If you build a link prospect list, you need to find relevant publishers beyond the sites that already link to you. Backlinks DB: Link Gap finds referring sites that link to your selected competitors without an observed link to the owned sites you exclude. Results are grouped by how many of your competitor sites each referring site matches.
Set up the comparison
The campaign fills the competitor and owned-site boxes from Organizations, and you can edit both for a particular comparison.
Include every alternate owned domain and relevant subdomain before reading the results. A missing owned host means sites that already link to you appear as gaps, which is the setup error that wastes the most time.
The input that decides the output
Who you enter as competitors matters more than any control on the form.
Three or four direct competitors of similar size produce a list where a shared link means something. Entering eight companies produces a longer list and a weaker signal, because a site linking to any one of them appears.
Entering the largest brands in your category returns coverage earned through size, press and recognition, most of which is not available by asking. That is worth seeing once to understand the extent of coverage, and it is not the working list.
Sort by how many of your entered sites each referring site matches. Rows matching most of your set are where the signal is.
Choose the level and the overlap
Domain-level comparison combines a domain's hosts. Host-level comparison examines the specific hosts you enter. Minimum matches controls how many of your selected competitors a referring site must link to.
The form also supports PageRank, backlink and outbound-link limits. Use those to narrow a long list, then inspect the publications and what they cover.
A referring site is not an instruction
The report gives you the difference. It does not give you the reason for the difference, and the reason decides whether a row is worth anything.
Find the page that explains the relationship: a supplier list, an association directory, a review, a roundup, a partner page.
Suppose a directory lists three of the four competitors you entered and contains no observed link to you. Open it and the requirement usually appears. A membership directory may only list member businesses, so the gap is a membership decision with a fee rather than an outreach opportunity. An awards listing may only include past finalists. A partner directory may require a signed agreement.
Three competitors appearing together almost always means there was a condition they all satisfied. Finding that condition is worth more than the individual rows.
Read "observed" literally
An observed link was seen in the collected data. It does not establish that the link exists today, and its absence does not establish that no link exists.
The collection is updated from monthly source releases, each incorporating several collection periods. It does not distinguish a link that was removed from one that was never observed.
Open the referring page before acting on a row, particularly before telling a publisher they have not linked to you.
How this differs from Brand Link Gap
This view returns sites from the backlink collection. Brand Link Gap returns individual pages from the News and Prospect indexes.
The results differ because the collections and the comparison units differ, not because one is more complete. Use this report to understand which sites your market links to, and Brand Link Gap to find specific pages that mention the subject and could carry a link.
What it cannot tell you
It does not value a link, date it, or supply the editorial requirements that decide whether you can obtain the same placement. It also cannot claim to be exhaustive, so a site absent from the report may still link to a competitor.
Before adding a referring site to outreach, locate the relevant page and check whether your resource belongs there.
See how competitor selection changes the result, reading the pattern across results, or Brand Link Gap.