How to Find a Competitor's Backlinks and Copy the Best Ones

To find a competitor's backlinks, enter their domain in a backlink research tool, export the pages that link to them, and compare several competitors to find pages that link to them but not to you. Then keep relevant, real sites, find a public contact on each and pitch a clear reason to link to you.

Competitor backlinks are one of the best sources of link targets you have. Every page that links to a competitor has already shown that it links to sites like yours. The trick is not finding the links. It is choosing the right ones and turning them into links of your own. This guide covers both parts, step by step.

Why competitor backlinks are so useful

Cold outreach is hard because you are guessing. You do not know if a site links out, if the editor cares about your topic or if your product fits. Competitor backlinks remove much of that guessing.

• Proven willingness. The site already links to products or content in your space.
• Proven relevance. The page covers a topic close to yours.
• A clear angle. You can explain how you differ from the competitor already linked.
• Measurable gap. You can see exactly where competitors have links and you do not.

The best targets are pages that link to two or more of your competitors. That pattern is called a link gap, or link intersect, and it is the core of this method.

Step 1. Pick the right competitors

Your business competitors and your search competitors are not always the same. For link building, you want sites that rank for the topics you want to rank for and that earn links naturally.

1. Search for your two or three most important topics.
2. Note the sites that appear on the first page again and again.
3. Keep sites that are similar in type to yours: products next to products, guides next to guides.
4. Skip huge general sites such as encyclopedias or marketplaces. Their links come from reasons you cannot copy.

Three to five competitors is enough for a first pass.

Step 2. Pull each competitor's backlinks

Backlink research tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush show which pages link to any domain. Enter a competitor's domain, open the backlinks report and filter it.

• Keep one link per referring domain, so one site does not fill your list.
• Filter out obvious spam: sites in another language, sites full of unrelated outbound links and pages with no content.
• Note whether each link is followed, nofollow or sponsored.
• Export the list.

Repeat for each competitor. If you want a faster start, the BacklinksBot competitor backlink gap analysis does this comparison for you and finds competitors if you do not name any.

Step 3. Find the link gap

Now combine the lists. You are looking for pages and domains that link to several competitors but not to you.

Pages that link to three competitors are your best targets. Pages that link to two are next. Pages that link to only one are often about that one competitor, such as a review, and are much harder to win.

Step 4. Sort by link type

Not every competitor link can be copied the same way. Sorting by type tells you which strategy to use for each target.

Resource pages

Lists of useful tools or links. Pitch your page as a helpful addition, or point out a broken link if you find one.

"Best X" lists and comparisons

Articles that rank or compare products. Pitch a specific reason your product deserves a spot.

In-article mentions

Blog posts and guides that link to a competitor while explaining something. Suggest your page as an additional or better resource for that exact point, if it truly is.

Guest posts

Articles written by a competitor's team on another site. The site accepts contributions. Pitch your own article idea.

Directories and partner pages

Listings of companies or integrations. Check if you qualify and apply through their normal process.

News and PR mentions

Press coverage of a competitor's launch or data. Harder to copy directly, but it shows which journalists cover your space.

Our strategies overview explains each tactic and when it works best.

Step 5. Remove links you should not copy

Some competitor links are not worth having, or are not worth the risk.

• Paid placements on link selling sites. If a site exists mainly to sell guest posts, skip it.
• Private blog networks. Thin sites with no readers and many outbound links are a risk, not an opportunity.
• Comment and forum spam. Low value and easy for Google to ignore.
• Irrelevant pages. A link from an unrelated topic rarely helps.
• Sponsored links. If a competitor's link is marked sponsored, it was likely paid. You can choose to pay too, but it should carry the same label.

If you are unsure where the line is, read our guide on buying backlinks and what Google says.

Step 6. Find the right contact

For each target page, find the person who can change it. Usually that is the author named in the byline, the editor of the section or the person listed on the contact page. Use public sources only: contact pages, author bios and site imprints. Avoid generic addresses when a specific person is clearly responsible, but use them when that is what the site offers.

Step 7. Write the pitch

A competitor gap pitch has a natural structure. You already know the page links to similar products, so your job is to explain why yours belongs too.

Hi Jordan, I read your guide to choosing a scheduling tool for small clinics. You cover three tools well. One gap I noticed is clinics that need reminders in more than one language, which is the main thing our tool does. If it helps your readers, our page on multilingual reminders is here. Happy to share more detail if useful.

Notice what the pitch does. It names the page. It mentions the existing links without attacking anyone. It gives one clear reason tied to the readers. It asks for nothing more than consideration.

Avoid saying "you linked to my competitor, so link to me". Editors do not owe you a link because they linked to someone else.

Step 8. Follow up and track the result

Send one or two polite follow-ups if there is no reply. Record each outcome: no reply, declined, asked for a fee, or linked. When a link goes live, check the page for the right address, anchor and rel attribute. Then keep checking it over time, because links can disappear.

How to prioritize a long target list

A good link gap analysis can return hundreds of pages. You will not pitch them all in one week, so sort them in a sensible order.

1. Relevance first. Pages about your exact topic come before pages on a loosely related subject.
2. Number of competitors linked. Three beats two, and two beats one.
3. Real readers. Pages that look maintained, with recent updates and real comments or shares, come before pages that look abandoned.
4. Ease of the strategy. A resource page with a broken link is quicker to win than a guest post.
5. Authority last. Use DR to break ties, not to make the first cut. A relevant page with modest authority often helps more than a strong page on an unrelated topic.

Turn competitor research into a repeating habit

Competitors keep earning new links, so a one time analysis goes stale. Repeat the comparison every month or every quarter and look only at what is new. New links to competitors often point to fresh articles, new lists and new resource pages, which are exactly the pages whose authors are still active and still open to updates.

It also helps to watch your own lost links at the same time. When a page that used to link to you drops the link, it is often because the article was updated. A short note to the author asking to restore the link is one of the quickest wins in link building, and it sits naturally next to your competitor research.

How BacklinksBot runs this process

The steps above work by hand, but they take time, especially steps 2 to 4 and 6 to 8. BacklinksBot runs them as one campaign.

1. You enter your site and, if you like, your competitors. If you do not, the bot finds them.
2. It finds pages that link to your competitors but not to you, pages that list similar products and pages that mention you without a link.
3. It labels each target with DR on the BacklinksBot DR scale, a strategy and the reason it fits.
4. It finds public contacts and writes personalized emails, sent from your connected mailbox with up to two follow-ups.
5. It sorts replies, drafts answers and negotiation replies, and proposes rel="sponsored" if a publisher asks for a fee.
6. It confirms every live link on the page and monitors it, with an alert and a recovery email if it disappears.

Competitor link copying is available on Growth and Agency plans, along with all other strategies. Starter covers resource pages, listicles, broken links, unlinked mentions and lost links. See the pricing page for limits on competitors per analysis and contacts per month.

Try it on your own domain

You can see your own link gap right now. Enter your domain in the demo, add up to two competitors if you know them, and the bot lists pages that link to them but not to you. The first five targets show DR, strategy and why each one fits. After you confirm your email, the full list unlocks once.

What to do when a pitch fails

Most pitches get no reply, and some get a polite no. That is normal and not a reason to give up on a target forever. Note the outcome, and come back later with something new, such as an updated guide, a new feature or a broken link you noticed on the same page. If the editor asks you not to contact them again, add them to a suppression list and respect it. A good reputation in your niche is worth more than any single link, and editors talk to each other more than most people expect.

Also look at why pitches fail as a group. If most of your list ignores you, the problem is usually the targets or the angle, not the follow-up timing.

Common mistakes

• Choosing competitors that are much larger or very different from you
• Sorting only by authority and ignoring relevance
• Copying every link, including spam and paid placements
• Using the same pitch for every page
• Never checking whether links went live or stayed live

Summary

Finding a competitor's backlinks is easy with any research tool. The value comes from comparing several competitors, focusing on pages that link to two or more of them, removing risky links, and pitching each remaining page with a specific reason. Do that steadily, check every link, and your competitors' link profiles become a map for your own.