Answers to the most common questions about LinkRocket's Competitor Analysis tool.
How many competitors should I track?
Three to five is the sweet spot for most users. Tracking fewer than three can leave blind spots in your analysis, while tracking more than five tends to create noise without proportionally increasing the quality of insights. If you manage multiple projects or clients, you can create Saved Competitor Sets to organize different groups without cluttering a single dashboard.
If you're in a very broad niche with many strong players, start with five and narrow to the three that are most strategically relevant after your first round of analysis.
How often should I review competitor data?
It depends on the type of analysis:
Activity | Recommended Frequency |
|---|---|
Review alert emails for new backlinks and ranking changes | Weekly |
Check Comparison Dashboard metrics | Monthly |
Re-run Link Gap Analysis | Monthly |
Re-run Content Gap Analysis | Quarterly |
Full competitive strategy review (reassess competitor set, evaluate progress) | Quarterly |
Setting up Competitive Monitoring alerts (see Competitive Monitoring and Alerts) automates the weekly check — you'll receive email digests highlighting the most important changes.
A competitor has way more backlinks than me. Should I give up on those keywords?
No. Raw backlink count is one of the most misleading metrics in SEO when viewed in isolation. Many sites with large backlink counts have inflated profiles full of low-quality, irrelevant, or spammy links that provide little ranking value.
Focus on referring domain count (how many unique sites link to them), link quality (the DR and relevance of linking sites), and topical relevance (whether their links come from sites related to their niche). A site with 500 high-quality, relevant referring domains will often outperform one with 5,000 links from low-quality sources.
Use Backlink Profile Comparison to assess whether a competitor's large link count reflects genuine authority or inflated numbers. See Comparing Backlink Profiles for details.
Should I try to get backlinks from every site that links to my competitors?
No. Quantity-driven outreach wastes time and can actually harm your site if you acquire links from irrelevant or low-quality sources.
When reviewing Link Gap results, prioritize opportunities that meet these criteria: the linking site is topically relevant to your niche, the Domain Rating is at or above the average of your existing backlinks, the site links to two or more of your competitors (showing a pattern of interest in your space), and the linking page is legitimate, well-maintained content — not a link farm, scraper site, or abandoned blog.
A focused outreach campaign targeting 20–30 high-quality prospects will consistently outperform blasting 200 generic pitches. See Link Gap Analysis for a detailed prioritization framework.
My competitor seems to be doing shady link building (PBNs, link farms, etc.). Should I copy their approach?
Never. Manipulative link-building tactics carry significant risk of Google penalties, which can cause catastrophic ranking losses that take months or years to recover from. A competitor using these tactics may be benefiting in the short term, but they're operating on borrowed time.
If you suspect a competitor is using manipulative tactics, the best response is to build a clean, sustainable link profile that will withstand algorithm updates. When Google catches up to the competitor's tactics — and it usually does — your site will be positioned to benefit as they lose rankings.
Focus on earning links through quality content, genuine outreach, and real relationships. These links are harder to earn but far more durable.
What's the difference between business competitors and SEO competitors?
Business competitors are companies that sell similar products or services to the same customer base. SEO competitors are the websites that rank for the keywords you want to rank for — regardless of what they sell.
For example, if you sell accounting software, your business competitors are other accounting software companies. But for a keyword like "small business tax deductions," your SEO competitors might include financial blogs, government tax resources, news sites, and accounting firms — very few of which sell competing software.
When selecting competitors to track in LinkRocket, prioritize SEO competitors. These are the sites you need to outrank, and their strategies are the ones most relevant to your search visibility goals. See Getting Started for a step-by-step guide to identifying your true SEO competitors.
How do I know if I'm making progress against competitors?
Track three things over time:
The DR and referring domain gap. If the difference between your Domain Rating and your competitors' is shrinking month over month, you're gaining ground. The same applies to referring domain counts.
Ranking overlap. Re-run Content Gap Analysis quarterly. If the number of keywords where competitors rank and you don't is decreasing, your content strategy is working.
Link Gap shrinkage. Re-run Link Gap Analysis monthly. If fewer domains appear as gaps over time (meaning you're earning links from sites that previously only linked to competitors), your outreach is paying off.
Use the Historical Comparisons feature in the Comparison Dashboard to visualize these trends.
Can I compare myself against competitors in a different niche or industry?
Technically, yes — you can enter any domain as a competitor. However, the insights will be much less actionable if the competitor operates in a completely different space. Link Gap results will surface irrelevant sites, Content Gap keywords won't align with your audience, and authority comparisons won't reflect realistic benchmarks.
Stick to competitors that target the same or closely related keywords. If you want to learn from sites in adjacent industries, analyze them separately and look for strategic patterns (link-building approaches, content formats, etc.) rather than trying to replicate their specific backlinks or keywords.
How does the Radar Chart work?
The Radar Chart Visualization displays each tracked domain as a polygon plotted across multiple axes — typically including Domain Rating, total backlinks, referring domains, Trust Flow, and content metrics. The shape of each polygon reveals relative strengths and weaknesses at a glance.
A competitor with a large polygon that's roughly symmetrical has a well-rounded profile. A competitor with a lopsided shape — say, high DR but low content coverage — has invested heavily in links but underinvested in content (or vice versa). These asymmetries can point to strategic opportunities: if a competitor is weak in an area where you're strong, you may be able to outperform them on keywords where that dimension matters most.
I've added a competitor but the data seems incomplete or outdated. What should I do?
Backlink data is sourced from web crawlers that continuously discover and index links across the internet. Occasionally, very new links may not yet appear, or links from rarely crawled pages may take longer to surface.
If data appears incomplete, try re-running the analysis after a few days. For domains with very small or new backlink profiles, limited data is expected — there's simply less to index. If the issue persists, check that you've entered the correct domain format (e.g., example.com rather than www.example.com or https://example.com/page).