See what it produces
Backlink gap: yourdomain.com vs competitor.com
free sample| Linking site | DR | Links competitor | Links you |
|---|---|---|---|
| techradar.com | 91 | yes | no |
| g2.com | 90 | yes | no |
| capterra.com | 88 | yes | no |
| zapier.com | 92 | yes | no |
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Backlink gap analysis: find the links your competitors have and you don't
A backlink gap is every site that links to your competitors but not to you. Each one is a link you have a real shot at, because the site already covers your topic. Here is how the analysis works and how to run it on your own domains.
7 min read
What a backlink gap actually is
Every link your competitor has and you do not is a small piece of evidence about where your market's links live. A site that links to three of your competitors but not to you is not a cold prospect. It is a site that writes about your category, gives links in your category, and has simply never had a reason to mention you.
That is the whole idea. Instead of guessing which blogs or roundups might link to you, you look at who is already linking to the companies you compete with and treat that as your target list.
How the skill runs it
The skill does in one pass what most teams do by hand across a dozen Ahrefs exports:
- Pull referring domains for each competitor. You give it your domain and two or three competitors. It pulls the referring domains for each through the Ahrefs API.
- Subtract your own backlinks. Any site that already links to you is removed, so the list is pure gap.
- Drop the junk. Scraper sites, expired domains, link farms, and low-signal directories are filtered out so the list is sites you would actually want a link from.
- Rank by reachability. What is left is sorted by Domain Rating and by how many of your competitors each site links to. A DR 90 site that links to all three competitors sits at the top, because it is both valuable and very likely to be open to covering you too.
The result is the table you saw above: a ranked list of real sites, each one a link you have a credible shot at.
How to read the gap list
| Signal | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| High DR | The link passes more authority. Prioritise these. |
| Links several competitors | The site clearly covers your category and is comfortable linking out. A near-certain target. |
| Listicle or roundup page | "Best X tools" pages that omit you are the easiest wins. Ask to be added. |
| Resource or comparison page | Often editable. A short, specific email gets you included. |
The rows to act on first are the ones that combine high DR with several competitors linked. Those are sites that have already decided your category is worth covering and worth linking to. You are not pitching the idea, you are just pointing out an omission.
Why this beats a manual export
A raw Ahrefs export gives you referring domains one competitor at a time. To turn that into a gap list you have to export each competitor, export yourself, cross-reference the lists, strip out the overlap, and then eyeball thousands of rows for quality. It is a half-day of spreadsheet work that goes stale the moment a competitor earns a new link.
Running it as a skill means the comparison, the dedup, the junk filtering, and the ranking happen in one step, on demand, against live Ahrefs data. You get the part that matters (a short, ranked list of reachable links) without the part that does not (the spreadsheet).
Bring your own key
This skill is bring-your-own-key for the full live run. It runs through the Ahrefs API on your account, so the data and the API cost stay on your Ahrefs plan. eesel never ships its own Ahrefs key, and never runs a paid pull for an anonymous visitor. The no-login sample on this page shows the output shape first. The moment you connect your key, the same analysis runs live on your real domains.
That split is the point of the whole skills surface. You bring access to the tools you already pay for, and eesel provides the engine that turns that access into an outcome you can act on.
Run it on your domains
Connect Ahrefs, give the skill your domain and a couple of competitors, and get your own ranked gap list in one run. From there it feeds straight into outreach: the roundups you should be in, the comparisons that skip you, the resource pages that list everyone else. Start at the top and work down.