How to Do a Backlink Gap Analysis (With Template)

A backlink gap analysis is the process of finding great links your competitors have that you don’t. It involves evaluating your competitors’ quality of backlinks and deciding if similar links could also improve your site’s SEO.

This process helps you:

Find quality links quickly
Improve your domain’s authority
Close gaps against competitors

In this guide, you’ll learn how to use our backlink gap analysis template to find relevant, high-quality websites that are worth reaching out to.

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This critical SEO SOP is perfect for beginners and walks them through the process step by detailed step.

Make a copy of the backlink gap analysis template. Then search your website in Ahrefs Site Explorer and navigate to Organic Competitors:

Look at the Domain Rating (DR) column to identify competitors that have a higher authority than you and are in a similar ballpark to the size of the site you have.

Keep this list of competitors handy, as you’ll need it for the next step.

Open Ahrefs’ Competitive Analysis tool and set it to “referring domains”

Where it says “the target doesn’t rank for”, add your website. Beneath that, add your list of competitors:

Then click “show link opportunities” to see a list of websites your competitors rank for, but you don’t.

You can easily remove most low-quality links by applying a few filters.

Start by looking at domains that link to all competitors you’ve entered. If a site links to all your competitors and not to you, it’s likely worthwhile for you to get a link from it. These will be your high-priority link targets.

You could also check domains that link to at least two competitors afterward. These will be your medium-priority link targets.

Next, you can look at only “dofollow” domains:

If your list of link targets is still rather long, try setting the Domain Rating (DR) filter to a minimum of 50:

Or the domain traffic filter to a minimum of 1,000:

You can adjust these values up or down depending on the results you get in the report.

Even with these filters applied, there will always be links your competitors get that are not relevant to your brand or industry.

To remove them, start by assessing the first domain in the list.

Open the website to see what it’s about. If it is:

Not about your industry
Not a business directory
Not a high-quality site that can build your brand

… do not add it to your prospecting list. Move on to the next domain and repeat this assessment process.

For each website you identify that’s relevant, and you can likely get a link from it, add it to your copy of the link gap template.

Focus on filling out the columns for:

Page / Site: Add the domain here.
Domain Rating (DR): Add the domain’s authority score.
Domain Traffic: Add the traffic across the entire website.

You’ll find the data in these columns in Ahrefs:

You can also fill out general columns like:

Status: Set it as “To Outreach”.
Priority:
High = all competitors have links from this domain
Medium = more than two competitors have links from this domain.
Low = only one competitor has links from this domain.
Link Target: Add the page on your website you want to get a link to. If you’re unsure of a specific page, just add your homepage.

Your team can fill out the remaining columns during the prospecting and outreach phases.

For now, continue going through the list of domains, adding only the relevant ones to your list.

Some link building strategies work better by adding a backlink to an existing post instead of creating new content that contains a link.

In this case, when you contact editors and website owners, you must provide the exact page on which you want to request a link.

To find such pages, switch the Link Intersect report to “referring pages” mode:

Then, repeat steps 3 to 5, adding each relevant page to the link gap analysis template.

Final thoughts

This process is complete once you have examined all the domains and individual pages that link to two or more competitors but not to your website.

Once you’ve added all the relevant ones to the spreadsheet, this task is complete.

You’ll then need to send the spreadsheet to your client, manager, or whoever is in charge of link prospecting so they can complete the remaining columns in the spreadsheet and prepare it for outreach.

Got a special link gap analysis process you’d love to share? We’re building a marketing SOP library—connect with me on LinkedIn and have your processes included!

Post byDespina Gavoyannis

Despina Gavoyannis is a Senior SEO Specialist at Ahrefs, a leading marketing platform for search, AI, and beyond.

She has worked in SEO for over 10 years, specializing in revenue-driven strategies and collaborating closely with cross-functional teams, including UX designers, developers, and marketers.

Before joining Ahrefs, Despina worked as an SEO consultant, providing strategic guidance and education to in-house and agency teams. Her work has helped generate more than $125 million in additional annual organic revenue for the brands she’s partnered with.

Despina is the author of one book, two SEO courses, and has been featured in publications such as Search Engine Journal, Wix, Crazy Egg, and Learning SEO.

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