Are you tired of being outranked by your competitors?
Do you wish you could steal their backlinks, rankings and traffic?
(“YES, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT, ROBBIE!”)
Good, because this is exactly what I’ll be showing you how to do in this post with a technique I like to the call the RLR approach.
This is the first link building tactic I implement when taking on new clients, and has helped me land hundreds of high quality links for businesses across a range of industries, from B2B SaaS companies to national franchise operations.
And drive this blog steadily towards 1,000 referring domains:
This is a step-by-step “technique” that can be replicated for any website.
It requires zero creativity; all you need to do is follow the step-by-step framework laid out below.
Sound good?
Here’s the process in a nutshell:
- Find competitors (i.e. similar websites and/or pages in your niche) with many high-authority inbound links (research)
- Figure out how competitors are building links (learn)
- Replicate/steal their tactics (replicate)
And if that sounds simple..it’s because it is.
But before we get started, I recommend you make a copy of this Competitor Backlink tracking template:
You’ll need this as we go through the post.
But before we dive into the tactics, let's better understand why we're doing this...
Why Should You Start Analyzing Competitor Backlink Profiles?
Competitor analysis is an important element of any link building campaign.
Why?
Because running an in-depth backlink analysis across your top competitors gives you several valuable insights that can save you a ton of time and money, while increasing your chances for success.
It teaches you about the industry:
Which competitors are landing the most backlinks, and which sites in your vertical are more likely to give backlinks.
It helps you understand several key things about your competitors:
- Get a behind-the-scenes look at your competitor’s backlink profile, and why they rank for different search terms
- The specific strategies and tactics used to land quality links
- The growth of their link profile (are they dedicating a lot of resources?)
- The types of content attracting the most backlinks
And, arguably the most important insight:
Understand the resources that didn't acquire many links.
This information can help you avoid investing a ton of time and money into link building campaigns that have little to no chance of success.
It's kind of like having your own secret crystal ball 🙂
Ok, let's dive in!
Step #1 - Find top "linked-to" competitors (i.e. Research)
Before you can start replicating tactics, you first need to find competitors who have a proven track record of landing quality links.
I’m going to run through a process for doing this but first, let me ask you a question:
Are you trying to build links to a specific (already-existing) page, or to your site in general?
The competitor backlink analysis process will differ slightly depending on your answer.
Why?
Because if you’re looking to build links to a particular page, you need to find page-level competitors rather than domain-level competitors.
Let’s say that I was trying to build links to this post, for example:
In this case, it’d make much more sense to find other highly linked-to pages about “seo tools” and reverse engineer the links pointing directly at those pages, rather than looking at links for the site as a whole.
But if you’re looking to build links at the domain-level, analyze your competitor’s overarching link building strategies (or are simply looking for “linkworthy” content ideas), it makes more sense to find domain-level competitors.
Either way, there are three main ways to find competitors, and the basic process is the same whether you’re looking to replicate domain-level or page-level links.
Let’s walk through them now!
Method #1 - Find “competing domains” / “competing pages” (using Ahrefs)
Ahrefs has a nifty tool that allows you to pluck out competing domains (or pages) at the touch of a button.
(note: you can read my full review of Ahrefs here)
Here’s how to do it:
Go to Site Explorer and enter the domain (or URL) you want to build links to:
Select the “Competing domains” option from the left-hand menu:
This will show a list of sites ranking for similar keywords to your domain:
Note: If you’re building links at the page-level, select “Competing pages” instead (this is directly under “competing domains”)
You should now see a list of competing domains or URLs.
Here are the competing pages for my list of SEO tools:
Look through the competing pages.
Add any pages/sites that compete with your content to the Google Sheet (in the Prospects tab):
Method #2 - Find the top 10 ranking pages for your target search term (via Ahrefs KW Explorer)
Go to Keyword Explorer.
Enter a target keyword (e.g. “buy homebrew kits online”):
Hit search.
Scroll down to the SERP overview. This shows you the top 10 ranking pages (in Google) for that search term:
It will also provide several page-level SEO metrics, including URL rating, backlink and referring domain count.
Add competing content to your Google Sheet (again, just add them onto the Prospects tab):
Note: I recommend adding only sites with 20+ referring domains (RDs) to your spreadsheet. Any sites/URLs with less than 20 RD’s usually aren’t worth the time investment because of the filters we'll be setting up later in this tutorial.
Method #3 - Search Google for “competing domains” / “competing pages”
At this stage, you probably have a decent sized list to work with.
But if you still want to scale up and find more sites (or if your site doesn’t currently really rank for much and, thus, Ahrefs has a hard time finding a good list of competitors), do this:
Go to Google and enter a keyword/phrase that defines what your site (or page) is all about (e.g. if you run a plumbing company in London, you might search for “london plumbing company”):
Use this free scraper extension (for Chrome) to extract the search results into a neat list:
Note: Make sure to use the settings shown in the screenshot above!
“Copy to clipboard” and…yep, you guessed it, paste them into the Prospects tab in your spreadsheet.
Rinse and repeat this process for additional pages and/or keywords if necessary.
Note: Because you’re scraping all results here, you may need to manually remove any non-relevant results from your spreadsheet.
This can be solved in two ways:
#1. Run your entire list through URL Profiler.
Just make sure to check the Ahrefs checkbox under URL Level Data:
This will kick back a spreadsheet with both the number of backlinks + referring domains.
Remove the other columns then copy/paste the data into your Google Sheet (I recommend that you just overwrite the existing data in the Prospects tab, it won’t matter).
Here’s an example of how it should look (I also added a filter and sorted by # of RDs):
Now you will have a massive list of competing content with the number of backlinks and referring domains mapped back to each page.
You can quickly remove pages/posts that do not meet the minimum RD threshold discussed in the previous step.
#2. If you don’t have URL Profiler, you can use the Ahrefs Batch Analysis tool to do this. However, you’ll be limited to 200 URLs at a time.
Simply paste the URLs into the tool and hit "Start Analysis":
The tool will map a bunch of link and keyword data back to each URL.
Export the list and filter by number of RDs to get a cleaned list of targets to start replicating.
Step #2 - Finding where (and how) competitors are landing backlinks
(i.e. Learn)
Now you’ve got a list of competing websites/URLs, it’s time to start reverse engineering their backlink profiles and figure out where they’re getting links.
I’m going to split this step into two sections:
- Getting a 10,000-foot view — I’ll discuss a few tactics for getting a high-level view as to where and how your competitors are getting links.
- Five quick-win tactics — my five go-to tactics when doing competitor research; these are super-actionable things you can implement right away.
Note: I’ll be using Ahrefs for most of this guide going forward. While I do wholeheartedly recommend using Ahrefs if you intend to follow this guide (you can get a 14-day free trial here!), you can also use other tools like SEMrush, Majestic, Open Site Explorer or just find out what the top link builders use here.
The 10,000 Ft View: Find where your competitors get links
The “10,000-foot” process is not about pinpointing (and replicating) exact link sources, but rather:
- Analysing the niche as a whole to identify where and how competitors are getting links.
- Understanding the common backlink types and sources in the niche (e.g. forum links, guest posts, product reviews, directories, etc.)
- Figuring out what type of content is going to land links (e.g. long-form blog posts, videos, interactive content, case studies)
In short, it’s about getting a high-level view of what’s working (and what isn’t working) for the competition. This will help define your SEO and content strategies going forward.
Here are 3 ways you can do this:
#1 - Look at all competitor backlinks
Go to Site Explorer, paste in a competitor's domain, then go to:
Backlink profile > Referring domains > add a dofollow filter:
Look over the domains and find patterns as to where the links are coming from (e.g. forums, blogs, directories, etc.) — if you do this for a few of your competitors, you’ll start to see common themes and quickly understand the link building strategies that work well in your niche:
#2 - Look at branded anchors
Go to Site Explorer, paste in a competitor's domain, then go to:
Backlink profile > Anchors > add a dofollow filter:
Branded anchor links usually derive from one of the following sources: guest posts, directories, editorial mentions, or testimonials.
These are links that can quickly boost authority for sites of any age, and are relatively simple to replicate.
So, if you notice that one or more of your competitors has a lot of branded mentions, it may be the case that one (or more) of these link building strategies works well in your particular niche.
Hit Details > Referring domains to take a closer look at the sources for these links:
Click the "Backlinks" dropdown to find the individual pages on each domain linking to your competitors.
#3 - Look at the site's most linked-to content
In Site Explorer, enter a competitor’s domain and go to:
Pages > Best by links
This will show you the most linked-to pages on that domain:
If you do this for a few competing domains, you’ll start to get a sense about which content types and topics attract the most backlinks in your niche.
For example, in the SEO niche, lengthy blog posts seem to attract the most backlinks:
But in the graphic design niche, it seems that “list posts” (e.g. “XX ways to do ______”) attract a lot of links:
Whereas personal injury attorneys in competitive locations like Houston get quality links (.edu) from scholarship campaigns and interactive maps:
Clicking on the RDs link for the scholarship page shows all the authoritative .edu links this attorney has been able to generate with a single niche-targeted scholarship campaign:
After you've followed the 3 steps shown above you should be starting to get a clearer idea of the strategies, tactics and types of content your top rankings competitors are using to build backlinks.
But:
Knowledge is only as powerful as the execution. Now it's time to start replicating your competitor's best backlink sources...
5 “quick win” tactics for replicating competitors links (today)
I’m going to share five super actionable tactics for replicating competitor links.
This is where the Link Tracking Sheet comes in.
At the bottom of the sheet, you’ll see five different tabs:
This is where you’ll be logging the prospects you find using each of the five tactics covered below.
Make a copy of the Sheet and let’s get started!
Method #1 - Find websites linking to one or more competitors
If a site is linking to one or more of your competitors, chances are they’ll be open to linking to you, too.
These sites are high-priority prospects.
But how do you find sites linking to multiple competitors?
The Ahrefs’ Link Intersect Tool.
Here’s how it works:
Grab a handful of competing domains/URLs from the Prospects tab in the Tracking Template (up to 10) and paste them into the tool one-by-one.
Add your domain/URL under the “But doesn’t link to (optional)” section:
Note: You should also select the “Any of the below targets” from the “Show me who is linking to…” drop-down at the top of the table.
Click “show link opportunities”.
It will now show you all the websites linking to one or more of the competing domains/URLs you entered, but not your page.
By default, the results are ordered by # of link intersects (from highest to lowest):
If you click the corresponding numbers below each URL, it’ll show you individual links:
Work your way down this list and add any high-priority prospects to your spreadsheet.
Basically, you should make sure to log the referring domain/URL + site type (e.g. blog) for each prospect. If you like, you can also note which of your competitors the site is linking to:
Method #2 - Find recurring backlink sources for your competitors
If you see that a competitor is getting links from the same website time and time again, it tells you two things:
- That website is likely very receptive to link requests
- They’re likely to be interested in the content on your website (as they’re linking out to similar content already)
These two attributes make for a great link prospect.
Here’s how to use Ahrefs Link Intercept tool to find these recurring backlink sources:
To begin, pick one of your competitors from the spreadsheet.
Paste it into Site Explorer:
Note: It’s important that you use the root domain here, not an exact URL.
Select: Pages > Best by Links > filter for only pages that return the status code 200:
Copy/paste the first 10 pages (minus the homepage) into the link intercept tool:
Note: Select “URL” under each of the dropdowns and leave the “but doesn’t link to” section blank. Also select “any of the below targets” from the top dropdown.
Click “show link opportunities”.
You will now see a list of domains that link to your chosen competitor’s website at least once. Results will be ordered by # of link intersects:
Most of the websites will likely be forums, communities (e.g. Inbound.org), and other content sharing websites. While these are rarely the most powerful links, they will usually be easy to replicate and provide potential new referral traffic channels.
But, I recommend looking out for any high-authority blogs with multiple link intersects. These are sites you really should begin forging relationships with, as they’re likely to be very receptive to link requests further down the line.
Add any prospects that fit the bill to the tab labelled “2. Recurring BL Sources”:
Rinse and repeat this entire process for the rest of your top competitors.
Method #3 - Replicate your competitors best backlinks
If you plug a URL into Ahrefs Site Explorer, it’ll show you all backlinks pointing to that URL.
Now, you could export all of these links and try to replicate each and every one.
But, given the fact that most sites have hundreds (if not thousands) of links, this would be a time-consuming process.
So rather than try to replicate each and every link pointing to your competitor’s website/URL (including the spammy/low-quality ones!), I recommend you focus on replicating only the best ones.
Here’s how to do it:
Paste a competing URL (from your spreadsheet) into Site Explorer:
Go to Backlinks profile > Backlinks (on the left-hand menu):
Add the following filters:
- One link per domain
- Platforms > WordPress
- Languages > English
- Link type > Dofollow
I’ve found that applying this filters reduces the number of backlinks by roughly 50-60%, in most cases.
But why am I telling you to filter out over half of your prospects? Isn’t that counter intuitive?
Not at all.
Doing this filters out the junk prospects and leaves you with the cream of the crop. Almost all remaining prospects should now be:
- English-speaking sites (or set language relevant to your target outreach audience)
- Real blogs hosted on a WordPress CMS (easy for folks to quickly add a link to your site)
- Likely to link out using dofollow links (pass link equity)
Note: If you still have a ton of junk prospects after adding the filters, add a Domain Rating (DR) filter too (I recommend DR 30+).
Add any worthwhile prospects to the tab labelled “3. Replicate backlinks”:
BONUS TIP:
The tactic above is one I use to launch large scale cold outreach campaigns to land quick link wins in the new niches.
After identifying top competing article (by link count), I'll add all the URLs into a "Competitors" tab. Here is an example for my recent on-page SEO post:
I will then have a VA go through each competing article and set the filters shown above.
From there, the VA will spend a maximum of 1-2 minutes finding contact information for each referring page.
This process will be repeated across the tabs created for each competing URL:
I'll be left with hundreds of relevant link prospects I can now target with semi-personal outreach.
Method #4 - Reverse engineer your competitors for guest post opportunities
Guest posting remains one of the best ways to not only build links (note: be careful with this), but also get the word out about your website/business.
I mean, there are companies out there that use guest posting to leveraging the domain authority of large websites to quickly rank for competitive search terms that drive ultra targeted referral traffic to their websites.
Let’s take Moz as an example…
Casey Meraz, the owner of Juris Digital, leveraged the authority of Moz to rank for the highly competitive search term “local seo”:
This article has probably been a healthy meal ticket for Casey's agency over the last 3 years.
But:
Finding guest post opportunities can be a mundane, time-consuming process.
I mean, who really wants to sift through thousands of “intitle:write for us” search results!?
Not me!
Luckily there’s a better way: reverse engineer your competitors.
Note: In order to do this, you’ll need to know the name of the person behind each site on your list. This is easily done with personal blogs (e.g. it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the guy behind www.robbierichards.com is, in fact, Robbie Richards 🙂), but it can take a bit more research if it’s a multi-author blog. I recommend getting a VA to do this.
Here are 3 methods for doing this:
#1 - Search Google for “author” pages
Let’s assume that I’ve identified Backlinko.com as a competing site and I want to know what other sites Brian [Dean] has written for.
I could use the following search term:
- TOPIC + “author name” + inurl:author -competitordomain.com
Here’s the search term in action:
#2 - Find posts by the author with Ahrefs Content Explorer
Content Explorer allows you to use the “author:” operator to restrict results to posts written by a certain person.
Here’s an example:
Copy/paste any relevant sites into your Google Sheet.
Note: I recommend checking the one article per domain checkbox, otherwise you can end up with a ton of results from twitter/youtube/etc
#3 - Search Google Images for posts containing the authors headshot
Look through the guest posts you’ve already found for each author and see if there’s an author headshot included.
If there is (and if he/she is using the same headshot for multiple guest posts), you can do a reverse image search to find every page containing that image.
Just right-click on the image and select Search Google for Image:
This will find every other page on which the headshot appears, some of which will be guest posts:
Add any websites to the tab labelled “4. Guest Posts” in your spreadsheet:
Method #5 - Fix competitor broken links
Broken links are surprisingly common; some of the largest sites are riddled with them.
While this is bad news for website owners, it’s good news for you.
Why? Because if you can find broken inbound links to pages on competing domains, you have a good chance to steal those links for your website.
Here’s how to find them:
Go to Site Explorer, paste in a competitor’s domain (or specific page), then go to:
Backlink profile > Backlinks > Broken > add a dofollow filter
This will show you all broken inbound links pointing towards that domain/URL:
Here’s what happen when we click the broken link on this page:
Add any broken links you want to steal to the “5. Broken links” tab in your Google Sheet.
It’s then a case of reaching out to these sites and suggesting they replace the broken link with a link to your content instead.
Just make sure the content you’re asking them to swap the link for is similar to the original broken content. If you’re unsure what the broken content was, use the Wayback Explorer to check it out.
Tip: If you identify a page with a ton of broken links — yet you don’t have anything similar on your site already — it may be worth creating something similar so you can launch a broken link building campaign!
Or, you could just let them know to seed the relationship for future outreach opportunities 🙂
Step #3 - Steal your competitors tactics
(i.e. Replicate)
OK, so you’ve analysed your competitors and filled the spreadsheet with a bunch of actionable information…
Now what?
Well, it’s time to “steal” (i.e. build) some links!
Some of your competitor’s links will be easy to replicate.
Directory links can be obtained in minutes.
Forum/community links can be acquired by simply registering and posting (in most cases).
But, most of the super-valuable links will require outreach.
While outreach can seem confusing, there is a simple process you can use to streamline things and get the greatest return on your time investment.
Here’s the basic process:
- Find the appropriate contact information (i.e. name + email address; here is a great video on doing this).
- Send the person an email (this can be done either manually or using automated tools — I’ll touch on these in a moment).
- Track the responses and follow-up where required.
It really is that simple. Don’t overcomplicate things.
And, if you’re wondering what your outreach email should say, it depends on the type of link you’re trying to acquire.
If you navigate to the “Recommendations” tab within your Google Sheet, you’ll see the spreadsheet automatically recommends the link building tactic it feels is most appropriate for that particular prospect. It also tells you why this is the recommended tactic in most cases:
Note: While I’ve tried to recommend the most effective tactic here, it’s worth noting that some sites will respond well to a number of tactics (e.g. guest posting, broken link building campaign, etc.).
Your choice of tactic is your decision at the end of the day; the recommendation is only there as a helpful guideline.
I’ve also included a link to a document full of example scripts inside the competitor link research spreadsheet (download here).
I don’t recommend using these exactly as they are (you should always customise your outreach!), but they’re a good starting point. Just match the outreach email with the tactic you want to use.
In terms of what you should be using for outreach, there are several great tools I recommend checking out:
There’s also the option of a manual approach (i.e. sending each email one-by-one) but this can be very time-consuming, so I don’t recommend it.
Whatever your choice of software, I recommend using the “link tracker” tab built into the spreadsheet.
The way this works is extremely simple:
- Add any site you want to contact to the “website” column
- Find their contact info (i.e. email + first name) and add it to the appropriate columns
- Choose the outreach strategy/approach you want to use (e.g. guest post request, etc.)
- Keep track of the outreach status for each prospect in the “status” tab.
Here’s an example of how this might look:
There’s also an (optional) column where you can add a follow-up reminder date — this will highlight red if the follow-up is due:
This is also a good place to keep track of live links:
I'm not going to cover each outreach script one-by-one in this post, but you can access examples for each link building strategy in the Recommendations tab in the link tracking document:
Remember, organisation is key when it comes to outreach, so make sure to keep on top of it!
Conclusion (+ one final tip!)
Before I wrap this up, I want to give you one last bonus tip…
Assuming you’ve done everything mentioned above, you will now know who your competitors are, how they are getting links, where they are getting links from, and you should have replicated as many as possible.
But don’t stop there…
Keep tabs on your competitor’s ongoing campaigns to find out where and how they are landing new links.
That way, if they land any new links, you can jump right in and grab them for yourself.
Ahrefs alerts provides an easy way to do this.
Select “+New Alert” and enter one of your competitors domains:
Now, whenever they land new links, you’ll get an automated email telling you about them.
It’s then simply a case of checking out the links and seeing how you may be able to replicate them.
BOOM.
Finally, I must note that while replicating competitor links is an amazing long-term strategy, it should never be your only link building strategy.
Replicating competitor links will only get you so far, so make sure to seek out independent opportunities, too. This is the only way to gain an edge over the competition.
Have any questions? Let me know in the comments below.
Hey! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a collection of volunteers annd starting a
new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us valuable informatuon to work on. Yoou have done a
marvellous job!
Hey Janette,
Glad you enjoyed the post. If you liked this post, then you’ll love this one: https://www.robbierichards.com/seo/13-killer-link-building-strategies/. Feel free to join my email list as well. I’ll be sharing my most actionable content to help supercharge your online presence.
Cheers!
Everyone loves itt when people come together and share opinions.
Great website, continue the good work!
Thanks Kristopher! Feel free to jump on my email list for a boat load of new actionable content coming down the pipeline 😉
Saved as a favorite, I really like your blog!
Hey Mellissa,
Glad to hear you’re liking my blog. What’s your favorite post so far?
Also, feel free to join my email list. I’ve got a few more posts in pipeline that I think you’ll really enjoy.
Cheers!
Hi Robbie! How we can join your email list?
Tnx
You can download the guide at the top of post 🙂
Robbie, Thank you so much for sharing this valuable information with us! can’t wait to start working on this!
My pleasure Jenny! Let me know if you have any questions along the way.
Hey Robbie
Another tool you may want to add to your list is http://siteexplorer.info
Its a free online tool, without limitations on quantity of inbound links.
Whats more it shows PR, Anchor & Alexa as well as couple of other metrics
Hope you find it of some use
Awesome, I’ll have to check it out 😉
Hello Robbie, probably the best detailed SEO tutorials.
It’s long but really great that you can share this info with us. I’m totally following you.
Thanks Cadivi, glad to have you on board 🙂
This is Great Post Thanks for Sharing
No problem Raju! Glad you enjoyed it 😉
Great post better start this today.
That’s the spirit, Richard 😉
Let me know if you have any questions about tactics mentioned in the post.
Cheers!
Hey Robbie
You keep popping up with great content. My question is : Is page rank still a valuable metric or have Google stopped using it as a refrence? I thought i heard recently that they had stopped looking at PR rank
cheers
Andrew
Hey Andrew,
Great question. I think the factors that contribute to Page Rank value are just as important as ever before. So yes, Page Rank itself is important.
However, Google has only updated the PR value once or twice in the past 12 months, that I’m aware of. It appears they are moving away from making the value “public”. But I suspect they are still placing just as much weighting on it. This failure to update could be a result of number of things. But, there are a ton of tools out their that give near equivalent indications of a domain/page’s authority, such as Moz Rank, Trust Flow and Ahref’s URL rank.
Referring domains/ inbound links are still a top ranking factor.
Great list of tools and how to use them. But getting someone to give you a link is a whole different matter.
DT,
You’re right. It will all depend on the strategies they using to build links.
Guest post = reach out and claim your own (focus on contextual links)
Forum links = not worth the time
Epic blog posts = Jackpot! Blow it out of the water with the skyscraper technique and then outreach to all the sites you identify in the OSE Top Pages report (works like a charm) https://www.robbierichards.com/seo/case-study-triple-traffic-in-30-days/
Directories = some are worth the effort
.Edu/.Gov sites = look for resource page opportunities
So many opportunities with this strategy. Great for initial direction, then with some smart targeted outreach you can usually get some solid quick wins.
Thanks for the killer post. great tutorial here with amazing sources. Very thorough. Thank you.
Cheers Jarrett! Glad you enjoyed it 😉
wow….You are genius. I am new to blogging and thank you very much for the insight into the backlink universe.
Sri, definitely NOT a genius, but thanks for the kind words. Glad you enjoyed the article. Let me know if you have any questions.
First of all thank you for sharing in detail.
However, some of the online tools you suggest has problems and they don’t match the results when you compare them.
I give you sample: When I use Ahrefs, I get great result.
Than when I jump on to Majestic..all kind of problems shows up.
Like: crawl error-Title tag is missing.
Also there is another tool you have not mention “Traffic Travis” there is pro and free version to start with.
I will add this article to my SEO Book collection. because it is a treasure.
Thanks again for the insight.
Hey,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. You’re right, there are definitely discrepancies in the data, that’s why I’ll typically pull data from a number of different sources to maximize accuracy/ # of results. Never going to get a perfect data set, better to take it in relativity 🙂
This post makes my brain hurt. So much helpful information that makes me realize I have so much more to learn in the SEO world. Very awesome though and thank you. For some reason I couldn’t verify my site in Bing. I chose the copy the meta into the Yoast SEO option, but when I click verify it came up red on all the options as if to indicate I am supposed to use all three to verify and not one of my choosing.
Hey Tim,
Glad you liked the post. This is my “go-to” strategy when it comes to building backlinks, in any niche. Don’t worry about the brain hurting, that’s how I feel all the time ;P It’s inevitable, things change so much!
Sometimes the verification process can be a little finicky. I’d try verifying in Google first, then Bing. Just make sure you’re only adding the letters/ numbers…no tags.
Let me know if it still doesn’t work.
Cheers!
Nice article, simple and useful, also for non english webmasters !
Glad you found it useful 🙂
Hi Robbie,
FIrst of all thanks for this complete list, First time I got a complete list for SEO and backlink tools. But My query is when I am posting any comment in any web then nobody approve my comments. I don’t know why they reject it.
So How can I make backlinks and boost my site ranks. Backlinking is not a major matter for me but the main thing is I can’t participate in any discussion and join the team.
Well I have tried most of the tools in your list I like SEOQuake Addons, Mozbar Addons, Spyglass, backlink monitor.
One more thing I was not aware about bing webmaster backlink tool secret. Thanks for all this information.
Rajiv,
I’d be curious to learn what types of comments you are leaving? How active the threads are?
At the end of the day, I don’t use forum comments to build backlinks. I use them to build relationships that I can leverage in the future (roundups etc..) and drive relevant traffic to my site. Comments pass next to no link juice, so don’t focus on it as a direct link building strategy. Use it build relationships that you can leverage down the road.
WOW! Amazing Article! I’m so glad I clicked on it in the result page in google… Thank you very much for sharing all this knowledge and those tools!
I have a question: why do recommend to not buy PR Links? That’s exactly what I wanted to do haha because I’m in a very small niche where there is no forums, no article directories, all the PR 2+ links from my competitors are from other sites on the same niche. They all know each other basically. And me, I arrive with my little brand new website, and there is very little chances they are going to recommend me on their high quality websites, you know.. Do you have a tip about that?
Thanks again!
Julien
Hey Julien,
Buying links could get you slapped with a Penguin penalty.
Do you mind telling my me what niche you’re in? I might be able to give you some ideas.
Cheers!
I am glad to read such a informative post. Thanks for writing.Keep posting
Wonderful article, one of the most in depth I have seen for seo. I will for sure start following you. Keep up the good work!
Excellent website. Plenty of helpful information here.
I’m sending it to several pals ans also sharing in delicious.
And of course, thanks on your effort!
Thanks mate! Appreciate the support.
Robbie, that was one great piece of article. I have been thinking of a way of getting links to topple my competitors and this is the strategy. Thank you. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Amos. Glad you enjoyed 🙂
Hey Robbie,
thanks for the amazing post, i am very new to link building, and honestly was confused as hell as to where should i start, with your post, i now have a much better understanding of the link building process and how to go about it….
And believe me, i did read lot of posts and results from google on how to do it, however none of the posts are as good in terms of explanation as yours.
Amazing job, your blog and this post is now added on my favs bar, so i would always read all the new tips and tricks of link building and seo,
thanks once again, you saved me a lot of time and surely lot of headache:)
Thanks Krishna!
Glad it helped. This is just one strategy. But it’s a great place to start for any business in any niche.
Hey Robbie, a lot of the comments above are purely from GSA. Delete them if I were you.
1. Misspelling certain words on purpose to reduce spam
2. Generic approval of your blog without mention of anything within the article
3. Website listed as something trash
Cheers Tom!
I’ve been trying to manually sift through the garbage 🙂
This post is really helpful for me because I am looking for ways to build backlinks for my website. Thanks a lot!
You’re welcome Vanessa! Glad you’re finding it helpful.
that was really helpful!!! thanks!
Awesome, glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Robbie,
Thanks for this very thorough article on back link building. I am going to start using the tips today. I also am planing to ad a link to your article from my eBook “Getting a First Page Listing on Google My Business.”
Awesome, let me know when your book is published. Would love to check it out!
Thank you so much for this wonderful article. Very Informative. Will start using these tips soon.
Cheers, Ashish! Let me know if you have any questions.
Hey Robbie
Yes I do have a question. I was checking one of my clients site for backlinks through one of the free tools you mentioned – backlink watch, and I found more than 900 backlinks, most of the links when I clicked on them returned a 404 error or Domain for sale or Auction. I just wanted to know the story behind having 900 backlinks (with no PageRank).
Hey Ashish,
That sounds fishy. Are the 404 errors coming from pages on a relevant domain?
Hey Robbie
What an awesome post. The last couple of paragraphs are the gold for me. Its always been the stumbling block for me when considering link building. Thank you.
Dave
Awesome, happy to hear you got something out of it David! Let me know how you go with it 🙂
Thank you so much for this wonderful article
High quality backlinks are definitely a must, great blog!
Thanks Melinda! Glad you’re enjoy it 🙂
Awesome post, you rock man !
Thanks Robbie for the Post. Gonna checkout Ahrefs,
I know Ahrefs but now only I know that it is better than Majestci 🙂
I found this guide very helpful for my site
Awesome article hope I can use this info to establish my starter blog.
Hi Robbie,
I analyzed and listed all of my competitor’s backlinks. Now should I get only do-follow backlinks?
Thank you fot that great post!
Yeah, definitely invest your time in the do-follow links. Try to target site’s with 30+ DA too.
Hey
I have a doubt. There are less number of sites having high PR and it is said that higher the number of backlinks, higher would be the rank in search engine of your site. If we focus on backlinks, then Domain authority will suffer and if we concentrate on domain authority, backlinks will be less.
So, what to do in practically? Backlinks coming from 0 PR do-follow 2,000 sites is better than backlinks from 50 high PR sites, some of them no follow?
Rakhi,
Only build links from relevant quality sites. When it comes to backlinks, quality is more important than quality.
You did an awesome job on this article! I’ve been trying to figure how to build incoming links for a week. This is going to be a major project I suppose. How long do you think it takes to complete this? Thanks, Robbie!
Thanks Hector! Timing depends on the number of competitors you’re analyzing and the tools you have access too. I like to give myself 3-5 hours to analyze 5-10 competitors.
Hey Robbie,
Great post, man.
This is the first time I’ve heard of this one.
Awesome!
I’m gonna get started on this.
Thanks!
Julian
I’m off to share this! 😀
Cheers Julian! Let me know how it goes 😉
Very helpful post. I have done no backlink building yet and still have very good SERP positions with my 3 year old site (60.000/monthly visits). I hope that focusing now on continuous linkbuilding and slooooowly getting quality backlinks from my competitors will supercharge my SERP positions from 3rd right to the 1st 🙂
Wow, 60,000/ month. Nice work Tom! Let me know how you go.
Robbie – thanks for this great link building guide. Probably the most comprehensive guide on link building I’ve seen.
Quick question: the hardest links are the ones you ask for. What is a good success rate at getting webmasters to link back to you, assuming that you are really helping them with great content or alternative links.
Thanks again!
Hey John,
The success rate depends on the industry. I usually see around 5-10% with that specific strategy.
Hey Robbie,
Thanks for sharing those cool tricks on how to “steal” the competitor’s backlinks – very informative indeed! I want to share my experience with “building” backlinks for one of my blogs as it might be a useful insight to some of your readers. It is in a low to moderate competition niche, but all those sites that came on the first page of google were not dedicated to that particular subject. In other words they just had a post about it, but that’s all – sites with high authority. So I decided to build up a blog from scratch that is entirely dedicated on the niche – or micro niche blog that only contains content on pretty much few keywords. I rolled up my sleeves and did about 95 articles – some long enough (800-1000 words) others much shorter. As you can imagine I only focused on putting up some content. After 1 month and a half, for one of the keywords I’m on 7th position in google, and for another major keyword I’m on the 11th position in google – NO BACK LINKS building whatsoever.
So in my view, if you have a dedicated blog on one niche, and do a good number of quality posts, you can certainly outrank even sites that have very high PR, thousands of backlinks, and thousands of articles – at least that’s my experience.
Anyhow, thank you again Robbie for sharing this helpful info – keep my email in your newsletter loop, as I want to be updated of other helpful tips and tricks regarding SEO!
Regards
Hey Baba,
Thanks for stopping by. You’re right, being ultra-focused is a good strategy. Often, many larger sites will rank content purely on the back of their high domain authority. This presents an opportunity. If you can write an epic piece of content, include strong on-page SEO you can outrank high DA/ low PA articles. It all depends on the niche. But, I’ve had some similar experiences.
Probably the best link building strategy. And a list of awesome tools. Thanks for the post.
Robbie : Very Helpful post. But Still a question.
1. How important is the Domain Authority and Page Authority is??
I always look at DA when assessing link targets. It’s a great way to quickly identify link targets that could pass a lot of juice.
Fantastic post Robbie, the most detailed info I have come across, with some programs mentioned that I had never heard of before. Well done!
Cheers Des! Any tools you’re currently using or considering?
Robbie, thank you for a great in depth post. I have a question though as to which of the above mentioned software(s) you use for your own and client SEO strategies? (Or is this your entire strategy?) There are so many to choose from and each one requires a different approach to the competitive analyses. I am just trying to be efficient in my process. Thanks again, I studied every word of what you wrote!
Hey Dan,
Glad you enjoyed the post. I’ve used every tool on the list at some point. However, I’m now finding Ahrefs to be the best solution for my needs. They are releasing a bunch of new features. The tool keeps getting stronger.
When it comes to outreach, I use BuzzStream.
Hi Robbie!
This is my first visit to your blog. I found really helpful piece of information from you.
Thanks for sharing friend
Robbie – You’re the man! A great a simplified explanation of how to be a better SEO.
Cheers Adley, glad you found it helpful 🙂
Nice Article and Very helpful article for bloggers.. Thanks!!! Keep Sharing such killer articles….
Good information. Lucky me I ran across your website by accident (stumbleupon)
Glad to hear it Myles!
Very informative article, all things in one shop i would say!!!
thanks
Glad you enjoyed it Kumar!
Hey thanks for all the valuable info but I have a question do you offer SEO service?
Thanks Fernando! Yes, I am currently taking on a handful of new SEO projects. Shoot me an email.
Iam in love with Ahref, in my opinion its the best SEO tool 😉
Thanks for this post and thanks for sharing.
Cheers Max! Big fan of Ahrefs also 🙂
Hi Robbie!,
I have gone through your post and found some great information on competitors backlink analysis. I mainly use free tools like Backlink Watch, smallseotools, Ahref, Moz tool to check competitor backlink. But, you have mentioned about so many free tools here that’s really good and I had no information on these tools.
Thanks for this post….:)
Hi Robbie,
I’d love to use Moz, Open Site Explorer.
Thanks
But if we steal exact backlinks then will our site get penalized by Google or Not ?
coz google knows that you are making the same backlinks as other site of the same niche !
Ameer, as long as the links are quality you’ll be fine. The key is replicate as many links from your competitor’s profile, and then go a step further and acquire additional links they don’t have. This is where the degree of separation comes in 🙂
Epic post Robbie – unfortunately, as of October 1st, 2015 Webmaster Tools has shut down Link Explorer. D;
Oh, right. Thanks Michelle. I definitely need to update that post 🙂
Here is one of the best seo tutorial for every seo specialist. Thanks for great article.
Cheers Minhaz! Appreciate it.
very helpful topic , thx
Glad it was helpful 🙂
this is one of the best tuturial on seo i ever read.thanks a lot for sharing such a nice aeticle.
i enjoyed this article a lot ,inhanced my knowledge.plz keep it up
Glad it helped Muhammad!
Nice Post Robbie!
Very Informative and helpful keep sharing
Big fan of yours 🙂
Cheers Haris, appreciate you taking the time to reach out. Glad you’re digging the content 🙂
I think this is the best article I have read in the past couple of months regarding Backlink building. This is the combination of hundreds of blogs and articles I have read. You are the best.
Jason
http://www.macuha-artgallery.com
Thanks Jason! Glad you enjoyed the article.
Wow, nice write. Thanks for your sharing.
Great article, am putting everything I just read into practice right away, even though it will be a lot of hard work, I believe the reward will far supersede the effort. Thanks
Obodo, it’s a great place to start for any link building campaign 🙂
Great Content Robbie. I came across your website few days and I have been feeding on your contents. Thank you so much for the insights.
Glad you’re enjoying the content, Hephzy!
Thanks for this Robbie. I was actually searching for a way to remove a competitor in CognitiveSEO and your post showed up. I read it and I think this will be useful in our campaigns since this covers many tools.
I especially appreciate hearing about Scrapebox tool here and will try it to make filtering the list from various tools easier.
Sweet, glad you liked the post Jeff!
Thank God I found your blog just about 2 months into this traffic search business. I’ve bookmarked and signed up for your freebies. Keep sending, good work. Thanks
Thanks Dan! Glad it’s helpful.
Hey Robbie,
This is an old article, so not sure if you’ll see this, but I had a couple of questions.
You suggested this is a “scalable” backlinking method. How would you suggest to scale this across multiple clients? VAs?
Also, is it going to be an issue replicating a whole heap of backlinks at once, or should they be dripped out over time?
Thanks heaps if you see this!
Hey David,
VAs could definitely help scale the outreach process, which tends to be the most time consuming. I don’t see there being any problems with replication. Realistically, less than 10% will stick anyways.
Thanks Robbie
Excellent article, showed me actually how SEO and back links building are interesting and challenging. So many things to learn and understand. You are real master!
Thanks Maja! Definitely wouldn’t call myself a master. Just learning, implementing and sharing the knowledge 🙂
Hi Robbie
Thanks to provides very good information about various tools, I m using semrush since 1 year and I deserve semrush is good for Keyword ranking and back-links checking.
Hi
Superb tutorial. Was tempted to give this a go but was wondering if you provide this as a service and if so how do I go about getting a quote?
Hey Greg, thanks so much. Glad you enjoyed the post. At this time I am not offering this strategy as a stand alone service. I’m currently focusing on more full cycle SEO projects.
Hi, great post! First time i’ve found anything like this, looking forward to giving a go on the site i’ve worked so hard on but fails to get anywhere in google. I see someone has already commented on it, but with not link explorer from bing anymore, any idea of something else I can use to get competitor backlink prospects? Many thanks and great work!!
I should of really continued reading… didn’t realise it wasn’t just a step but part of a list of various backlink prospects. My bad, thanks again
This was one of the more informed articles on back
Iinks I have read, and I have read many! Awesome job!
Thanks!
Thanks Cora! Glad you enjoyed the post.
Awesome! Thank you 🙂
Robbie : Very Helpful post. But Still a question.
1. How important is the Domain Authority and Page Authority is??
Domain and page authority are still helpful as “relative” metrics. They don’t get updated often in tools like Mozbar, so you need to take it for what it is. However, anytime you can replicate a link that has DA equal to or greater than your site (and the domain is contextually relevant), you should be good to go 🙂
I was researching on backlinks and found that nofollow links are also important. so please tell me that I should comment on others website to get nofollow or not.
Hey Steve, no follow links are definitely a good part of a healthy link profile. At the end of the day, commenting is not about authority links. If that is what you are using it for, don’t bother. Instead, use comments to add value, build relationships and channel targeted traffic to your site.
wow what a article…….
Most of the tools are not providing complete information of links, only providing first 5 or 10 links.
That’s why I use so many in the tutorial. You’ll need to combine results from multiple sources if you are only using free version. If you go with a paid version, I recommend Ahrefs.
It was really a very informative post and thank you for sharing this information with us…
Thanks Xaif! Glad you enjoyed the post.
Been looking for this kind of information for a while. Thanks a lot Robbie.
Quick question, Is it normal for a 2 month old website not to show its backlinks on analysis?
90% of its pages have already been indexed on google. Should I be worried?
What tool are you using to monitor links?
Nice post Robbie, it helps a lot to make good and quality backlinks to our site.
Awesome! Thank you 🙂
2 Years later and I still found this article really helpful. Thank you
very very nice your site
I never see that kind of detailed. Really very helpful post with very helpful links.
Thank to introducing these great tools. I like most Open Site Explorer. This is an awesome tools. But after complete your review I would like to use others ?
Thank you Robbie, this is helpful on so many levels, fantastic content!
Glad you liked the post, Victor!
never seen that type of explain thank you for sharing with us 🙂
Great post dear
you have mention almost all great back link explorer tool here
thanks
Thank you. Is there in spanish of your article?
Sher, I don’t currently have a Spanish version.
Thanks so much for this post….After going through most of the tools you recommended here, backlinkwatch works perfectly well for me and for free. I will use this tools to analyse my competitor backlinks and use it for mine as well.
Pls does the numbers of domains linking to my page matters in link building?
Uthman,
Yes. The number of unique referring domains does matter. However, always emphasize quality over quantity.
Good Guidelines for backlinks building thanks for sharing. 🙂
Hey, first off loved the article. I downloaded the ebook and signed up for a few backlink analysis softwares. Where can I find specifically better ways to read the analyzation and how to use that information? Any tips?
Hey Sam – I’m going to be updating the article in the next couple months to make it more actionable. Stay tuned 🙂
Thanks a lot for the information. I found your article when I was searching how to use SEO tools. it answered my question. thanks.
Hi Robbie
Great article and tools, Stealing competitors backlinks is one of my favorite part of seo work 😉
I read your blog and found it really helpful to learn about back-links generation. Thank you so much for sharing it. I wish to get more post similar to this in future.
Cheers John! Plenty more to come 🙂
Thanks alot!
I have been able to add 9 quality backlinks with one of them coming from .edu site, using your methods. Though it wasn’t an easy task but it worth it.
Thanks once again.
Awesome, nice work James! Keep up the great work. .edu links are definitely worth the effort.
THANKS.. ROBBIE!…It’s really helpful for me. I’m enjoy reading.
Thanks , it’s good to find a quality article on backlink building . i have one question , can we use this method in every niche or this one is only for selected ones ? i’m running a sports site , so it will be good if this method can fetch me some good backlinks .
This site can be used in practically any niche. Start with a couple of the tools listed in post, and see what you uncover.
Hello Robbie,
I run a music blog here in Nigeria, it’s so hard to rank my blog and finally i get to read this post to the end….I’ve installed SEO and Moz Chrome extension, got my Ahref account and have the SEO Spy glass installed on my PC and now it’s time to steal their ranking….LOL.
Thanks so much for this!
Hey Saminu,
Glad you’re ready to jump in. Reverse engineering your competitor’s backlinks is a great way to seed your link profile. Pay close attention to the methods they are using to acquire links, and scale that. Also, audit the top 5 or so articles ranking for your target keyword and make sure your content is better than the rest.
Seems like Raventools no longer offering free account. They still have free trial. Pricing is $99 and $249
Thanks Cynthia, I need to go back and update the article 🙂
Thank you for your valuable information I am following you on each post.
Glad to hear it, David! Plenty more to come 🙂
Very informative post.
Hey Robbie
Thanks for mailing me this post. Now I have a pack of Backlink Analysis tool to learn about. The advantages of each tool helped me to decide which one works for me.
Thanks again.
I recommend Ahrefs 🙂 I Use it every day.
Great Content Robbie. I came across your website few days and I have been feeding on your contents. Thank you so much for the insights.
Cheers, Naveed! Glad you’re enjoying the content. What types of topics would you like to see me write more about?
Thank you for your valuable information I am following you on each post. This is a great post. Thanks.
Robbie, When I do competitor analysis for any website I am not able to make same backlinks! Some backlinks I found from Resource page, broken link and PBN links. Could you please help me out, how can we make backlink for the same type.
Thank you, Julie
Hey Julie,
Where are you having the issues?
Resource link building is only effective if you have something of equal or greater value. Broken link building is a slog. PBNs are a no-go in my books. Are they using guests posts, directories, blog content, infographics, scholarships, community events, PR outreach? Those types of links are much easier to replicate.
Thanks for the information, backlinking is one of my greatest challenges. Our site has only been up for 8 weeks and I really have some weak links. I will be returning a lot in order to implement what I can from your post. Again Thank You.
Thanks Raju! Good luck with it all.
Thank for All this .. Ranked my First Site with All of this You Taught Me !
Now Going for Other Site
Yeah!!! Nice work. Keep it up. I actually need to update the article.
Great tips you have shared. We have to follow all the methods which are you have shared.
Thanks.
Great post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed!
Thanks Ivy! Glad you’re enjoying it 🙂
Nice article, simple and useful, also for non english webmasters !
Cheers Jack! Glad it was helpful 🙂
Follow me on Twitter – @kanishkt23
Thank you so much for this great article. i will work on improving by blog’s ranking with it.
Very welcome, Benjamin! Hope it helps 🙂
I am glad to read such a informative post. Thanks for writing.
Previously I was using SEOProfiler, BackLinkWatch, SmallSEOTools only. But now I started using all the above mentioned tools. Thanks for providing us a valid and useful information.
WOW nicely explained. I really like your blog!
Thanks Jamie! Glad to hear it 🙂 Let me know what type of content you’d like me to focus more on in 2017?
Yeah, I love this blog’s theme
I am glad to read such a informative post. Thanks for writing.Keep posting
Hello Robbie,
Absolutely great information ! I always follow your blog 🙂 thanks for share.
Cheers! Appreciate having you on board, and taking the time to leave a comment.
that was really helpful!!! thanks!
Hey Robbie,
That is huge and very effective for me. Thank you so much for this long and clean described article. I really enjoy to read your post.
I am glad to read such a informative post. Keep Posting
Hey, Robbie. First off, thanks for writing this extremely helpful article!
Recently I’ve been trying to improve my search engine rankings since I have been posting quite a bit and just seem kind of stuck at the page 3 mark for most of my posts. After reading some other articles I found that it is probably due to my domain authority since it is still pretty low. So I found this page while looking at ways to improve SEO via White Hat Backlinking.
I really like the approach you have here because there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. After all, competition is what business is all about. There seems to be a lot of work to getting to the endpoint where you actually have your list of backlinks to work with, but I’m sure once you go through this process it becomes a little quicker to go through. 🙂
Thanks again for the great article!
Hey Christian,
You’re right. A lot of legwork there. But, this is because the article positioned to show you how to extract loads of link data using free version of tools. If you have a paid subscription to a tool like Ahrefs you’ll work 10x faster 🙂
Trying to Steal Health Niche Competitor but Couldn’t Find any Backlinks of that Blog on any Platform ? WHY ?
can u kindly tell any free backlinks checker?
Try out SEO Spyglass or Ahrefs free trial.
Thanx for your Great Post Wil Surely try this on my website
Hi Robbie,
Your blog is amazing … i learn many things in one shot. Thank you so much explaining in such simple way.Keep it up.
Glad you’re finding it helpful, Imran! 🙂
I am now starting to work with seo and I confess that I had many doubts about certain subjects, I want to thank you for the beautiful content, the answers to my doubts were all here in your article, thank you very much.
Hi Robbie,
This technique may work for established websites but not for all sites – Very few highly rated sites would be willing to offer backlinks to sites with low rankings. It’s also extremely time consuming and totally waste of time for young websites – It’s probably Okay for sites like your own, Matthew’s and similar types of websites which are already getting lots of visitors.
Hey Rod,
Thanks for commenting. Appreciate the opinion.
When you say it is a total waste of time, I’m a little confused. From my experience, replicating link profiles is not directly tied to the size OR authority of your site. I mean, if you have kick ass content to pitch, and your site is generally credible, that’s what will win the link.
I used guest posting in the beginning to target keywords my site wasn’t authoritative enough to target, by piggy backing on larger site authority. Links aside, the referral traffic from good target sites is valuable as well.
How about local SEO? Reverse engineer competitor citations, local link sources (think media, local bloggers, organizations, chambers) and press mentions.
There is a lot of valuable direction you can get with your content strategy. What content topics/ types get linked to the most? Replicate that in your own strategy, beat it, and run outreach to the sites linking to inferior pieces.
Yes, it is a slog, but if it was easy everyone would do it 🙂
Wow. I really love this. I have used most of this Chrome Addons to Spy on My Competitors and it Worked.
Awesome, Amas! Keep it up 🙂
Hello Robbie, Thank you very much for sharing valuable information, I am trying this today.
Hey Robbie, cheers for this writeup.
Some gems in there. I find ahrefs to be the best of all link finding tools with huge backlink analysis of competitors domains. A few in there I’ve never used and will try them out. A differing set of results will help to find those gems you miss.
Yep – Ahrefs is king when it comes to backlink analysis. Don’t know what I’d do without it.
Hi Robbie,
I’m using SmallSEOTools because it’s free and works pretty well. I already tried Link Explorer of Ahrefs which is bomb! I’m soon gonna purchase a plan from Ahrefs I guess.
Thanks mate for sharing all those other tools though! 😀
Hey Joe – if you’re working with link data, there is no tool better than Ahrefs, in my opinion.
Awesome Post ! It is helping me a lot to rank of keywords 🙂
Glad to hear it 🙂
Really Awesome post Robbie, thanks for sharing
Hi Robbie
Great post! I really found it helpful and keep coming back to it. I noticed that you still mention Bing’s tool which is no longer available.
Thank you for writing such a great post.
Hey Mark – thanks for the feedback. I’m actually going to be launching a completely revamped version of this article in the next week. Keep an eye out 🙂
Great piece of information now i can steal some backlinks from my competitors too.
Very Helpful article. When it comes to stealing competitors backlink ahrefs is my favourite one.
Thanks Lasith. I’m going to be launching an updated version in the next week or so, so keep an eye out for that 🙂
Hi Robbie,excellent for the post .I read your full post and I think you share just an awesome experience 3. I enjoyed this article .I think if the content you offered is important or interested enough .Thanks for share and ideas with us.
Thanks Shakil! I’m launching an updated version in the next week 🙂
Hi Robbie,
Always enjoy reading your topics. This one like all others from you has a great wealth of information and so well structured. Whether you’re an expert or beginner, this article has something for you.
Truly a gem on link building strategy..
Thanks for sharing this information.
Thanks Sam! Glad you’re enjoying the content 🙂
Nice article Robbie.
For Method #3 – Search Google for “competing domains” / “competing pages” I am using our own tool which we didn’t launch yet.
You can really easy scan competition in Google for your keyword and get the data in CSV or other format.
If anyone interested in early access program, go to https://automatio.co
Also, since the Ahref removed free version, I guess lot of people will miss that tool, since the min package is $99/month as far I remember.
Thanks for sharing, Stefan.
holy smokes this is an amazing post.
Question does this work also for ecommerce site? i feel like this wont go so far for ecommerce. maybe i am wrong.
Hi Avi,
It does apply. Although, it’s fruits will depend largely on the content marketing efforts of the ecommerce sites. If it has an active blog with great content, there will be plenty of opportunities. At the very least, you can get an understanding of the strategies competitors are using to drive links to deeper product pages, if at all.
The best guide for any SEO topic. I am becoming your fan robie . thank you and keep sharing your knowledge with us. 🙂
Awesome 🙂 Glad you’re enjoying the content! Let me know if you have any questions.
WOW! this is amazing Robbie, so much information!
I’m going to have to bookmark this and return to study it, ha ha!
Thanks, Dan
Thanks Dan! Let me know how it goes 😉
How do you do it over and over again Rob? great stuff btw!
Thanks mate! Late nights and weekends at the moment 🙂
Hi Robbies, i really enjoy this your article, am going to bookmark this page and read and read again until i definitely catch it up.
Thanks Once again for taking your time to share this awesome articles
Awesome! Let me know if you have any questions, Adewale!
Hi Robbie,
I am new to your blog, but think that this post is a great way to help start ups with low or no budget to get a jump start on link building by leveraging their competitors work. Great tips. By the way, I just followed your twitter account so I can stay up to date with your posts, can’t wait to read more.
Awesome – thanks Michael! Pumped to connect 🙂 Reach out if you have any questions.
Woaaaoo! Its amazing to hear and I want to try this methods. I believe your formula and I am sure to get positive results from it. Thanks Robbie for this awesome tutorial . I know it is a little bit harder to get 100% result but I will give my best. Only a Blog scientist like you can innovate this kind of formula and get the best of benefit.
Thanks Ranita!
My blog is gradually coming up and I’ll try to improve it by applying what I just learnt here. Thanks for sharing.
Robbie : Very Helpful post. But Still a question.
How important is the Domain Authority and Page Authority is??
Both are helpful relative metrics for gauging SERP competition.
Wow, nice article, will work on this.
Hi
What’s the best way to build backlinks if your competitors don’t have many themselves? I’m finding it difficult to find sites that will link out to us.
Thanks Jon
Hey Jon,
What industry are you in?
Hello Robbie, Can i hire you for this job on my website?
Thanks for sharing!!!
Not accepting any more clients at this time. But, thanks for reaching out 🙂
Wooohhooooooo….. I am a bit late to comment on this… but thos os surely a killer post and you made my day after I read this..
Cheers
Angelina
Glad to hear it, Angela!
Hi Robbie,
This is one of the complete posts I have come across for link building research and outreach. Although I am doing that research process but not like you using spreadsheets. But now I will use your sheet and start extracting more link building opportunities.
Right on,, Rahul! Competitor link analysis is a go-to for me 🙂
That is huge and very effective for me. Thank you so much for this long and clean described article. I really enjoy to read your post
Thanks Neha!
Hey Robbie.
I’ve been wondering what I can do to improve my rankings. (https:/my-buzz.com)
You’ve certainly opened my eyes to what I should be doing.
I enjoyed this post, and have bookmarked it for future reading.
One question though; I notice it is 3 1/2 years old. Is the info here still current?
Are there different tactics we should be employing?
Thanks for the good advice given here.
Hey Thomas,
The article underwent a major overhaul last year. I’ll probably update it again this year.
No doubt, this is a well-detailed article. Although I check out my competitors’ backlinks, I don’t use this strategy.
Hi there, first let me tell you that this is a great site. I found excellent tips for me.
Thanks Joe!
I never tought I could go that deep in competitors’s backlinks analysis. However, some of the Ahrefs options you use don’t work anymore. In any case, you helped me a lot 😉 Thanks
Thanks Eli! I’ll have to get in there and update it. Can you point me to the specific areas you are referring to that no longer work anymore? This way I can make some quicker edits 🙂
Robbie,
I have a question. With the continuous changes/improvements in the seo world, do you know what is the best keyword research tool these days? Hope you can give me some leads! Thanks.
Hey Joe! I use both SEMrush and Ahrefs. Check out my recommended tools page for more info. There are some trial links there is you want to take one or both for a test drive, plus links to my product review posts. Cheers!
Very nice post with proper screenshots. I also have done this task many times, but today I get advanced knowledge on how to do competitor backlinks in the proper and advanced way after reading your guide. Thanks for putting your efforts into making this well-developed post.
Appreciate it, Gaurav!
Thank you Robbie, this is helpful on so many levels, fantastic content!
Thanks Malik!
Very Helpful article. When it comes to stealing competitors backlink ahrefs is my favourite one.
Thanks Dawid!
Hey, Robbie
A great guide to analyzing the backlink to a competitor through ahrefs tools. I have a question for you there any SEO tool can show exact keywords difficulties and I don’t well it’s matter in SEO or not. So, please share your thought.
Thanks
Michel Joachim
Not sure about “exact” KD. It comes down to a variety of metrics and manual observation to accurately gauge competition – SERP type, content types, link data and more.
Thank you so much for sharing this valuable information with us! can’t wait to start working on this!
Thank you, Robbie, this is helpful for me.
Thanks for the great tips!
But I have a question, what do you do if you have already searched all the competitors from TOP 10 of SERP? Do you go to TOP20, 30, 50, etc? Though it has no sense because there are not so good websites there. Or you just change the main keyword by the help of LSI and try to search for competitors from those TOPs 10?
Thank you beforehand!
Hi Josephine! Yes – you can go deeper. Or, use a tool like the Ahrefs Content Explorer to enter a topic and set RD filters.
Hey Robbie. really great post dude, thanks for sharing such great information.
Thanks Nisha!
Hi,
Great Post!
also update the post about ahrefs, since it no longer provides free 14 day trail, its 7 day paid trail.
Thanks.
Thanks! Will do 🙂
I am using Ahref from the last 1 years and it is my most favorite tool for SEO no one can beat it and thanks for sharing this knowledgable article.
Thanks Yash!