Backlink Analyzer
Analyzes backlink profiles for quality, risk, competitive gaps, and link-building opportunities.
Quick Start
Analyze backlink profile for [domain]
Find link building opportunities by analyzing [competitor domains]
Skill Contract
Expected output: a backlink report or delta summary plus the standard handoff summary for memory/monitoring/.
- Reads: current metrics, baselines, alert thresholds, and reporting context from CLAUDE.md and the shared State Model when available.
- Writes: a user-facing monitoring deliverable and reusable summary.
- Promotes: significant changes, confirmed anomalies, follow-up actions, and pending decisions to
memory/open-loops.md. - Primary next skill: domain-authority-auditor when toxicity or authority concerns need formal scoring.
Handoff Summary
Emit the standard shape from skill-contract.md §Handoff Summary Format.
Data Sources
All integrations optional (see CONNECTORS.md). With tools, pull backlink profiles from ~~link database and competitor data from ~~SEO tool. Without tools, ask for backlink CSVs, referring domains, competitor domains, and link changes. Respect robots.txt and TOS per SECURITY.md.
Instructions
When a user requests backlink analysis:
- Generate Profile Overview — key metrics, link velocity, authority distribution, and profile health score.
- Analyze Link Quality — top backlinks, link type mix, anchor text distribution, and geography.
- Identify Toxic Links — risk indicators, links to review, and disavow recommendations.
- Compare Against Competitors — profile comparison, link intersection, and top linked competitor content.
- Find Link Building Opportunities — intersection prospects, broken links, unlinked mentions, resource pages, guest posts, and effort-vs-impact priorities.
- Track Link Changes — new and lost links, net change, and recovery priorities.
- Generate Backlink Report — executive summary, strengths, concerns, opportunities, competitive position, recommended actions, and KPIs.
Reference: See references/analysis-templates.md for the compact output templates used in all seven steps.
CITE Item Mapping
When running domain-authority-auditor after this analysis, the following data feeds directly into CITE scoring:
| Backlink Metric | CITE Item | Dimension |
|---|---|---|
| Referring domains count | C01 (Referring Domain Volume) | Citation |
| Authority distribution (DA breakdown) | C02 (Referring Domains Quality) | Citation |
| Link velocity | C04 (Link Velocity) | Citation |
| Geographic distribution | C10 (Link Source Diversity) | Citation |
| Dofollow/Nofollow ratio | T02 (Dofollow Ratio Normality) | Trust |
| Toxic link analysis | T01 (Link Profile Naturalness), T03 (Link-Traffic Coherence) | Trust |
| Competitive link intersection | T05 (Profile Uniqueness) | Trust |
Example
Sample outcome: a link-intersection table, top immediate opportunities, and an estimated impact model. Keep the full structure in references/analysis-templates.md.
Tips for Success
Prioritize quality, monitor regularly, diversify anchors and link types, and disavow cautiously.
Link Quality and Strategy Reference
Reference: See references/link-quality-rubric.md for the scoring matrix, toxic-link criteria, benchmarks, and disavow guidance.
Reference: See references/outreach-templates.md for outreach frameworks, subject lines, response benchmarks, follow-up sequences, and templates.
Save Results
Ask "Save these results?" If yes, write memory/monitoring/YYYY-MM-DD-<topic>.md with headline finding, actions, and open loops. If toxic ratio exceeds 15%, recommend domain-authority-auditor.
Reference Materials
- Link Quality Rubric — Quality and toxicity rubric
- Outreach Templates — Outreach frameworks and examples
Next Best Skill
Toxic ratio > 15% → domain-authority-auditor. Otherwise → Terminal. Visited-set rule applies per skill-contract.md.