Vet a backlink prospect in Ahrefs before outreach
Check traffic country, ranking topics and outbound links before pursuing any link.
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Before chasing a link, confirm in Ahrefs or Semrush where the prospect's traffic comes from, what it actually ranks for and whether it links out to everyone. Use the same tool to mine competitors' backlinks for outreach targets, then prioritise industry or city-relevant sources.
Before you start
- Ahrefs or Semrush subscription (one tool is enough)
- A list of candidate link prospects or competitor domains
- A spreadsheet to record the keyword map and go/no-go decisions
How to apply it
Check the prospect's traffic geography
Open the prospect domain in Ahrefs or Semrush and go to the traffic or audience report showing traffic by country. Confirm the bulk of the traffic comes from the country you sell in; a site whose visitors sit in an unrelated market is not a relevant link source.
Check
The traffic-by-country report shows the largest share from your target country.
Check what the prospect actually ranks for
Open the organic keywords report for the prospect and scan its top ranking queries. The topics should relate to your industry or your city.
Check
At least a few of the prospect's top organic keywords share a topic or location with your pages.
Check who the prospect links out toGeneral best practice
Review the prospect's outbound or linked-domains report and sample a few of its external links. A site linking out to unrelated commercial sites across many niches is selling placements rather than linking editorially.
Check
Outbound link sample shows sites in a consistent topic area rather than unrelated commercial domains.
Mine competitor backlinks for targets
Run the competitor's backlink report in the same tool and export the referring domains. These become the outreach target list, since the sites already link to a page competing with yours.
Check
Export contains a list of referring domains with at least one column of traffic or authority metrics.
Prioritise industry and city relevance
Filter the list to sources that are relevant by industry, by city, or both: local news outlets, city business associations, legal or trade directories, and sponsor pages for local events. Drop sources that fail the three checks.
Check
Filtered list keeps only domains whose traffic country and ranking topics match your market.
Record a go/no-go per prospectGeneral best practice
Add a decision column next to each prospect with the country check, the topic check and the outbound-link check, so the outreach team only works qualified targets.
Check
Every row in the sheet has a filled decision and three check columns.
This happens outside your codebase
Work through the steps above on the named site or dashboard, then record the result in your agent session. There is no repository edit for this tip.
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