How do I find a competitor's backlinks for free?

Paste the competitor's domain into a backlink checker, sort the referring domains by authority, and look at the top 20. Those top links tell the story. Free checkers cap how many links you see, but that cap is rarely the thing holding you back when you're researching a handful of competitors a month.

Is it legal to look at a competitor's backlinks?

Yes. Backlinks are public. They're just links on other websites that anyone can see. Backlink tools crawl the open web the same way search engines do. You're reading a map that's already published, not accessing anything private.

How many competitor backlinks should I try to copy?

Focus on quality, not count. Twenty replicable links from sites your buyers actually read will move rankings more than a thousand from directories nobody visits. Start with the referring domains you could plausibly earn a link from this quarter.

What's the difference between a backlink and a referring domain?

A backlink is a single link pointing to a site. A referring domain is a unique website linking to it, so ten links from one site count as just one referring domain. Referring domains are the more honest measure of how many distinct sources vouch for a page.

Which competitors should I check?

Check the sites already ranking on page one for the terms you want, not the companies you think of as rivals. Your business competitor and your search competitor are often different, and it's the search competitor whose links are actually affecting your rankings. Three to five is the right number to start with.

How do I view a competitor's backlinks without a subscription?

Paste their domain into a free checker and read the referring domains it returns. Free tools show you a sample rather than every link, which sounds like a limitation but rarely is, because the strongest referring domains are the ones that matter and they sort to the top anyway.

How do I check the backlinks of several competitors at once?

Run them one at a time, then compare the lists and look for overlap. A domain linking to two or three of your competitors but not to you is the highest-probability target you will find, because it has already demonstrated it links to businesses in your category. That overlap is what a backlink gap analysis finds for you automatically.

What if a competitor has thousands of backlinks?

Ignore almost all of them. Sort by authority and read the top twenty, which is where the story is. A profile of forty thousand links is usually a few hundred meaningful relationships plus a very long tail of directories, scrapers, and syndication that nobody needs to act on.

Backlinks 101

How to find your competitors' backlinks, without the jargon

You don't need a $129-a-month subscription to see where a competitor's links come from. Here's exactly how to do it, what the numbers actually mean, and when a free approach is genuinely enough.

Brad Williams·Updated Jul 2026·5 min read

Here's the uncomfortable truth about link building: most of the hard work is already done for you. Your competitors have spent years earning links, and every one of those links is visible, copyable, and a map of exactly what worked. You just have to know how to read it.

This guide walks through the whole thing without the jargon. You'll learn what a backlink is, how to pull a competitor's link profile in about two minutes, and how to tell a link worth chasing from one that's just noise. No complicated dashboard required.

What a backlink actually is

A backlink is simply a link on someone else's website that points to yours. Search engines treat each one a bit like a recommendation: if a trusted site links to you, some of that trust rubs off. That's why a handful of links from respected publications can outweigh hundreds from forgotten directories.

Two words you'll see constantly, defined once:

Referring domain: a unique website linking to you. Ten links from nytimes.com still count as one referring domain.
Domain Rating (DR): a 0–100 score for how authoritative a site is. A link from a DR 90 site is worth far more than one from a DR 12 blog.

Quick tip

Don't obsess over raw link counts. One editorial mention in a publication your buyers actually read beats a thousand links from sites nobody visits. Quality of the referring domain is the number that moves rankings.

The fastest way to see any competitor's backlinks

You don't need to install anything or sign a contract. Paste a competitor's domain into a backlink checker and you'll get their link network back. That includes the strongest referring domains, which links are new, and which they've recently lost. (Our own free checker maps the strongest referring domains and flags which are new, below; lost-link tracking is coming soon.)

Try the free competitor backlink checker

Run a free scan on any competitor and see their referring domains mapped in clear terms. Add your own domain to reveal your backlink gap. No account needed.

Open the free checker →

Once the network loads, resist the urge to export everything. The point isn't to hoard 48,000 rows. It's to answer one question: where do their best links come from, and can I get one too?

Reading the report without drowning in it

Every backlink report shows roughly the same things. Here's what's worth your attention, in order:

Top referring domains by DR. Sort high to low. The top 20 tell you the story; the long tail rarely matters.
Link type. Editorial mention? Resource list? Guest post? This tells you how the link was earned, and therefore how you'd earn a similar one.
New vs. lost. New links show what's working right now. Lost links are opportunities, because a page that dropped their link might take yours.

Once you can read the report, the next step is turning it into a plan. That's a topic of its own. See how to analyze a competitor's backlink profile for the prioritization method, and how to replicate a competitor's best backlinks for actually earning them. The highest-probability targets of all come from a backlink gap analysis, the sites linking to your competitors but not to you yet.

Your competitor's link profile isn't a leaderboard to envy. It's a to-do list you didn't have to write.

Which competitors to check, and how many

Most people check the wrong sites. They list the companies they pitch against in sales calls, run those, and find a link profile that has nothing to do with why they aren't ranking.

The sites worth checking are the ones already ranking on page one for the terms you want. Search for your three most valuable keywords and write down who is above you. That's your list. Your business competitor and your search competitor overlap less often than you'd expect, and it's the search competitor whose links are the reason you're on page two.

Three to five is the right number. Fewer and you can't tell a pattern from a coincidence. More and you'll spend the afternoon checking competitors instead of earning a link.

Then look for overlap. When you view several competitors' backlinks side by side, some referring domains show up again and again. A site linking to three of your rivals but not to you has already proven it will link to a business like yours, which makes it a far warmer target than a name you found in a directory. Finding those systematically is exactly what a backlink gap analysis does.

What "authority" really measures

Authority scores like DR compress a messy reality into one number. Useful as a shortcut, dangerous as a religion. Treat it as a rough sort order, not gospel.

Example referring domain

AR 84 / 100

A DR 84 link from a site your audience actually reads is worth chasing. A DR 84 link from a generic link farm is not. The score can't tell the difference, but you can.

When free is genuinely enough

If you're checking a handful of competitors a month, a free checker plus a spreadsheet will take you a long way. Paid tools earn their price when you need historical trends, daily monitoring, or to process hundreds of domains at once. Until then, don't pay for dashboards you won't open.

What this means

Start free. Learn to read one competitor's network well. Upgrade only when a specific need, such as monitoring, history, or scale, makes the free workflow the thing slowing you down.

That's the whole method: read the map your competitors already drew, copy the links you can realistically earn, and ignore the noise. No subscription required to get started.

Frequently asked questions

How do I find a competitor's backlinks for free?: Paste the competitor's domain into a backlink checker, sort the referring domains by authority, and look at the top 20. Those top links tell the story. Free checkers cap how many links you see, but that cap is rarely the thing holding you back when you're researching a handful of competitors a month.
Is it legal to look at a competitor's backlinks?: Yes. Backlinks are public. They're just links on other websites that anyone can see. Backlink tools crawl the open web the same way search engines do. You're reading a map that's already published, not accessing anything private.
How many competitor backlinks should I try to copy?: Focus on quality, not count. Twenty replicable links from sites your buyers actually read will move rankings more than a thousand from directories nobody visits. Start with the referring domains you could plausibly earn a link from this quarter.
What's the difference between a backlink and a referring domain?: A backlink is a single link pointing to a site. A referring domain is a unique website linking to it, so ten links from one site count as just one referring domain. Referring domains are the more honest measure of how many distinct sources vouch for a page.
Which competitors should I check?: Check the sites already ranking on page one for the terms you want, not the companies you think of as rivals. Your business competitor and your search competitor are often different, and it's the search competitor whose links are actually affecting your rankings. Three to five is the right number to start with.
How do I view a competitor's backlinks without a subscription?: Paste their domain into a free checker and read the referring domains it returns. Free tools show you a sample rather than every link, which sounds like a limitation but rarely is, because the strongest referring domains are the ones that matter and they sort to the top anyway.
How do I check the backlinks of several competitors at once?: Run them one at a time, then compare the lists and look for overlap. A domain linking to two or three of your competitors but not to you is the highest-probability target you will find, because it has already demonstrated it links to businesses in your category. That overlap is what a backlink gap analysis finds for you automatically.
What if a competitor has thousands of backlinks?: Ignore almost all of them. Sort by authority and read the top twenty, which is where the story is. A profile of forty thousand links is usually a few hundred meaningful relationships plus a very long tail of directories, scrapers, and syndication that nobody needs to act on.

Keep reading

How to check who is linking to your website

Point the same method at your own domain to audit your inbound links.

How to analyze a competitor's backlink profile

Turn a raw link list into a prioritized action plan.

How to replicate a competitor's best backlinks

The step-by-step for actually earning the links you find.

Best competitor backlink tools, compared

What each tool is genuinely good at, and when free is enough.

What is a backlink?

The foundation, if any of the vocabulary is new.

How to get backlinks

What to do once you have the competitor's list.

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