How to Find Competitor Backlinks (And Use Them to Rank Higher)

Quick Takeaways

• Competitor backlink analysis reveals exactly which sites already link to pages competing with yours — giving you a pre-qualified list of outreach targets.
• Your real SEO competitors are the pages ranking above you for your target keywords, not necessarily your business rivals.
• Nightwatch’s built-in competitor tracking lets you monitor rival link profiles alongside your own rank tracking data in one place.
• Prioritise backlinks by three factors: topical relevance, domain authority, and replicability — ignore links you can never earn.
• The three most scalable acquisition methods are guest posts, resource-page placements, and broken-link replacement — each with a different outreach angle.
• Tracking rank changes after link acquisition closes the feedback loop and tells you which link types actually move the needle.

Table of Contents

1. Why Competitor Backlink Analysis Matters
2. How to Identify Your Real SEO Competitors
3. How to Find Competitor Backlinks Step by Step
4. What to Look For in a Competitor’s Link Profile
5. How to Prioritise Which Backlinks to Pursue
6. Outreach Templates for the Top 3 Link Acquisition Methods
7. How to Track Whether Link Building Is Moving the Needle
8. Final Thoughts

Why Competitor Backlink Analysis Matters

Backlinks remain one of Google’s most heavily weighted ranking signals. Google’s own documentation on how Search works describes links as a key way it discovers new content and evaluates page quality. But the challenge with link building isn’t understanding that you need links — it’s knowing where to get them.

That’s exactly what competitor backlink analysis solves.

When a site links to a competing page, it has already demonstrated:

• That it covers your topic area
• That it is willing to link out externally
• That your content category is worth linking to

In other words, every backlink pointing to a competitor is a pre-qualified outreach lead for you. Instead of guessing which sites might link to you, you start from a list of domains that have already done the equivalent thing for someone else.

Beyond outreach targeting, competitor link data powers two other high-value workflows:

Link gap analysis — comparing your backlink profile against a competitor’s reveals the domains that link to them but not to you. Closing that gap is one of the fastest ways to improve relative authority on a topic. This is closely related to content gap analysis, where you find keyword and content opportunities your rivals cover and you don’t.

Profile benchmarking — understanding the average domain authority, link velocity, and anchor-text distribution of top-ranking pages tells you what your profile needs to look like to compete. A thorough SEO competitor analysis is the foundation for setting realistic link-building targets.

How to Identify Your Real SEO Competitors

Most people start competitor research by listing their business rivals. That’s the wrong approach for link building. A company can be your direct commercial competitor without ranking anywhere near you in Google — and vice versa.

Your real SEO competitors for any given page are the pages currently ranking above you for your target keyword.

Find page-level SEO competitors

1. Open an incognito browser window and search your primary target keyword.
2. Note the top 10 organic results. These are the pages you need to outrank.
3. Identify which root domains those pages belong to. A single domain may hold multiple positions.

Some of these will be massive authority domains (Wikipedia, Forbes, HubSpot) that are extremely hard to displace on links alone. Focus on domains that are in the same authority tier as your site, or one tier above — these are realistic targets.

Find site-level SEO competitors

For broader competitive intelligence, look for domains with high keyword overlap with your site. A backlink tool will show you which domains share the most keyword rankings with yours. These site-level competitors are the best sources for bulk link prospecting, since a single crawl of their backlink profile yields hundreds of potential link targets.

Separate the two lists

Keep a spreadsheet with two tabs:

You’ll use page-level competitors for targeted outreach and site-level competitors for ongoing link prospecting.

How to Find Competitor Backlinks Step by Step

Step 1: Add competitors in Nightwatch

Nightwatch’s backlink monitoring module includes a dedicated competitor tracking feature that sits alongside your keyword rankings. Here’s how to set it up:

1. In your Nightwatch dashboard, open the site you want to track.
2. Navigate to Competitors and click Add Competitor.
3. Enter the root domain of each SEO competitor you identified above.
4. Nightwatch will pull their backlink data and display it alongside your own, updated regularly.

This approach keeps your competitor link intelligence and your rank data in the same workflow, so you can correlate backlink changes directly with ranking movements.

Step 2: Export and filter the competitor’s link profile

Once Nightwatch has crawled a competitor’s backlinks, export the data as a CSV. The key columns you need are:

• Source domain — the site doing the linking
• Source URL — the specific page carrying the link
• Target URL — which competitor page the link points to
• Domain rating / domain authority — a proxy for link quality
• Link type — dofollow vs. nofollow
• First seen date — helps identify link velocity

Filter immediately for dofollow links only. Nofollow links pass little to no PageRank and are a lower priority for replication (though they can still drive referral traffic).

Step 3: Run a link gap analysis

A link gap report compares your backlink profile against one or more competitors and surfaces domains that link to them but not to you. Most dedicated backlink tools offer this as a built-in report. The output is your highest-priority outreach list: sites that have already shown willingness to link to your topic category.

Step 4: Research each linking domain

Before reaching out to any site, spend 90 seconds checking:

• Does the site cover your topic area?
• Is the linking page indexed and receiving traffic?
• Is the link placement editorial (within body content) or in a sidebar/footer?
• Does the site have a history of linking out to multiple sites (not just one competitor)?

This quick filter removes low-quality prospects before you invest outreach time.

Step 5: Organise your prospect list

Use a spreadsheet or a CRM to track:

What to Look For in a Competitor’s Link Profile

Not all backlinks are worth pursuing. Understanding the types of links in a competitor’s profile tells you both how they built their authority and which links are realistic for you to replicate.

Link types

Editorial links are the most valuable. These appear within the body content of an article, placed because the author judged the linked resource genuinely useful. They’re earned, not transacted. Earning editorial links requires having content good enough that writers cite it.

Guest post links are placed in content you write and publish on another site. The host site gets a free article; you get an author bio link or contextual link within the piece. This is one of the most controllable link acquisition methods. To spot a competitor’s guest posts, search Google for: "[competitor author name]" "guest post" or site:[competitor domain] inurl:guest.

Resource page links appear on curated “best of” or “tools” pages. Sites compile these as reference lists for their readers. They’re highly linkable if your content or tool fits the page’s theme. Search intitle:"resource" inurl:"links" [your topic] to find these pages independently.

Directory links are listings in industry or local directories. They tend to carry less authority than editorial links but can be replicated almost mechanically.

Broken links point to pages that no longer exist (returning a 404). They represent a link that is actively failing the host site’s readers — making them highly receptive to a replacement suggestion.

Anchor text patterns

Anchor text analysis reveals how a competitor’s linking profile is distributed across branded, exact-match, partial-match, and generic anchors (“click here”, “this article”). A healthy profile has a mix: mostly branded and generic, with some partial-match keyword anchors. Heavy exact-match anchor text concentration is a sign of manipulative link building and a pattern you should not replicate.

When you build links, vary your anchor text naturally. Let the site owner choose the anchor where possible — it looks more natural to Google and reduces over-optimisation risk.

Domain authority distribution

Look at the spread of domain authority (DA or DR, depending on the tool) across a competitor’s linking domains. A high average DA score with links from many unique root domains is the profile you’re building toward. A competitor with 1,000 links from 50 domains has a weaker profile than one with 500 links from 400 domains — diversity of linking root domains matters more than raw link count.

How to Prioritise Which Backlinks to Pursue

With a list of hundreds of potential link targets, prioritisation is everything. Use three filters:

1. Topical relevance

Does the linking page cover the same topic area as your target page? A link from a tangentially related site carries far less weight — and is harder to earn — than a link from a directly relevant one. Discard any prospect where the topical fit is weak.

2. Domain authority

Higher authority domains pass more PageRank. Prioritise prospects with a domain rating above 40–50, especially for competitive keywords. That said, don’t ignore mid-authority sites (DR 20–40) — they’re often easier to obtain links from, and a volume of mid-authority links can be as valuable as a handful of high-authority ones.

3. Replicability

Some links simply cannot be replicated:

• Links from press coverage of a specific event or announcement
• Links from a partner or investor site
• Links from a site that your competitor owns
• Links that are the result of a paid placement on a site that no longer accepts new submissions

Remove these from your list. Focus on link types where a clear acquisition path exists: guest posts, resource page requests, broken link replacement, or directory submission.

A simple scoring approach: assign 1–3 points for each of the three factors, giving a maximum score of 9. Prioritise prospects scoring 7 or above.

Outreach Templates for the Top 3 Link Acquisition Methods

Guest post outreach

Use this when a site publishes contributor content and a competitor has placed a guest post there.

Subject: Guest post idea for [Site Name] — [Topic]

Hi [Name],

I came across [Site Name] while researching [topic area] — you’ve put together a genuinely useful resource, particularly [specific article or section].

I write about [your topic] at [your site] and would love to contribute a piece for your audience. A few ideas:

• [Specific article title idea 1]
• [Specific article title idea 2]
• [Specific article title idea 3]

Each would be original, thoroughly researched, and written for your readers rather than as a promotional piece.

Would any of these be a fit? Happy to send a full outline for whichever looks most interesting.

[Your name]

Key points: reference something specific on their site, pitch concrete article ideas (not vague topics), and make clear the content will serve their readers first.

Resource page outreach

Use this when a page lists external tools or articles on a topic and a competitor is included.

Subject: Addition for your [Topic] resources page

Hi [Name],

I found your resources page on [topic] ([URL]) — it’s one of the most comprehensive roundups I’ve come across for [topic].

We recently published [your article/tool title] at [URL], which covers [specific angle or unique value]. I think it would be a solid addition to the list, particularly for readers who need [specific use case].

Worth taking a look?

[Your name]

Keep this short. Resource page curators receive many requests — the faster you get to the point, the better.

Broken link replacement

Use this when a site links to a competitor page that now returns a 404, and you have equivalent content.

Subject: Broken link on [Site Name] — [Page title]

Hi [Name],

I was reading [specific page URL] and noticed that the link to [broken link anchor text] is broken — it’s currently returning a 404.

We have an article that covers the same topic in detail: [your URL]. It’s regularly updated and might be a useful replacement.

Either way, thought you’d want to know about the broken link.

[Your name]

The broken-link notification is the hook — it’s a genuine favour to the site owner. The replacement suggestion follows naturally. This template has the highest positive-reply rate of the three because you’re solving a problem for them first.

How to Track Whether Link Building Is Moving the Needle

Link building is only useful if it improves rankings. Without closing the feedback loop, you can spend months on outreach and not know whether it’s working. Here’s how to measure impact.

Track rankings before and after link acquisition

When you land a new backlink, note the date. In Nightwatch, pull the ranking history for the target keyword and target page. Look at rank position in the two to four weeks following the link going live. Allow for Google’s indexing and re-evaluation time — meaningful rank movement often takes two to six weeks after a link is indexed.

This is where having rank tracking and backlink monitoring in the same platform pays off: you can see your link acquisition timeline alongside your keyword position history without switching tools.

Set up competitor alerts

In Nightwatch, configure alerts for competitor ranking changes on keywords you’re targeting. When a competitor gains or loses a position on a target keyword, it’s worth checking whether a recent backlink change correlates. This helps you calibrate which link types your competitors are using to defend or improve their positions.

Measure at the page level, not just the domain level

Domain authority is a lagging, aggregate metric. What matters for ranking a specific page is the authority flowing to that page via internal links and the external links pointing directly to it. Track the linking root domains and estimated organic traffic to the specific page you’re building links to, not just your overall domain authority.

Review link building performance monthly

Once a month, review:

• New links acquired in the past 30 days (count and quality)
• Ranking position changes on target keywords
• Changes in competitor backlink profiles (new links they’ve earned)
• Lost links (previously active links that have been removed)

Link building is a compounding activity — the results from three months of consistent work are significantly better than three months of sporadic outreach. Monthly reviews keep you accountable and surface patterns in what’s working.

Final Thoughts

Finding competitor backlinks is not a shortcut — it’s a research methodology that replaces guesswork with evidence. Instead of cold-prospecting sites that might link to your topic, you start from a list of sites that have already demonstrated they will.

The workflow is straightforward: identify your real SEO competitors (the pages ranking above you, not just your business rivals), find competitor backlinks using a tool like Nightwatch, analyse the link types and anchor patterns in their profiles, filter your prospects by relevance, authority, and replicability, and then work through a consistent outreach process.

The part most people skip is measurement. Every link you earn is a data point. By tracking rank changes after link acquisition in Nightwatch, you build an empirical picture of which link types, which domains, and which anchor patterns drive ranking improvement for your specific site — and you stop spending time on outreach that doesn’t convert into rankings.

Used consistently, competitor backlink analysis becomes the engine of a sustainable link building and SEO competitor analysis strategy that compounds over time.