Link Gap Analysis
Find the websites that already link to your competitors but not to you — the warmest list of link prospects you can build — and move the best ones straight into your outreach pipeline.
What’s included
- Sites linking to at least one competitor but not to you
- How many competitors link, and which ones
- Authority score from the backlink data, clearly labelled
- Tick prospects and add them to a list in one step
A site that has linked to two or three of your competitors has already decided your topic is worth linking to. It has an editor, a resources page or a habit of citing businesses like yours, which makes it a far better place to start than a cold list of random websites.
Link gap analysis finds those sites for you. Each row shows the domain, the competitors that link to it and an authority score taken from the backlink data, with the sites that link to the most rivals at the top.
How the comparison works
Every backlink check you run stores a list of referring domains. Link gap analysis reads those stored lists instead of fetching anything new, so opening the tab is instant and never uses any of your checks. It compares the list for your website with the lists for the competitors you have set up under competitor intelligence, and shows the domains that appear for a competitor but not for you.
Your own domain, your competitors’ domains and any domains you have disavowed are removed before the list is shown, so you are never offered your own partners or sites you have already decided to avoid. Where a domain is already in your pipeline, it is marked with its current status instead of being offered again.
Getting the most from the list
- Look at overlap first. A domain that links to four competitors is a stronger prospect than one that links to a single rival.
- Treat authority as a guide. It is a metric from the backlink data source, not a Google metric, and a modest site with a relevant audience can be worth more than a famous one.
- Visit before you add. Check whether the link was an editorial mention, a directory listing or a sponsored post, because that tells you which kind of approach could work.
What the list can and cannot tell you
The lists behind the comparison are samples of each website’s referring domains, so the gap is not a complete picture of the web, and the page says so plainly. A site linking to a competitor also does not mean it will link to you. Treat the list as a well-informed starting point for research rather than a promise.
For the comparison to work you need a stored backlink check for your own domain and for at least one competitor, taken from the same source. If something is missing, the page tells you which check to run first and links to the backlink database. It also lists any competitor it had to skip, and why.
From gap to outreach
Tick the domains worth pursuing, choose an existing list or name a new one such as “Resource pages”, and add them to your outreach pipeline. Each prospect keeps a note of where it came from, including which competitors linked, so you never have to remember why a site was on your list.
Used together with the broken-link finder, you can build a targeted prospect list in minutes rather than days.
Frequently asked questions
Does link gap analysis use up my backlink checks?
No. It only reads the referring-domain lists your earlier checks already stored, so opening the tab costs nothing.
Why is my gap list empty?
The page needs a stored backlink check for your own domain and for at least one competitor from the same source. It tells you which one is missing and links to the backlinks page.
How many competitors are compared?
Every competitor set up for the website that has a suitable stored check is included. The page lists which competitors were used and which were skipped, with the reason.
Is the authority score a Google metric?
No. It comes from the backlink data source and is labelled that way. Use it to compare prospects with each other, not as a prediction of rankings.