How to Check Competitor Backlinks for Free (Step-by-Step)

Последнее обновление: 14

Когда-либо задавались вопросом how your competitors are outranking you в Гугле?

Chances are, it’s not just better content, it’s better backlinks. Tracking competitor backlinks provides a significant SEO advantage.

Understanding who’s linking to them and why, you can reverse-engineer their success and earn those links yourself.

The best part? You don’t need expensive tools to get started.

В этом руководстве вы узнаете how to find competitor backlinks через бесплатные инструменты like Ahrefs’ Free Backlink Checker, Ubersuggest, Google search operators, and other ручные методы.

Whether you’re a beginner or an SEO pro, these tactics will help you uncover link-building opportunities, identify gaps in your strategy, and ultimately, outrank your rivals.

Let’s dive in and start spying smart.

Why Checking Competitor Backlinks Matters

Understanding your competitors’ backlink profiles isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic necessity in modern SEO. Here’s why it should be part of your routine:

1. It Supercharges Your Link-Building Strategy

Backlinks are one of the top-ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. By analyzing where your competitors are getting links from, you can:

• Discover high-authority domains in your niche
• Find link opportunities you’re currently missing
• Identify content types that naturally earn links

Instead of guessing where to get backlinks, you’ll have a data-backed blueprint based on what’s already working for others.

2. It Helps You Benchmark Your Content Strategy

When you study which pages on your competitor’s site are earning the most links, you gain insight into:

• What topics resonate with your audience
• What formats (guides, infographics, tools) perform best
• How often do they publish link-worthy content

Это позволяет вам create more linkable assets and close the gap between your domain authority and theirs.

3. It Reveals Linking Domains in Your Niche

Analyzing competitor backlinks uncovers which websites are actively linking out to similar content. These domains are:

• Likely to be open to collaboration, guest posts, or resource placements
• Ideal targets for outreach campaigns
• Often part of your niche’s editorial ecosystem

In short, you’re not just collecting data—you’re building a hit list of potential partners.

Best Free Tools to Check Competitor Backlinks

You don’t need a massive SEO budget to spy on your competitors’ backlink profiles. These free tools (and freemium features) provide powerful insights to help you uncover link-building opportunities without incurring any costs.

Google Search (Manual Methods)

If you know how to use Google, it is a surprisingly powerful tool for discovering backlinks. You can manually spot backlinks, guest posts, and brand mentions with the right search operators.

Попробуйте эти:

• "competitor.com" -site:competitor.com – finds external mentions of your competitor’s domain
• "guest post by competitor" – reveals their guest post backlinks
• "competitor.com" + "resources" – finds resource pages linking to them

No login, no limits—just clever searching.

Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker

Ahrefs offers a limited (but super valuable) free backlink checker.
Just enter your competitor’s domain and you’ll see:

• Top 100 backlinks
• Top 5 anchors
• Top referring domains
• Рейтинг домена (DR)

It’s perfect for getting a high-level overview of who’s linking to your competition.

Ubersuggest

Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest allows limited free searches per day.
Enter a competitor’s domain to get:

• Backlink overview
• Ссылающиеся домены
• Link types (dofollow vs. nofollow)

It’s user-friendly, great for beginners, and ideal for quick backlink audits.

SEMrush (Free Version)

SEMrush offers a free account with limited access to backlink data.
С его помощью вы сможете:

• Analyze up to 10 domains per day
• View sample backlinks
• See referring IPs and TLDs
• Access link-building tools (with restrictions)

You won’t receive the full backlink report, but it’s sufficient for some light competitor research.

Moz Link Explorer

Moz’s Link Explorer gives free users up to 10 queries per month. You’ll see:

• Total inbound links
• Самые ссылающиеся домены
• Распределение якорного текста
• Spam Score and Domain Authority

It’s beneficial for judging the quality of your competitor’s backlink profile.

Типы конкурентов

A. Domain-Level Competitors

Они включают в себя те сайты, которые конкурируют с вами в SERP. Они публикуют контент в вашей нише и конкурируют с вашим сайтом по различным ключевым словам.

 Вы можете использовать Ahrefs to find your domain-level competitors; for example, we have checked Marketing Lad’s competing domains in the screenshot below.

Наша команда наиболее значимые конкуренты in SERPs include linkbuilder.io, outreachmonks.com, and backlinkboss.com, among others.

You can export this data to Google Sheets and make a note of the five most significant competitors.

B. Page-Level Competitors

These sites compete with you on a page level for a particular topic or keyword, but they are not your competitors.

Например, у нас есть пост под названием " SEMSCOOP REVIEW: A KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOL IN 2025, which targets keywords like ‘’SEMSCOOP REVIEW.

Как вы можете видеть на скриншоте выше, itsblogging.com не является конкурентом на уровне домена; они все еще конкурируют с нами за этот термин. Их Обзор SEMScoop занимает место в десятке лучших после нас!

How Do You Find Page-Level Competitors?

Выберите страницу или сообщение на своем веб-сайте и вставьте его в Проводник ключевых слов of Ahrefs. Then scroll down to check the SERP overview for ‘’SEMScoop Review.

Вышеперечисленные конкуренты — это конкуренты на уровне страницы; конкуренты на уровне домена и страницы иногда пересекаются.

Steps to find Competitor Backlinks

A. Find your main keywords

The first step in finding your competitors’ backlinks is to determine the keywords that contribute to your website’s search visibility.

Вы должны использовать расширенные инструменты исследования ключевых слов как SpyFu, рейтинг SE, Арефс, Моз и SEMrush.

For example, you can enter your competitor’s domain in Site Explorer of Ahrefs, and you will get the amount of search traffic for each keyword, your position in SERPs, those particular keywords that are driving traffic to your site, etc, as shown in the screenshot below.

B. Find your primary competitors

To find out your main competitors, you can follow the steps below:

• Вы можете начать с выполнения 'Связанный' поиск в Google. Таким образом, вы получите список веб-сайтов, тематика которых связана с вашей.

связанный:[ключевое слово]

Например, поисковый запрос для YouTube.com would look for search suggestions from YouTube.

Еще один способ найти конкурентов — использовать Ahrefs.

Вы можете открыть для себя тысячи возможностей для ссылок, изучив ссылки на главную страницу вашего конкурента.

Перейдите на Обозреватель сайта→Профиль обратных ссылок→Якоря

Most links use branded anchors because users tend to link to home pages when mentioning a brand, rather than a more specific term. This way, you can analyze your competitors’ homepage links to see where they are getting mentioned.

Например, Linkbuilder.io is one of our domain-level competitors and has been mentioned on over 600 websites.

Теперь вопрос в том, «Почему они упомянули их (linkbuilder.io), а не нас (marketinglad.io)?

 Давайте разберемся!

Введите одного из ваших конкурентов на уровне домена в Site Explorer, перейдите в отчет «Обратные ссылки», и добавьте фильтр dofollow. Вы получите список всех обратных ссылок, указывающих на домашнюю страницу вашего конкурента.

You can usually determine the reason by quickly examining the anchor text, the surrounding link text, and the page title. Analyzing your competitor’s backlinks, you can get to know the DR of their website, the number of referring domains, the number of backlinks, the URL rating of the referral pages, the top backlinks, the anchor text, and the web pages.

C. Assessing the URLs of page-level competitors

На этом этапе вам не нужно выполнять анализ обратных ссылок на всем сайте; вам нужно только проверять один URL за раз. Вам нужно нажать на опцию ''Точный URL'',

It restricts the backlink analysis to a specific URL. However, you can use any backlink analysis tool to check competitor backlinks.

Pro Tips to Turn Competitor Backlinks Into Your Own

Now that you’ve uncovered where your competitors are getting backlinks from, the next step is to turn those links into opportunities for your site. Here’s how to ethically and effectively win those backlinks:

Use Outreach to Replicate Their Links

If a site has linked to your competitor’s content, there’s a good chance they’ll link to yours, especially if it offers more value. Start by identifying почему the competitor earned that link (e.g., a helpful guide, unique data, or a guest post) and then pitch your content accordingly.

Example Outreach Script:

Предмет: Loved your post on [Topic] — quick suggestion

Привет [Имя],

I came across your article on [Page Title] and noticed you linked to [Competitor’s Article].

I recently published a more updated and detailed resource on the same topic, which your readers might find valuable:
[Your Link]

Would love for you to take a look—if you think it’s a good fit, feel free to include it as a resource.

Ура,
[Ваше Имя]

Keep it short, relevant, and helpful—not pushy.

Try Broken Link Building

Broken link building is a low-competition tactic with high potential. Here’s how it works:

• Use tools like Ahrefs or the Broken Link Checker to identify dead links on websites that previously linked to your competitor.
• Create content that fills the void left behind.
• Reach out to the site owner and suggest your link as a replacement.

Пример сценария:

Предмет: Broken link on your [Page Title]

Привет [Имя],

I was browsing your [Page Title] and noticed one of the links pointing to [Broken URL] is no longer working.

I recently published something similar that could be a great replacement: [Your Link]

Hope this helps keep your page useful for readers!

Лучший,
[Ваше Имя]

This approach is value-driven and often welcomed by site owners.

Create Better Content on the Same Topic

Sometimes, the best way to earn a competitor’s backlinks is to превзойти их. If a competitor ranks well and earns links for a guide or resource, consider creating:

• A longer, more up-to-date version
• A more visual or interactive version (infographics, tools, checklists)
• A unique angle or deeper analysis

Once your content is live, return to the sites linked to the original and pitch yours as a better alternative.

Pro Наконечник: Include stats, original research, or expert quotes—these increase your chances of earning links naturally and through outreach.

Часто задаваемые вопросы

Заключение

We have provided some methods for finding competitor backlinks. You can use any backlink checker like Ahrefs, Moz, SEMrush, etc., analyze each backlink carefully, and build a strong построение связи стратегия для улучшения вашей позиции в поисковой выдаче.

Uncover more insights:

• All SEO Answers
• AhrefsBot Explained: Should You Block It or Let It Crawl?
• Best Free Methods To Find Backlinks on Google