What Is the Best Way to Discover a Competitor's Backlinks?

The short version: the best way to discover a competitor's backlinks is to run their domain through Ahrefs, Semrush or the free Google Search Console trick on your own overlapping pages, then sort by domain rating and filter out the junk. No single tool shows you everything, so the real skill is cross-checking two sources and knowing which links are worth chasing.

Why this question matters more than people admit

Everyone asks how to find a competitor's backlinks. Almost nobody asks what to do once they've got the list, which is the bit that moves rankings. I've spent years watching business owners export a spreadsheet of 400 referring domains, feel very productive for an afternoon, then do nothing with it. Finding the links is the easy 20%. Working out which ten are worth your time is the other 80%.

So before I give you the method, I want to be blunt about something most posts on this topic skip: a competitor's backlink profile is not a shopping list. Half of what you'll find is either paid, part of a link scheme, or so old and low quality it's actively doing them no good. Chasing all of it is a waste of a week.

Step by step: the actual process

Here's what I'd do if I were starting from nothing today.

• Step 1. Pick a backlink tool. Ahrefs and Semrush are the two serious paid options, both with free trial tiers that let you pull a competitor's top 100 referring domains without paying anything upfront.
• Step 2. Enter the competitor's root domain, not a specific URL, unless you only care about one page.
• Step 3. Sort by Domain Rating or Authority Score, highest first.
• Step 4. Filter out anything under DR 20. These are usually low value directories or link farms that won't help your own authority.
• Step 5. Open the "intersect" or "link intersect" tool if your platform has one, and compare your competitor against two other rivals at once. Domains linking to all three are your highest priority targets, because they're clearly open to linking within your niche.
• Step 6. Cross-check the list against a second free source, such as the Google Search Console trick for shared pages, to catch anything the paid tool missed.

If you want more detail on the mechanics of pulling a full backlink count rather than just a sample, I've written a separate walkthrough on how to count the total backlinks pointing to a website, which is worth doing for your own site alongside the competitor research so you're comparing like for like.

A worked example

Say you run a mid-size accounting software company competing against three bigger rivals in the UK market. You pull one competitor's backlink profile and get 1,200 referring domains. That sounds impressive until you filter: 300 are from a single directory network that clearly sells placements, 400 are from DR 5-15 blogs with no real traffic, and maybe 150 are duplicate links from the same few sites linking from multiple pages.

That leaves roughly 350 links worth a second look. Run those through the intersect tool against your other two rivals and you might find 40 domains that link to all three competitors but not to you. That shortlist of 40 is your actual outreach target, not the original 1,200. It's a fraction of the list but it's the fraction that will shift your domain authority.

The free route, if you don't want to pay

You don't need a paid subscription to get started. Google Search Console only shows links to your own site, but you can still learn a lot by searching variations of site:competitor.com "guest post" or checking who links to content that ranks above yours for your target keywords. I cover the no-cost approach in more detail in how to see all the backlinks going to your site, and the same logic applies when you're sizing up someone else's profile rather than your own.

If budget is tight, there are also tools like Ubersuggest and the free tier of Moz's Link Explorer that will show you a capped number of referring domains, usually around 100, which is plenty to spot patterns even if you can't see the full dataset.

What the data tells you

Once you've got a clean list, look for three things:

• Link type. Is it a guest post, a resource page mention, a press pickup, or a directory listing? Resource pages and press pickups are usually easier to replicate than guest posts on sites with strict editorial standards.
• Anchor text pattern. If a competitor has 60% of their links using exact-match keyword anchors, that's often a sign of an older, riskier link-building strategy rather than something to copy.
• Recency. A competitor who earned 200 links three years ago and nothing since is coasting on old authority. One who's added 30 new links in the last quarter is actively investing, and that's the one to watch.

This is also a good moment to check what they're ranking for off the back of those links. If you haven't already, run their domain through a keyword gap check, because the backlinks and the keyword wins usually tell the same story. I've written about this separately in how to see which keywords your competitors rank for without paying a penny.

The uncomfortable bit

Here's what most guides on this topic won't say out loud: a sizeable chunk of competitor backlinks, in my experience often a third or more, are not replicable at all. They come from a journalist the founder knew personally, a podcast appearance that happened because of an existing relationship, or a mention in a roundup that's since been updated and no longer exists. You can't reverse-engineer a friendship. Trying to copy every single link on a competitor's profile is how people end up spending six months chasing unattainable placements instead of building the 40 or so that are within reach.

The better use of your time is accepting that competitor backlink research is a sourcing exercise for ideas, not a literal to-do list. Use it to find the types of sites in your niche that link out, then pitch your own angle rather than asking for the exact same placement.

Keeping track once you've started outreach

Once you start earning links from your shortlist, you need a way to monitor progress against the competitor, not just your own count in isolation. Re-run the same backlink pull every month or quarter and track the gap closing. If you want a straightforward way to check your own numbers for free while you do this, how to check how many backlinks a site has for free covers tools that won't cost you anything while you're building out the paid side of the research.

And if you're new to backlinks generally and want the why behind all of this before you go deeper, it's worth reading why backlinks matter and how to start earning them so the strategy underneath the tool-clicking makes sense.

Frequently asked questions

What is the single best free tool for finding a competitor's backlinks?

Google Search Console won't show you a competitor's links directly, but the free tiers of Ubersuggest and Moz Link Explorer will, usually capped at around 100 referring domains, which is enough to spot the pattern of where their links come from.

How many of a competitor's backlinks are worth chasing?

In the worked example above, a 1,200-link profile narrowed down to roughly 350 usable links and then a shortlist of 40 realistic outreach targets. Expect a similar ratio: most of the list is noise, and the final actionable target list is usually under 5% of the total.

Should I copy every link my competitor has?

No. A large share of any backlink profile comes from personal relationships, old press coverage or one-off opportunities that no longer exist, so treat the list as a source of ideas about the types of sites that link in your niche rather than a literal checklist.

Is Ahrefs or Semrush better for competitor backlink research?

Both cover the basics well and both offer a link intersect feature that shows domains linking to several competitors at once. The honest difference is usually the interface and reporting style rather than raw data quality, so try the free trial of each and see which one you'll use regularly.