Free Backlink Gap Analysis Tool

Auditing your own backlinks tells you where you stand. It does not tell you what is available, because the sites missing from your profile are invisible by definition. A backlink gap analysis inverts that: it starts from a competitor's profile, removes everything you already have, and leaves the difference.

That difference matters because of what it proves. A site that has already linked to a company in your field has demonstrated three things at once: it links out at all, it covers your subject, and it considers companies like yours worth mentioning. A site that has never linked to anyone in your industry has demonstrated none of them. The gap list is therefore pre-qualified in a way that a list of sites in your niche is not.

This is also why the tool asks for your domain rather than inferring it. Removing your existing referring domains is the entire point. Without that step you get a competitor backlink list, which is a different and less useful thing, and one our backlink checker already does on its own.

With one competitor, the results are every referring domain they have and you do not. Add a second and the list shrinks to domains linking to both of them. Add a third and it shrinks again, to domains linking to all three.

Most tools widen as you add inputs, so this catches people out. The reason it works this way is that the narrower list is the more useful one. A site that links to every competitor in your field and not to you is close to a guaranteed opportunity, whereas a site that linked to one of them once might have done so for reasons you cannot reproduce.

1. 1Start with your single closest competitor. This gives the longest list and the widest view of what is available.
2. 2Add a second competitor when the first list is too long to work through. What survives is stronger.
3. 3Use all three when you want a short list of near-certain targets rather than a long list of possibilities.
4. 4If a three-competitor run returns nothing, that is a normal result rather than an error. Drop back to one.

1. 1Open the linking page, not just the domain. How a competitor earned the link decides whether you can earn the same one, and a directory listing, a roundup post and an editorial mention need three different approaches.
2. 2Discard anything you could not plausibly reach. Press coverage of a funding round is not an opportunity, and neither is a national publication.
3. 3Check what the linking page is actually about. If it is a roundup you could be added to, that is the cheapest link on the list.
4. 4Work out what you would offer. A site that lists eight competitors will add a ninth if the listing is easy to justify, and will ignore an email that gives it no reason to.
5. 5Track what you win, and re-run the gap in a few months. Competitors keep earning links, so the gap regenerates.

The last point is the one that catches people. A gap analysis is a snapshot of one day. The list you build from it is out of date the moment a competitor earns their next link, which is why the useful version of this exercise is a repeated one rather than a one-off audit. Pair it with competitor keyword research and a domain rating check to see whether the sites you are targeting are within reach in the first place.