How to Use Ahrefs for Competitor Backlink Analysis: A Step-by-Step Workflow

Type a competitor's domain into Ahrefs Site Explorer, glance at their Domain Rating, and it's tempting to stop right there - either relieved that yours is higher or discouraged that theirs is. Neither reaction is analysis. Domain Rating is a single compressed number; the actual value in Ahrefs' backlink data is in what's underneath it - which specific links are doing the work, which domains are linking to a competitor and not to you, and which of those are realistic outreach targets rather than noise. Here's the workflow that gets you there.

For background on what Ahrefs is and what it costs before running this workflow, see our full Ahrefs profile. If you're still deciding between Ahrefs and Semrush for backlink work specifically, our Semrush vs Ahrefs comparison covers where the two tools' link data actually differs.

Step 1: Start in Site Explorer, But Don't Stop at the Overview Metrics

Enter a competitor's domain into Site Explorer and you'll land on the Overview tab: Domain Rating, total backlinks, referring domains, and an organic traffic estimate. Useful for a quick sense of scale, but none of it is actionable on its own. The real work starts when you move from the Overview into the Backlinks report itself, which lists every individual link Ahrefs has indexed pointing at that domain, including the referring page, the anchor text used, and the link's attributes (dofollow, nofollow, UGC, or sponsored).

Before going further, set the scope correctly: decide whether you're analyzing the whole domain or a specific subfolder or URL. A competitor's backlink profile for their homepage tells you about their brand authority; the backlink profile for a specific ranking page tells you what actually helped that page rank, which is usually the more useful comparison if you're chasing a specific keyword they own.

Step 2: Filter the Backlink Profile for Quality, Not Just Volume

A raw list of thousands of backlinks is not a research output, it's a wall of data. Filter it down using the fields that actually correlate with link value: Domain Rating of the referring domain, estimated traffic to the referring page, and link attribute. A dofollow link from a page that gets real organic traffic and sits on a domain with decent authority is worth far more than ten nofollow links from low-traffic pages that exist purely to house outbound links.

This is also the point to check for link patterns that don't reflect genuine editorial value - widget links, footer links syndicated across a network of low-quality sites, or directory submissions. These inflate the raw backlink count without doing much for rankings, and including them in your competitive analysis will make a competitor's link profile look stronger, or more replicable, than it actually is.

Step 3: Read Referring Domains Separately From Referring Pages

Total backlink count and referring domain count measure different things, and conflating them is a common mistake. A domain can accumulate thousands of backlinks from a handful of sites that link to it repeatedly, which inflates the backlink total without reflecting broad endorsement. The Referring Domains report strips this down to unique linking domains, which is generally the more honest signal of how widely a site has earned links across the web rather than how deeply one or two sources link to it.

Sort the Referring Domains report by Domain Rating and by traffic to find the domains actually worth understanding individually - what content on that domain earned the link, and whether it's the kind of placement (a resource page, a guest post, a mention in a roundup) that's realistically repeatable for your own site.

Step 4: Run Link Intersect to Find Your Actual Outreach List

This is the step that turns backlink analysis from a benchmarking exercise into a working outreach list. Ahrefs' Link Intersect tool takes one or more competitor domains and finds sites that link to them but do not link to you. These are domains that have already demonstrated willingness to link to content in your topic space - they're not cold prospects, they're sites with a documented pattern of linking to competitors doing similar work.

Run this against two or three real competitors rather than just the market leader. A dominant competitor's link profile often includes placements built on relationships or resources you can't easily replicate; a mid-sized competitor's Link Intersect results tend to surface more realistically attainable targets - smaller resource pages, niche roundups, and industry directories that are actively looking for relevant additions.

Step 5: Qualify Before You Reach Out, Not After

A Link Intersect export is a list of candidates, not a finished outreach plan. Before contacting anyone, check each domain for the same quality signals from Step 2: real traffic to the linking page, topical relevance to your content, and no obvious spam pattern. A domain that links to a dozen unrelated competitors across a dozen unrelated industries is a low-quality directory, not a genuine editorial opportunity, and outreach effort spent there is better spent on the handful of targets that show a real editorial pattern.

Prioritize the qualified list by a mix of authority and realistic attainability - a mid-authority site with an obvious content angle for your outreach pitch is usually a better use of time than a high-authority site with no clear reason to link to you specifically.

Step 6: Track the Gap Over Time, Not Just Once

Competitor backlink profiles change continuously, and a one-time analysis goes stale within a quarter. Revisit Site Explorer and Link Intersect for your priority competitors on a regular cadence rather than treating this as a single project - Ahrefs' backlink index updates fast enough that a competitor's new placements show up quickly, and catching a new link pattern early (a fresh content format that's earning links, a new type of resource page mentioning them) is more useful than discovering it a year later once it's already been widely copied by everyone else in the space.

What This Workflow Actually Produces

Done properly, this isn't a Domain Rating comparison, it's a qualified list of realistic link targets, backed by evidence that those domains already link to sites doing similar work, filtered down to the ones worth the outreach effort. That's a meaningfully different deliverable than screenshotting a competitor's Overview tab, and it's the difference between backlink analysis that feeds an actual outreach campaign and backlink analysis that just produces a number to compare against next quarter.

If you're still weighing whether Ahrefs is the right tool for this workflow specifically, versus Semrush or a narrower crawler, our Semrush vs Ahrefs comparison and Ahrefs tool profile cover the pricing and feature tradeoffs in detail.