Competitor backlinks — copy the host class, not the farm

It means looking at the referring domains on URLs that already rank for your query, then deciding which class of host is worth matching. It does not mean buying the same twenty blogs, the same exact-match anchors, and the same publish week. A gap export is a research file. It is not a cart. We will use it as a brief input. We will not treat it as a to-do list we are obliged to recreate.

The useful objects are host class and destination. Host class: publications with readers, topical fit, a sane outbound graph. Destination: the URL on your site that should rank, not “whatever they pointed at.” If they spent the graph on a thin homepage and you have a finished category page, you still point at the category. Homepage vs inner-page backlinks is that split. This page is the inbound-copy split.

English guest posts remain $125 (GR4D2J), $175 (6RZX7J), $250 (QJE1WN), $275 (PNKO6R), and $450 (EN1PXR). Those prices buy a placement we QC, not a promise we will land the same domain that appears in their Ahrefs. Named competitor URLs are not a catalogue we can checkout. You approve a class. Live URLs land on the delivery report. Dual path stays open: order DR40+ at $250 or send the gap list on the quote form.

Because the URL list is shared. Every vendor with a crawler can see the same referring domains. If those domains sell slots, you are buying a storefront every other buyer already has. If those domains are real publications, they may not take a second contributor piece on the same topic this quarter. Chasing the exact domain is how briefs turn into “get us that one blog” theatre. Matching the class — traffic band, language, topical fit — is how you build a graph that looks earned.

Ahrefs and Semrush are how most teams export the gap. They are measurement tools. They are not Google, and they are not clients. We report their metrics after placement. We do not treat a red or green row as a work order. DataForSEO is the scan we run before we pitch a host we might actually use. Fail spam or toxic outbound, the domain is out — even if three competitors already bought it.

Moz Domain Authority is a third-party score we do not sell against. A leftover Domain Rating on an expired magazine is leftover equity, not a publisher. Domain rating vs domain authority is the badge lecture. What is a good domain rating is the band lecture. This page only needs one rule: the class has to look like publishing when you open it logged out.

Send the query, the destination URLs, and a short list of competitors you actually lose to — not every domain that once ranked. Mark the referring hosts you would be proud to sit next to. Mark the ones that look like farms. We will agree the class: English or native language, DR band, traffic band, exclusions. That is a brief. “Recreate their 200 referring domains” is not a brief. It is a quota in costume.

Count publications, not raw backlink totals. One homepage dump from a network inflates a count overnight. Ten guest posts on trafficked niche sites are a different graph. How many backlinks to rank is the gap-count page. Pace still matters: do not copy a ten-year-old profile in month one. Link velocity is the ramp page. We will sequence placements when the domain is new or the niche is tight.

Tell us which mechanic you want per destination. A new editorial URL is a guest post. An insert on a live resource is a niche edit from $99, quote-only. A story a journalist might run is digital PR, quoted. Mixing those into “just get their links” is how you get the wrong object on the report. We report what actually ran — live URL, target, anchor, followed or sponsored. We do not relabel a name-check as a DR40 backlink.

When you open the host and the archive is sponsored posts and a contact form. When twenty vendors sold the same domain this month. When the outbound grid is casino, CBD, and crypto in the same week. When the only ranking URLs are “write for us.” When the theme is a leftover magazine on an expired domain. Those rows can still show a pretty DR. They are still a farm. Ignore them. Do not ask us to match them.

Google’s link-spam policy and SpamBrain are aimed at that layer. A competitor who ranks with a farm is not a case study. They are a risk you should not copy. We will not invent a statistic about how often those graphs collapse. We will refuse the host. PBN vs guest posts is the network definition. White-hat vs black-hat link building is the inventory class. This page is the gap-analysis version of the same refusal.

Negative-SEO looking junk pointed at them is also ignore-first. Random comment spam and blast directories are not a host class. Do not add them to your “they have it, we need it” sheet. If you are sorting toxic versus editorial on your own graph, that is backlink audit and toxic backlinks and disavow. Do not disavow a university directory because a tool painted it red, and do not buy a twin of their junk because the export listed it.

No. A private blog network is a set of sites one operator controls, built to pass PageRank rather than to be read. If their “media partners” share themes, footers, and outbound patterns, that is a network. We will not rebuild it. We will not sell a cheaper row that is actually a login. About 500 owned sites exist in this company as disclosed operating inventory. They are not a PBN product and they are not a way to clone someone else’s network.

White-hat on this desk is a constraint list. No automated blast tools. No farm blogs that exist to sell DR. No fake testimonials. No money-back ranking theatre. Publishers say no. The longer list sits on why us. Paying a fulfilment desk is a service fee. Buying the farm is a different object. If your competitor bought the farm, that is their problem. It does not become our SKU.

If an agency promised your client “we will match their exact domains,” the cleanup is yours. We will quote guest posts you can put on a live-URL report. White-label uses the same public rates. The monthly package ($1,500, SKU 2R60XR) is a scoped desk, not a 50-link clone of their export. We will not fulfil a client promise you made about private blogs.

Open the homepage, the archive, and the URL class you would land on. Organic traffic that looks like readers. Outbound that looks like citations rather than a storefront. Topical fit — the editor already covers the category. DataForSEO plus a human before anyone pitches. Fail any one of those and the host is out, competitor or not. The longer checklist is how to vet a guest-post site.

You never get a public catalogue of named sites before go-live. That is how inventory gets scraped and resold — including the same twenty blogs already in everyone’s competitor report. You approve the class. Named URLs land after go-live. If a vendor emails you 400 live blogs “your competitors already use” and a Buy button, you are looking at a marketplace dump. How to buy backlinks safely is the procurement version.

rel=sponsored or nofollow, when the publisher marks the link that way, is reported as marked. We do not sell a secret dofollow toggle so you can “match their followed count.” A host that will only place you in a sidebar of unmarked paid links is not a host we will dress up as editorial. Walk away. The next real publication is cheaper than a cleanup.

Casino and sportsbook competitors often show a louder farm. That is not a reason to match it. Commercial gambling URLs use iGaming from $180, quote-only. We pitch casino as casino. We wait for a yes. We do not dump a grey-market URL onto a leftover “gambling OK” checkbox, and we do not hide it inside English GP $125 because their export listed lifestyle blogs. Adult, CBD, and crypto stay Enquire Now. Gold desks stay Enquire Now.

International gap lists lie when the crawler mixes languages. A .de domain with English posts is not German inventory. International guest posts start at $175 because native outreach is the work — 15+ languages, not DeepL on their English outline. Copy the local host class: native archive, native readers, native pitch. An English leftover on a foreign domain is not safer. It is cheaper inventory wearing a ccTLD.

YMYL competitors — finance, law — may show fewer honest hosts and more costume magazines. We will not invent a finance SKU to “catch up.” DR50+ and DR70+ exist when a host will take the URL. Many will not. A new domain should not try to photocopy a decade of citations in a month. We will say no rather than fulfil a catch-up dump.

A short list of money pages, an honest vertical, and one English DR band you can defend — or a quote if the mix is messy. DR40+ at $250 is the usual first row. Typical TAT about two weeks, 20-day maximum, replacement if the link drops. Content included. You approve the class of site before we pitch. DataForSEO runs before a domain is approved.

Add niche edits from $99 where a strong indexed page already exists. Enquire on digital PR if you have a story, not if you only have their HARO-looking mentions. Wikipedia stays Enquire Now and still needs independent sources — paid contributor posts on their profile usually do not count toward notability, and they will not count on yours either.

Create an account or log in at clients.worldwidebacklinks.com. A strategist replies within 24 hours. Founded 2022, Richmond VIC. Stay on guest posts if you are ready to buy the class, not the farm. Send the gap export if you want us to mark which rows we will ignore. We will mark them. That is the service. Recreating their PBN is not.