Which competitors should you include in a backlink analysis?

Include competitors that compete with your website for the same organic search results, customers and geographic markets. The most useful backlink analysis usually combines direct commercial competitors with websites that consistently outrank you for important topics, as these may have earned links from sources relevant to your own SEO objectives.

Start with direct organic search competitors. These are businesses that offer similar products or services and appear in search results for the terms you want to target. They may not be your closest commercial rivals in every market, but they are competing for the same visibility. Review the domains that appear repeatedly for your priority commercial phrases, service pages and location-based searches, then compare their referring domains and the types of pages attracting links.

Do not limit the analysis to companies with an identical business model. A website can be a valuable SEO competitor if it ranks for the same audience or search intent, even when its products differ. For example, a specialist publication, consultancy, directory or educational website may compete with your guides and informational pages. These sites can reveal link sources that are suitable for content-led campaigns, although they should usually be analysed separately from direct commercial competitors.

Include competitors from several relevant groups:

• Direct competitors: businesses offering comparable products or services to the same customers.
• Search competitors: domains that rank for your priority keywords, even if they are not commercial rivals.
• Local or regional competitors: organisations competing for visibility in the towns, regions or countries you serve.
• Content competitors: publishers, advisers and industry resources that rank for the questions your content is intended to answer.
• Market leaders: established sites with strong authority that may reveal high-quality editorial, industry or partnership opportunities.
• Emerging competitors: newer or rapidly improving sites whose backlink acquisition may identify current outreach and content trends.

Use the purpose of the analysis to decide which groups deserve the most attention. If the objective is to improve the authority of service pages, prioritise direct and local competitors with links to comparable commercial pages. If the objective is to develop a content campaign, focus more heavily on sites attracting links to research, guides, tools and other informational assets. A competitor set chosen for technical benchmarking may therefore differ from one chosen to find outreach prospects.

Compare competitors by search relevance, not just domain strength. A large or well-known website can have an extensive backlink profile that is difficult to reproduce and only partly relevant to your market. A smaller site ranking for the same services may provide more practical insight because its links are likely to come from related publications, suppliers, associations, local organisations or industry communities. Relevance, editorial quality and the page receiving the link are generally more useful indicators than a high-level authority measure alone.

Geography is particularly important for businesses operating in a defined market. Include competitors that rank in the same locations and examine links from regional publications, trade bodies, chambers, community organisations and local suppliers. A backlink from a relevant local source may support visibility more effectively than a link from a nationally recognised but unrelated website.

Build a balanced competitor set. Including only the strongest sites can make the gap appear larger than it is and may produce opportunities that are unrealistic or unsuitable. Including only very similar businesses can hide useful patterns from publishers and organisations that link across the wider sector. A balanced review should contain close commercial rivals, realistic peers, leading sites and at least some emerging domains. Keep the set focused enough to compare consistently, rather than adding every site that appears in search results.

Before adding a domain, check whether it is genuinely relevant. Confirm that it ranks for terms connected to your products, services or audience; operates in a market you can serve; and has a backlink profile containing links worth investigating. Exclude domains that rank only because of a temporary news event, unrelated content, a different country or a completely different search intent. Also separate major platforms, marketplaces and general directories from ordinary competitors, since their scale and link acquisition methods may not be applicable to your business.

Analyse the pages behind the links. A competitor’s referring domain is only the starting point. Identify whether links point to the home page, a service page, a category page, a research asset, a blog article or a useful tool. Look for repeated patterns in the content that earns attention. If several relevant sites link to a competitor’s original research, practical guide or local resource, that may indicate a content opportunity. If links mainly come from suppliers or business profiles, the appropriate action may be partnership and citation work rather than content promotion.

Assess the context and quality of each potential opportunity. Consider whether the linking website is relevant, established and editorially maintained, whether the link appears naturally within useful content, and whether the source is likely to send relevant referral traffic. Avoid treating every competitor link as a target. Some links may be paid, user-generated, duplicated across a network, placed on low-quality pages or associated with tactics that do not meet your quality standards. Competitor research should inform judgement, not encourage copying without review.

Refresh the competitor set when your market, services or target locations change. It is also useful to review it periodically because search results shift, new competitors emerge and existing sites change their content strategies. When comparing reports over time, keep the main competitor group consistent so that changes in referring domains and link opportunities remain meaningful. Add new domains as a separate comparison group when you want to investigate a developing threat or a new area of opportunity.

The final selection should answer a practical question: which websites compete with your visibility and have backlink patterns that are relevant, credible and potentially achievable for your business? By combining search overlap, commercial relevance, geography, content type and realistic opportunity, your backlink analysis will produce a more useful link-building plan than a list based solely on the biggest domains in the market.