Backlink gap analysis
Sites that link to your competitors, but not to you
Enter your domain, then your competitors. You get the websites that link to all of them, ranked by authority, with how many links each gives. A site that links to several competitors already covers your topic: it is the warmest prospect for a link to you.
- Up to 20 competitors
- Ranked by authority
- Export your prospect list
$0.05 – $0.06 per check, shown before it runs. What it costs
Compare with your own links
The backlink checker shows the sites already linking to you, so you can see which prospects are new and how your profile compares.
How it works
How to use the backlink gap
- 1
Search
A keyword, a domain or a page, with the country, city or state, and language next to it.
- 2
See the price
The cost of the whole search shows before anything runs. A repeat is free.
- 3
Get the whole picture
Everything loads together. The address holds the search, so you can share it.
Use it to
Backlink gap analysis use cases
Build a link prospect list
Sites linking to several competitors are relevant and open to linking in your niche.
Find resource pages and roundups
Pages that list your competitors are the easiest place to be added.
Prioritise outreach
Sort by authority to start with the links that matter most.
Track the gap
Run it again after a campaign to see which prospects now link to you.
What it costs
Backlink gap analysis pricing
$0.05 – $0.06 per check. You pay the data provider for the lookups a search runs, from your own key, and see the price before it runs. A repeat within a day is free. Backlink data is worldwide.
| Part of the search | Price |
|---|---|
| Domains linking to all competitors (up to 100) | $0.05 – $0.06 |
Search data
Start with $5 of free search data
Keyword, ranking and backlink data in OpenSEO comes from YepAPI. Sign up there and new accounts get $5 in free credit, for a limited time. That is enough to try every tool before you spend anything.
- 1
Sign up at YepAPI
New accounts get $5 in free credit, for a limited time.
- 2
Copy your API key
It is on your YepAPI dashboard once you sign in.
- 3
Paste it into OpenSEO
During account setup, or later in Settings. Every tool works from there.
The free credit is YepAPI’s limited-time offer and may end. After it, you pay YepAPI per lookup, at the price OpenSEO shows before each one runs. See pricing
SEO glossary
What is link intersect?
Link intersect is a backlink analysis that finds websites linking to two or more of your competitors but not to your site. The idea is simple: if a site already links to several businesses like yours, it covers your topic and is open to linking, so it is a strong prospect for outreach.
Related SEO terms
Link buildingWhite hat
Link building is the work of getting other websites to link to yours, to earn referral traffic and the trust that helps pages rank.
A referring domain is a website that links to your site at least once. Each domain counts once, no matter how many links it sends.
Domain Rating (DR) is Ahrefs’ 0–100 score of the strength of a website’s backlink profile. It is a third-party metric, not used by Google.
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat backlinks as votes of trust and use them to rank and discover pages.
Broken link buildingWhite hat
Broken link building means finding broken links on other sites and suggesting your relevant page as the replacement. It is a white hat tactic.
Backlink gap analysis FAQ
What is a backlink gap?
The websites that link to your competitors but not to you. Also called a link intersect, it is one of the most reliable ways to find link building prospects, because those sites already link to pages like yours.
Is this white hat link building?
Yes, when you earn the links: by offering something worth linking to, such as a better resource, data or a fix for a broken link. Buying links is against Google’s spam policies.
Do I need a project?
No. The SEO tools work on their own, in any market you pick. Keywords you find can be saved to a project in one click when you want to track them.
Can I share a result?
Yes. The search, the market and the open tab are all in the page address, so a link or a bookmark opens the same view. Anyone opening it runs the search with their own key; a repeat of something already looked up is served from the cache for free.
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