The Complete Guide to Backlink Gap Analysis

Uncover Your Competitors’ Backlink Strategy & Find High-Value Link Opportunities

What is Backlink Gap Analysis?

Backlink Gap Analysis is the process of comparing your website’s backlink profile with your competitors to identify domains that link to them but not to you.

This helps you discover:

• Websites that are open to linking in your niche
• Missed link opportunities
• Potential link partners for outreach
• Competitive insights to reverse engineer your SEO strategy

Why is Backlink Gap Analysis Important?

Backlinks remain one of Google’s top-ranking factors. But building backlinks blindly isn’t effective. Backlink gap analysis allows you to:

• Focus on links that already work in your industry
• Build links your competitors have (and you don’t)
• Improve domain authority and search rankings
• Discover outreach targets with proven interest in your topic

Tools You Can Use

You’ll need access to a backlink analysis tool like:

• Ahrefs (Backlink Intersect Tool)
• Semrush (Backlink Gap Tool)
• Moz (Link Intersect Tool)
• Ubersuggest (Backlink Opportunities)
• Or manual exports + Google Sheets

Data You’ll Need

1. Your domain’s backlink profile
2. Competitors’ backlink profiles (2–5 ideal)
3. Referring domains, anchor text, DR/DA, source URLs

You can export this from your SEO tool as a CSV or directly copy-paste into a Google Sheet.

How to Perform Backlink Gap Analysis (Step-by-Step)

Step 1: Identify Your Top Competitors

Look for competitors who:

• Rank higher than you for your target keywords
• Operate in your niche
• Have a strong backlink profile

Use Google search or Ahrefs’ “Competing Domains” to find them.

Step 2: Export Backlink Data

For each domain (yours and competitors):

1. Go to the tool’s backlink report
2. Export the Referring Domains or Backlinks (CSV or Excel)
3. Keep only relevant columns:
   • Referring Domain
   • Source URL
   • Target URL
   • Anchor Text
   • Link Type (Dofollow/Nofollow)
   • Domain Authority (DA/DR)

Step 3: Organize the Data in Google Sheets

Create these tabs:

• Your Backlinks
• Competitor Backlinks
• Gap Opportunities
• Outreach Tracker

Paste your backlinks in one tab and competitor links in another. Clean up formatting and remove duplicates.

Step 4: Identify the Gaps

In the Gap Opportunities sheet, use a formula to check which competitor backlinks are missing from your profile:

excelCopyEdit=IF(COUNTIF('Your Backlinks'!A:A, [Referring Domain]) > 0, "Yes", "No")

Then filter to show:

• Domains linking to competitors
• But not linking to you

This gives you a list of backlink targets for outreach.

Step 5: Prioritize Link Opportunities

Add columns to help score and prioritize:

• Relevance (Is the site in your niche?)
• Authority (DR/DA)
• Traffic
• Anchor Text used
• Link Type (Dofollow preferred)

Tag high-priority opportunities.

Step 6: Plan & Track Outreach

Move the filtered list to your Outreach Tracker sheet.

Add the following:
| Domain | Contact Email | Contacted? | Follow-up Date | Response | Link Acquired? | Notes |

Use this to manage:

• Who you reached out to
• When you followed up
• Success rates

Pro Tip: Use tools like Hunter.io, Snov.io, or VoilaNorbert to find contact emails.

Bonus Tips

• Use filters and conditional formatting to highlight DR 70+ sites or “Dofollow” links
• Regularly refresh the data (once every 3–6 months)
• Prioritize contextual links over directories or comment links
• If a link is broken on the competitor site, pitch your content as a replacement (broken link building)

Final Thoughts

Backlink gap analysis is one of the most effective ways to:

• Find qualified link prospects
• Uncover what’s working for your competitors
• Build links that truly move the needle

It’s not just about getting more backlinks — it’s about getting the right ones.