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: target domain, backlink/referring-domain exports, competitor domains, anchor data, and any user-provided or tool metrics.
- 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. - Done when: referring domains, anchor mix, and toxic-link share are reported with each metric source-tagged (or N/A); toxic ratio is computed; and at least 3 link-building or disavow actions are named.
- 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.
Decision Gates
Stop and ask the user when:
- No backlink data is provided and no ~~link database is connected — link counts cannot be measured. Offer: (1) paste a backlink/referring-domain export, (2) connect a tool, (3) cancel. Do not estimate referring-domain volume from the domain alone.
Continue silently (never stop for):
- Which of several competitors to deep-dive — analyze the top 3 by overlap and note the rest.
- Missing optional fields (geography, link velocity) — mark N/A and proceed.
Instructions
When a user requests backlink analysis:
- Generate Profile Overview — output key metrics, link velocity, authority distribution, and profile health score, with each metric carrying its source tag (tool export / user-provided / estimated).
- Analyze Link Quality — top backlinks, link type mix, anchor text distribution, and geography.
- Identify Toxic Links — risk indicators, links to review, and disavow recommendations; report the toxic ratio as a labeled figure.
- 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, each delta labeled against its baseline.
- Generate Backlink Report — executive summary, strengths, concerns, opportunities, competitive position, recommended actions, and KPIs, with every figure source-tagged.
Label every metric Measured (tool/export), User-provided, or Estimated (model inference); never present an estimate as measured; if a required metric is unavailable, mark it N/A — do not invent it.
Reference: See Analysis Templates 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
See Analysis Templates for the full output structure (link-intersection table, opportunities, and impact model).
Link Quality and Strategy Reference
Reference: See Link Quality Rubric for the scoring matrix, toxic-link criteria, benchmarks, and disavow guidance.
Reference: See Outreach Templates for outreach frameworks, subject lines, response benchmarks, follow-up sequences, and templates.
Save Results
Ask "Save these results?" If yes, write to memory/monitoring/ — see Skill Contract §Save Results Template. 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.