Before and after
Backlink competitor analysis, worked through for a dentist
Pretend you run a three-chair dental practice. Two rivals outrank you for implants in your town. Here is how to look at their links without buying a thing.
Example only
The goal is a shortlist, not a copycat
Every number on this page is hypothetical, made up to show the method. The point of a backlink competitor analysis is a short list of link sources worth pursuing, not a copy of a rival's profile.
- Two or three real rivals, from the local results
- Focus on links to their service pages
- Ignore anything you could not earn honestly
Who counts as a competitor
Search your main service plus your town in a private window. The practices that appear in the top results are your rivals, whatever you think of them.
Skip the directories and aggregators. Note three clinics.
Then pull each clinic's referring domains in Ahrefs Site Explorer, Semrush's Backlink Analytics or Majestic, and sort by Domain Rating or by the pages that receive the links, since a blog post is a different target from a treatment page.
The four passes
Export referring domains
One list per rival. Free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools only covers sites you own, so rivals need a paid plan or the limited free checker.
Find the overlap
Domains that link to two of the three rivals but not to you. Ahrefs calls it Link Intersect and Semrush calls it Backlink Gap.
Sort by how the link was earned
Local press, a dental association, a school sponsorship, a supplier page, a plain directory.
Mark what you can get
Earn some yourself by joining and sponsoring. Buy a placement where an editorial slot exists.
Before and after, with invented numbers
| Before | After 12 weeks, in the story | |
|---|---|---|
| Referring domains to the implants page | 3 | 7 |
| Rivals' average on the same page | 14 | 14 |
| Free profiles verified | Google only | Google, Bing, Apple, two trade bodies |
| Placements bought | 0 | 4 on dental and health sites |
| Enquiry forms per month | Unchanged in the story | Not claimed |
Which links are worth chasing
Not every rival link can be matched. Skip the ones that came from a deal you cannot repeat.
A dentist's rival might have a link from a regional newspaper, a university volunteering page, a supplier's partner list and two directories. You can sponsor the first, join the third, and claim the directories; the university page needs a real project.
Rank the rest by effort and by relevance. Four honest, well-matched links beat forty random ones.
A gap in links is one of many reasons a rival outranks you. Reviews, proximity, page quality and Google's own updates also move results, and no tool separates them for you.
Where the marketplace fits
Once the shortlist exists, the buying part is small. Filter our 50,000+ vetted donor domains by niche and language, then look for health and dental sites.
Check each row. Price runs from $1 to about $500, scaling with authority, traffic and niche, and you can read the free listing Q&A first if the basics are not done.
Plan the spend before you start. The budget walkthrough shows how to split it.
When to repeat the exercise
Run it again after three months, not three days. Rivals add links slowly, and so do you.
Mark the date on the sheet where you keep the export, plus the three names and the page you are supporting. Compare with Ahrefs or Semrush snapshots from the previous run, and keep the Q&A on listings handy for the free tasks.