Backlink Analyzer

Analyzes, monitors, and optimizes backlink profiles. Identifies link quality, discovers opportunities, and tracks competitor link building activities.

What This Skill Does

Analyzes backlink profiles for quality and toxicity, compares link profiles across competitors, discovers link building opportunities, and provides disavow guidance.

Quick Start

Start with one of these prompts. Finish with a short handoff summary using the repository format in Skill Contract.

Analyze Your Profile

Analyze backlink profile for [domain]

Find Opportunities

Find link building opportunities by analyzing [competitor domains]

Detect Issues

Check for toxic backlinks on [domain]

Compare Profiles

Compare backlink profiles: [your domain] vs [competitor domains]

Skill Contract

Expected output: a delta summary, alert/report output, and a short handoff summary ready for memory/monitoring/.

• Reads: current metrics, previous baselines, alert thresholds, and reporting context from CLAUDE.md and the shared State Model when available.
• Writes: a user-facing monitoring deliverable plus a reusable summary that can be stored under memory/monitoring/.
• Promotes: significant changes, confirmed anomalies, and follow-up actions to memory/open-loops.md and memory/decisions.md.
• Next handoff: use the Next Best Skill below when a change needs action.

Handoff Summary

Emit the standard shape from skill-contract.md §Handoff Summary Format.

Data Sources

All integrations optional (see CONNECTORS.md). With tools connected, pulls backlink profiles from ~~link database and competitor data from ~~SEO tool. Without tools, ask user for backlink CSV, referring domains, competitor domains, and link changes. Respect robots.txt and TOS per SECURITY.md.

Instructions

When a user requests backlink analysis:

1. Generate Profile Overview -- Key metrics (total backlinks, referring domains, DA/DR, dofollow ratio), link velocity (30d/90d/year), authority distribution chart, profile health score.

2. Analyze Link Quality -- Top quality backlinks table, link type distribution, anchor text analysis (brand/exact/partial/URL/generic), geographic distribution.

3. Identify Toxic Links -- Toxic score, risk indicators by type (spam, PBN, link farms, irrelevant), high-risk links to review, disavow recommendations (domain-level and URL-level).

4. Compare Against Competitors -- Profile comparison table (referring domains, DA/DR, velocity, avg link DA), unique referring domains, link intersection analysis, competitor content attracting most links.

5. Find Link Building Opportunities -- Link intersection prospects, broken link opportunities, unlinked mentions, resource page opportunities, guest post prospects, priority matrix (effort vs impact).

6. Track Link Changes -- New and lost links for last 30 days with DA, type, anchor, dates. Net change and links to recover.

7. Generate Backlink Report -- Executive summary, strengths, concerns, opportunities, competitive position, recommended actions (immediate/short-term/long-term), KPIs to track.

   Reference: See references/analysis-templates.md for complete output templates for all 7 steps above.

CITE Item Mapping

When running domain-authority-auditor after this analysis, the following data feeds directly into CITE scoring:

Example

User: "Find link building opportunities by analyzing HubSpot, Salesforce, and Mailchimp"

Output:

## Link Intersection Analysis

### Sites linking to 2+ competitors (not you)

| Domain | DA | HubSpot | Salesforce | Mailchimp | Opportunity |
|--------|-----|---------|------------|-----------|-------------|
| g2.com | 91 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Get listed/reviewed |
| capterra.com | 89 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | Submit for review |
| entrepreneur.com | 92 | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | Pitch guest post |
| techcrunch.com | 94 | ✅ | ❌ | ✅ | PR/news pitch |

### Top 5 Immediate Opportunities

1. **G2.com** (DA 91) - All competitors listed
   - Action: Create detailed G2 profile
   - Effort: Low
   - Impact: High authority + referral traffic

2. **Entrepreneur.com** (DA 92) - 2 competitors have links
   - Action: Pitch contributed article
   - Effort: High
   - Impact: High authority + brand exposure

3. **MarketingProfs** (DA 75) - All competitors featured
   - Action: Apply for expert contribution
   - Effort: Medium
   - Impact: Relevant audience + quality link

### Estimated Impact

If you acquire links from top 10 opportunities:
- New referring domains: +10
- Average DA of new links: 82
- Estimated ranking impact: +2-5 positions for competitive keywords

Tips for Success

1. Quality over quantity - One DA 80 link beats ten DA 20 links
2. Monitor regularly - Catch lost links and toxic links early
3. Study competitors - Learn from their link building success
4. Diversify your profile - Mix of link types and anchors
5. Disavow carefully - Only disavow clearly toxic links

Link Quality and Strategy Reference

Reference: See references/link-quality-rubric.md for the complete link quality scoring matrix (6 weighted factors), toxic link identification criteria, link profile health benchmarks, and disavow file guidance.

Reference: See references/outreach-templates.md for email outreach frameworks, subject line formulas, response rate benchmarks, follow-up sequences, and templates for each link building strategy.

Save Results

Ask "Save these results?" If yes, write a dated summary to memory/monitoring/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md with headline finding, actionable items, and open loops. If toxic ratio > 15%, recommend domain-authority-auditor.

Reference Materials

• Link Quality Rubric — Quality scoring matrix with weighted factors and toxic link identification criteria
• Outreach Templates — Email frameworks, subject line formulas, and response rate benchmarks

Next Best Skill

Toxic ratio > 15% → domain-authority-auditor. Otherwise → Terminal. Visited-set rule applies per skill-contract.md.