Ask most SEOs what Ahrefs is for, and they’ll say keywords. They’ll describe the keyword difficulty scores, the traffic volume estimates, the autocomplete suggestions. They’re not wrong — Ahrefs is excellent for keyword research. But if that’s all you’re using it for, you’re leaving the most powerful parts of the platform completely untouched.
Understanding how to use Ahrefs for competitor research changes the way you build backlinks and develop content strategy. It shifts your approach from guessing what might work to knowing exactly what’s already working for your competitors — and then executing it better.
This guide is for marketers, agency owners, and business owners who already have an Ahrefs subscription and want to extract full value from it. We’re covering three high-leverage workflows most people skip: backlink analysis with Site Explorer, link gap prospecting with Link Intersect, and full competitor content research using Content Gap and Top Pages. If you want to understand why SEO matters for your business before diving into tools, start there first.
By the end, you’ll have a repeatable process you can run on any competitor in under 30 minutes.
Ahrefs Site Explorer is the closest thing to an X-ray for any website’s link profile. Enter a competitor’s domain and you get a full picture of every domain linking to them, the quality of those links, and the anchor text distribution across their backlink profile. This is the starting point for any serious ahrefs backlink analysis.
Go to Site Explorer, enter your competitor’s domain, and click Referring Domains in the left sidebar. This shows every unique domain linking to your competitor — not individual links, but root domains. A competitor with 400 referring domains from 400 different sites is far stronger than one with 400 links from 10 sites.
Sort by Domain Rating (DR) descending. This surfaces the highest-authority links first — major publications, industry associations, government and educational domains. These are the links that actually move rankings.
Look for patterns. Are most of their strong links coming from industry directories? Guest posts? PR coverage? Resource page listings? The distribution tells you what link-building strategies are working in your niche. If you see 30 links from industry publications, that’s a signal that PR and contributed content are active acquisition channels worth pursuing.
Not every backlink in a competitor’s profile is worth studying. Low-quality links from article directories or thin sites don’t contribute to rankings and aren’t worth replicating. Apply a DR filter — set minimum DR to 20 or 30 — to focus on links that carry real authority.
This also helps you benchmark realistically. If a competitor’s top 50 links are all DR 60+ publications, you know what you’re competing against. That context matters when setting link-building expectations with clients or internal stakeholders.
Click Anchors in the left sidebar. This shows the exact text people use when linking to your competitor. Over-optimized anchor profiles — heavy on exact-match keyword anchors — can signal manipulation. Healthy profiles show a mix of branded anchors, generic anchors, naked URLs, and some keyword-rich anchors.
From a strategy standpoint, the anchors report tells you what topics the web associates with your competitor. If 40 of their links use “best pool maintenance tips” as anchor text, that’s a content asset worth studying. When we run professional SEO services for clients, anchor text analysis is one of the first things we check — it reveals both opportunity and risk in a competitor’s profile.
Go to Best by Links under Pages in the left sidebar. This shows which specific pages on your competitor’s site have earned the most backlinks — their link magnets.
If their most-linked page is a comprehensive industry guide, that’s a content format that earns links in your niche. If it’s a free tool or a data-driven study, that’s a different but equally clear signal. Build something better and pursue the same referring domains. This is ahrefs referring domains analysis put to direct, actionable use.
Link Intersect is one of the most underused features in Ahrefs, and it may be the most direct route to link-building opportunities. The concept is simple: you enter multiple competitors, and Ahrefs shows you which domains are linking to all of them — but not to you. Those are the sites most likely to link to your content, because they’ve already demonstrated a willingness to link to similar resources in your space.
This is what makes Ahrefs Link Intersect the most efficient tool for backlink gap analysis.
Navigate to Site Explorer, enter your domain in the main search field, then click Link Intersect in the left sidebar under the Backlinks section.
You’ll see two input sections: the top section for competitor targets and the bottom field for your domain. Add 3–5 competitors in the top rows. Leave the bottom row set to your domain. Run the report.
Ahrefs returns a list of referring domains sorted by the number of target domains they link to. Sites linking to all 5 of your competitors appear at the top. These are your highest-priority prospects — they’ve linked to multiple players in your niche, which means they’re actively engaged with your space and haven’t deliberately excluded you yet.
Filter for DR 20+ to remove noise. Then go through the list and ask three questions for each referring domain:
Many of the links you find will be resource pages, roundups, or editorial citations. These are highly actionable. A resource page listing five competitors’ content is almost certain to be open to adding a sixth — if you reach out professionally with a strong pitch and a genuinely useful asset.
This is not cold outreach. You’re reaching out to sites that have already proven they link to content like yours. The conversion rate on Link Intersect outreach is meaningfully higher than generic link prospecting. Combine this with the advanced SEO strategies in our broader guide and you have a full-funnel link acquisition system.
Beyond backlinks, Ahrefs gives you deep visibility into what your competitors rank for, what content drives their traffic, and where your content strategy has gaps. The three tools you need here are Content Gap, Top Pages, and Organic Keywords.
In Site Explorer, enter your domain, then click Content Gap in the left sidebar. Enter 3–5 competitors in the top fields and your domain in the “But the following target doesn’t rank” field.
Ahrefs Content Gap returns every keyword your competitors rank for that your site doesn’t. This is not a list to blindly target — it’s a map of where your content strategy has holes.
Filter for keywords where at least 3 of your competitors rank in the top 20. These are terms with proven demand and proven content formats. If three competitors all have pages ranking for the same keyword, there’s an established SERP — and a clearly defined content type that Google rewards. This intelligence directly shapes what SEO-optimized blog content your site needs next.
Go to Site Explorer for a competitor’s domain, then click Top Pages under Organic Search. This shows their highest-traffic pages along with the primary keyword each page ranks for and the estimated traffic volume.
This is where how to use Ahrefs shifts from data collection to real strategy. You’re looking at the specific pages generating the most organic visits right now. Build a list of their top 20. For each, answer:
Go to Site Explorer for your competitor, then click Organic Keywords. Filter for positions 4–20. These are pages your competitor almost ranks for but hasn’t fully captured. If they’re sitting at position 7 for a high-volume term with thin or outdated content, that’s a direct opportunity.
Target those keywords with more authoritative, more comprehensive content. This is a smarter approach than going after terms where they already dominate positions 1–3. You’re competing at the margin, where better content quality is enough to win.
Here is the repeatable workflow, mapped out as a checklist you can run on any competitor in a single focused session. Block 30 minutes. Work through it in order.
Minutes 1–5: Set Your Targets
Minutes 6–12: Backlink Analysis via Site Explorer
Minutes 13–18: Link Gap Prospecting via Link Intersect
Minutes 19–25: Content Gap and Top Pages
Minutes 26–30: Build Your Priority Output
Run this checklist once a month on your top 3 competitors and you’ll maintain a continuous pipeline of link-building targets and content opportunities. No more guessing what to write next or where to pitch for links.
Ahrefs is one of the most data-rich SEO platforms available today. Most businesses barely scratch the surface — they run a keyword report, maybe glance at their own backlink count, and close the tab. The real competitive advantage comes from systematic competitor research: knowing exactly who links to your competitors, what content drives their rankings, and where your strategy has gaps that can be closed.
The workflows in this guide work for any niche, any market, and any stage of SEO maturity. Run them consistently and you’ll make sharper decisions about where to invest your content and link-building budget.
If you want help applying these methods to your own site — running the Ahrefs audits, building outreach lists, filling content gaps — Triforce Digital runs competitor research and full SEO audits for businesses across Texas and nationally.
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