How to Check Your Backlink Profile and Find Link Gaps

By Jim Huang, SEO Digital Marketing Consultant and AI Enthusiast · Last updated · Effort: Medium

What is a backlink profile?

A backlink profile is the set of links from other sites that point to yours, including how many distinct domains they come from and which of your pages attract them. A link gap compares your profile with competitors' to find sites that link to them but not to you.

You do not know how strong your link profile is compared with the competitors you want to outrank, or which of your pages attract links.

Why it matters

Off-site work in 2026 is measured against three outcomes: authority transfer, brand discovery and citation eligibility, not just domain rating. A backlink gap, comparing your referring domains with several competitors' and listing the sites that link to them but not to you, gives you your warmest prospects, because those sites have already linked to similar resources in your space.

Value and limits

  • Practical value: Shows referring domains and top linked pages so you can list sites that link to competitors but not to you, and prioritise domains that link to more than one competitor.
  • Limitation: Counts and ratings are estimates from a link index, not a complete record, and domain rating alone is not the goal. Earning links is slow and depends on assets worth linking to.
  • Effort and payoff: Medium effort (analysis is quick, outreach is slow). Payoff depends on a realistic outreach plan.
  • Evidence: Confirmed · 2+ sources

How to test it with SERP01

Issue: You cannot judge your profile in isolation, so we compare your numbers with two or three competitors side by side.

  1. Open the Backlink Checker tool and enter your domain; note total backlinks, referring domains and the top linked pages.
  2. Run it again for two or three competitors and put the numbers side by side.
  3. Open the Domain Overview tool for each to see authority and organic footprint next to the link counts.
  4. List competitor pages that attract many referring domains: these are the assets worth studying or matching.

Actionable items

  • Build assets worth linking to - create or improve the kind of asset that earns links in your niche (data, tools, guides).
  • Reclaim what you lost - recover lost links and fix broken-link opportunities pointing at your site.
  • Pitch warm prospects - approach publications that already link to competitors for the same topic.

How SERP01 addresses this

Backlink and domain-level data live in the same account as keyword gap, topical mapping and SERP data, so a link gap can be read next to a content gap on the same competitors.

Next step

Want to run this on your own site? Request a code and run the Backlink Checker and Domain Overview yourself.

Related resources: How to Size Up Any Domain Before You Pitch or Compete, How to Find Keywords Your Competitors Rank for That You Do Not, How to Audit What Google Shows When Someone Searches Your Brand

About the author. Jim Huang is an established SEO Digital Marketing Consultant, SEO Director and AI enthusiast based in Arlington, Virginia. He specializes in search engine optimization strategy, digital growth, and building custom toolsets that leverage artificial intelligence.