the anchor text in their back links and see if the phrase is listed, if the links sitting on topically relevant pages are indexed and are those anchors sitting in content areas.

I will admit that this is a relatively new concept to me and I was wondering if anyone is doing this kind of analysis and if so what kind of results are you seeing.

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Dani AI

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Good thread starter, — competitor backlink research works best when turned into a repeatable, risk‑aware process. The replies here raise two practical limits (data gaps and tool accuracy; see and ) and a reminder to watch quality signals (as noted). Below is a compact workflow that builds on those observations without repeating basic definitions.

  • Collect raw link data from two or three providers with large crawls (for example, the kinds of analyses described by Ahrefs). Export referring URL, root domain, anchor text, rel attribute, HTTP status and any available metric (DR/TF/CF).
  • Normalize and validate. Dedupe by root domain, open a sample of target pages to confirm the link is live and in‑content (not a footer or widget), and record whether the referring page is topically relevant.
  • Prioritize prospects. Look for pages that link to multiple competitors but not to you (link intersect), resource pages in your niche, unlinked brand mentions, and broken links pointing to competitor pages. Prioritize by domain topicality, referral traffic potential and a provider metric rather than raw link count.
  • Execute sensible outreach. Replace broken links, earn mentions by improving on competitor assets, and seek editorial placements. Avoid replicating spammy patterns. Google's guidance on link schemes explains what crosses the line and should be avoided.

Measure and protect: log every acquired link, track anchor‑text mix and link velocity, and monitor organic traffic and conversions via Google Search Console and analytics. If backlink datasets disagree, give weight to links that are live and visible in the page source and that appear in multiple crawlers.

Further reading that covers practical tactics and risks: Ahrefs on competitor backlink analysis and broken‑link tactics, and Google’s guidance on link schemes. These will help turn the thread’s ideas into a repeatable campaign without courting penalties.

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Member Avatar for jitendraag

There are dedicated sites like backlinkwatch to see details of competition's backlinks. However it's getting more and more difficult to find these backlinks because yahoo only shows 1000 links and google doesn't even show that many.

Member Avatar for InsightsDigital

I have used a few tools on Firefox to help me get backlinks and SEO competitive intelligence info. But do keep in mind that I found some of these tools not to be 100% correct.

Member Avatar for redesignunit

Firefox has great add on will helpful seo

Member Avatar for MktgRob

I was told to look into a product called Advanced Link Manager. Has anyone heard of it or used it? Its my understanding that it does backlink analysis among its many functions. As was said in a previous reply, some of the free tools are not that reliable and I like to use multiple tools for analysis just to verify all results.

Member Avatar for snapshot

Well, even if you do manage to be informed of all the links pointing at your competitor's site, many other elements play roles in determining the rankings of the websites over the net.

For example, the ages of the links and how long ago they have been established plus the TrustRank of the sites.

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