You write great content, your technical SEO is solid, and your pages are properly optimised. But a competitor with what looks like an inferior website consistently outranks you. You check their content. It is not dramatically better than yours. So what are they doing that you are not?
In most cases, the answer is backlinks. They have links from other websites that you do not have, and those links are carrying more ranking weight than any on-page optimisation you could add. The number one result in Google has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than positions two through ten. That gap in link authority is often the difference between page one and page two, and it is almost invisible unless you know where to look.
To understand why links carry so much weight, our article on how Google works explains how Google uses external signals to determine which pages deserve to rank.
A link gap analysis is the process of finding exactly which websites are linking to your competitors but not to you. It turns a vague disadvantage into a specific, actionable list of targets you can pursue. This guide walks you through how to do one, what tools to use, and how to turn the gaps you find into real backlinks.
What You Will Learn
- Why backlinks still matter for rankings in 2026
- What a link gap analysis is and what it tells you
- How to run one step by step using free and paid tools
- How to prioritise which gaps to pursue first
- How to turn link gap insights into actual backlinks
If you want to understand the full picture of your current link profile and where the biggest opportunities are, our Free Website and Marketing Review covers your backlink profile as part of a five-point assessment. Request yours at ape-x.com.au/review.
Why Backlinks Still Matter in 2026
Before diving into the how, it is worth establishing the why. Some marketers have suggested that backlinks are becoming less important as Google gets better at evaluating content quality directly. The data does not support this.
Backlinks remain a top three Google ranking factor in 2026. Google has consistently confirmed that links are among their most important ranking signals, though quality and relevance matter far more than quantity. Content quality now represents the single most important ranking factor, while backlinks have stabilised at around 13% of the algorithm as of Q1 2025. Removing them from your strategy would be a costly mistake. They remain the connective tissue of how Google measures trust, authority, and topical relevance across the web.
Top-ranking Google pages now hold an average of 4.3 times more backlinks than pages ranked in positions six through ten, with pages in position one averaging 847 referring domains compared to just 197 for pages ranked beyond position five.
The practical implication is clear. If you want to rank on page one in a competitive category, you need a competitive backlink profile. A link gap analysis tells you exactly where that profile falls short relative to the sites already ranking where you want to be.
What Is a Link Gap Analysis?
A link gap analysis is a comparison of your backlink profile against your competitors’ profiles. It identifies the websites that are linking to your competitors but not to you. Each of those websites is a potential opportunity: they have already demonstrated a willingness to link to a website in your space, which means they are far warmer prospects than cold outreach targets.
A backlink gap is the set of websites that are linking to your competitors but not to you. If three top websites in your niche have published content that mentions your competitors, those sites clearly endorse solutions like yours. They just have not discovered or linked to you yet. That absence is your backlink gap and that is the opportunity.
The value of this approach over general link building is specificity. Rather than casting a wide net and hoping for responses, you are targeting sites that have already shown they link to businesses like yours. The conversion rate on outreach to these targets is significantly higher than cold prospecting.
Not all backlinks carry the same value. Prioritising authoritative and relevant websites can significantly improve the impact of a link-building campaign.
How to Run a Link Gap Analysis: Step by Step
Step 1: Identify Your Real Competitors
Your SEO competitors are not necessarily the same as your business competitors. For a link gap analysis, you want to identify the websites that are actually ranking for the keywords you want to rank for, not just the businesses you compete with for customers.
Go to Google and search for your top three to five target keywords. Note the websites ranking on page one. These are your SEO competitors for this analysis. Aim for three to five that are similar in size and scope to your own site. Including major national brands or news publications in your analysis is not useful because their link profiles reflect their scale, not what is achievable for a typical Australian business.
Step 2: Run the Gap Analysis in Your Chosen Tool
Several tools can run a link gap analysis. Here are the main options:
Semrush Backlink Gap (paid): Go to SEO, then Competitive Research, then Backlink Gap. Enter your domain first, then add your competitors. Semrush will show you all the domains linking to your competitors that are not linking to you, ranked by authority score.
Ahrefs Link Intersect (paid): In Ahrefs, go to Site Explorer, then Link Intersect. Enter your competitors and your own domain. Ahrefs will show you domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you, which are the highest-priority targets.
Free option using Google Search Console and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools: If you have verified your site in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (free), you can see your own backlink profile. Export it, then check your competitors’ referring domains manually using Ahrefs’ free site explorer, which gives limited results but is enough to identify the most obvious gaps.
For a review of the paid tools and which one is right for your budget and needs, our article on paid keyword research tools covers Semrush and Ahrefs in detail, including their backlink analysis features.
Step 3: Filter and Prioritise the Opportunities
A link gap analysis for a competitive industry can return thousands of domains. Not all of them are worth pursuing. Filter the list to focus on the highest-value opportunities first.
Filter by domain authority or authority score: Most tools assign a quality metric to each domain. Prioritise domains with a score of 30 or above. Links from low-authority sites add little ranking value and can sometimes be counterproductive.
Filter by relevance: A link from a website in your industry or a closely related one is worth far more than a link from an unrelated site. A Brisbane plumber getting a link from a home renovation blog is relevant. A link from a recipe website is not. Relevance matters because Google’s EEAT framework rewards Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, and links from relevant industry sources signal all three far more effectively than links from unrelated sites.
Look for domains linking to multiple competitors: If three of your competitors are all getting links from the same website, that site is clearly active in your space and more likely to respond to an outreach request. Ahrefs shows this clearly in the Link Intersect view.
Exclude irrelevant link types: Review directories, social profiles, and forum links are common in gap analyses but rarely worth pursuing individually. Focus on editorial links, resource pages, blog posts, and industry publications.
Digital PR, partnerships and high-quality content can attract backlinks from relevant websites, helping strengthen a site’s authority and visibility in search results.
Step 4: Categorise the Opportunities by Type
Once you have a filtered list, group the opportunities by the type of link and the approach required to earn each one. Different opportunity types require different tactics.
Resource pages: Pages that list useful tools, guides, or businesses in a category. If a site has a “best SEO resources” page that links to your competitors, you can reach out and ask to be included.
Guest post opportunities: Sites that publish content from contributors. If your competitors have guest posts on a site, the site clearly accepts contributions. Pitch a topic that adds value to their audience.
Unlinked brand mentions: Sometimes a website mentions your business name without linking to it. These are the easiest wins because the site already knows who you are. Search for your brand name plus “site:” followed by the target domain to find these.
Broken link opportunities: If a competitor had a link from a site but that page no longer exists, you can reach out to the linking site with a relevant page from your own site as a replacement.
Directory listings: If competitors are listed in industry directories you are not, get listed. These are quick wins with low effort.
How to Turn the Gap Into Actual Backlinks
Finding the opportunity is only half the job. Converting it into a backlink requires outreach, and outreach requires a reason for the other site to say yes.
Lead with value, not a request. The most effective outreach explains what you can offer the linking site’s audience, not what you want from them. “I noticed you have a resource page on local SEO and I thought our guide on Google Business Profile optimisation might be useful for your readers” is far more compelling than “Can you link to my website?”
Personalise every email. Generic outreach emails have near-zero response rates. Reference something specific about the site you are reaching out to. A sentence that shows you have actually read their content dramatically increases your chances of a reply.
Have something worth linking to. The best link building strategy is creating content that genuinely deserves links. Original research, comprehensive guides, free tools, and data-driven articles all earn links more naturally than generic blog posts. Our article on link building strategies for small businesses covers the content types that attract links and the outreach approaches that work best.
Follow up once. A single polite follow-up email sent seven to ten days after your initial outreach is standard practice and significantly increases response rates. Do not send more than one follow-up.
Successful link-building outreach focuses on relevance and value. Personalised emails that clearly explain the benefit to the recipient are far more likely to earn quality backlinks than generic mass outreach campaigns.
What to Do With the Backlinks You Already Have
A link gap analysis focuses on what you are missing, but it is equally worth understanding what you already have. Before you pursue new links, audit your existing profile for two things.
Broken backlinks: Links pointing to pages on your site that no longer exist. These are wasted link equity. Find them in Google Search Console under Coverage or in Ahrefs, and set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the most relevant current page.
Low-quality or spammy links: Links from irrelevant, low-quality, or clearly manipulative websites can harm your rankings. If your backlink profile includes links from link farms, unrelated foreign-language directories, or sites that exist purely to sell links, you may want to disavow them through Google Search Console.
Our article on competitor backlink analysis covers how to audit your existing backlink profile in detail, including how to identify which links are helping and which might be hurting.
How Link Building Fits Into Your Broader SEO Strategy
A link gap analysis is most effective when it runs alongside strong on-page SEO and solid technical foundations. Links amplify the ranking signals of pages that are already well-optimised. Adding links to pages with thin content, poor technical setup, or mismatched search intent will not produce the results you are looking for.
The most sustainable link building approach is to create content worth linking to and then use link gap analysis to identify the right people to tell about it. Over time, as your authority grows, links become easier to earn because your domain carries more weight and your content ranks more prominently.
Link building is a long-term discipline. Our article on how long SEO takes covers realistic timelines for when link building efforts start to show up in rankings.
For a complete view of how backlinks connect to the broader ranking picture, our article on top SEO ranking factors covers how link authority works alongside content quality and technical SEO in Google’s algorithm. And our article on topical authority covers how publishing a consistent body of content around your topic makes every link you earn work harder.
Ready to Find Your Link Gaps?
If you have been creating content and optimising pages without seeing the ranking results you expect, the most likely explanation is a backlink gap between your site and the competitors sitting above you.
A link gap analysis gives you a precise, prioritised list of link building targets rather than a vague directive to “build more links.” It is one of the most efficient ways to close the gap between where you rank now and where you want to be.
If you are still weighing up whether SEO investment makes sense for your business, our article on whether SEO is worth it for small businesses gives you an honest answer.
If you would like to understand your current backlink profile and where your biggest opportunities are, our Free Website and Marketing Review gives you that picture alongside a complete assessment of your SEO health. Request yours at ape-x.com.au/review. You can also learn more about how we approach link building for Australian businesses on our SEO service page.
