Link building
Who mentions them, and why.
Competitor backlink analysis reads the pages that reference a rival and sorts them into mentions you can earn, mentions you should ignore, and patterns you should not copy.
The same URL has to rank, be quotable, be named in chat, and be a source in the overview.
A named result is published when that client clears the figure.
Competitor backlink analysis
01 — The gap
The spreadsheet crowns a number.
The competitor has more referring domains. Many of them are directories and widgets. Copying the count would copy the waste.
02 — The work
Competitor set
Who is actually in the deal, agreed with you.
03 — The close
Reporting
The groups, the earnable pages, and the patterns refused.
The work
What this is
A raw export of every linking domain is not an analysis. Most of it is noise: scrapers, footers, and sites that will link to anyone. The useful cut is the pages a buyer might read, and the reason your competitor is on them.
The output feeds link building and AI citation building. It is not a recommendation to replicate paid or irrelevant placements.
The problem
What usually breaks
01
The spreadsheet crowns a number.
The competitor has more referring domains. Many of them are directories and widgets. Copying the count would copy the waste.
02
The best mentions are not replicable.
A news story about their funding, or a founder’s personal reputation, will not transfer because you asked.
03
Risky patterns get averaged in.
If their profile includes paid-looking anchors, an uncritical gap analysis treats that as a to-do.
The practice
How ShoutRank approaches it
We take a small set of real competitors, not a keyword-tool “competitive domain” that is a magazine. We group their mentions: editorial, docs and partners, directories, noise, and patterns we would not repeat.
Earnable means a publisher could mention you for a reason that is true now. Everything else is context.
Included
What the work includes
01
Competitor set
Who is actually in the deal, agreed with you.
02
Grouped mentions
Editorial, product surfaces, noise, and do-not-copy.
03
Earnable list
Pages where a true mention of you would help the reader.
04
Risk notes
Patterns in their profile, or yours, that we will not extend.
Sequence
Process
- 1
Discovery
Agree the competitors a buyer would shortlist.
- 2
Audit
Pull mentions and open the pages, not only the domains.
- 3
Strategy
Group them. Count is secondary.
- 4
Implementation
Mark which pages could mention you without a fiction.
- 5
Monitoring
Hand the earnable list to the link or PR work, or stop if the gap is the product page itself.
- 6
Optimization
Revisit when a competitor launches a story that changes the set.
- 7
Reporting
The groups, the earnable pages, and the patterns refused.
The desk
Why ShoutRank
Pages, not domains
We open the URL. A domain average hides whether the mention is a sentence or a footer.
Real rivals
A site that ranks for one overlapping query is not automatically a competitor.
Refusal is a finding
“Do not copy this” is part of the deliverable.
The report
How success is measured
Mentions classified, not just exported.
Earnable pages that later became a pitch.
Patterns explicitly left off the plan.
A named client result is published when that client clears the figure. Until then the report is the measurement.
ShoutRank does not guarantee a ranking or a citation.
Related
Questions
Next
Check the page you want people to find.
The free check shows the gaps on one public page. If the gap is this service, a neighboring one, or a two-week review, we will say so after you ask.
A named result is published when that client clears the figure. ShoutRank does not guarantee a ranking or a citation.