Link building is a double-edged sword.
Some backlinks help.
And, because authority is measured algorithmically, some backlinks REALLY help.
Unfortunately, some backlinks hurt.
The worst backlinks can be very detrimental.
Not all link building strategies are effective. It can be tough to tell whether the time and money you spend on link building services is truly paying off.
When it comes to performing a complete audit or backlink profile analysis, most webmasters take a reactive vs. proactive approach.
But monitoring your backlinks with regular manual and software-based backlink audits is critical in today’s ever-changing world of search algorithm updates.
Here we outline the process for backlink profile analysis with regular backlink auditing.
Let’s dive in.
Depending on the nature of your site and how much effort you’ve put into building links, there are probably hundreds to thousands of links pointing to the various pages of your site.
Maybe you were referenced in a press release or noted as a sponsor for a charity event, or maybe you were featured in a series of offsite articles.
The sum total of these backlinks, as they exist today, is your backlink profile (linkgraph or, simply, link profile).
A backlink audit or link profile analysis, then, is the art of studying and evaluating your (or your competitors’) link profile.
There are many ways to use this in your favor; for example, you can use it to track how far your reach has grown over a period of time, including how many new publishers you’ve been featured on.
You can use it to spot and correct mistakes. Perhaps most importantly, you can tie factors like the quantity or quality of links you’ve built to the results you’re seeing on your website.
You can also use link profile analysis as a means of competitive analysis.
Instead of auditing your own backlink profile, you can look at the profiles of your closest competitors to examine differences between your approaches, or gain inspiration for new strategies.
Before we get into specifics on what your link profile should look like, you should know how to view and analyze your profile itself.
The depth of backlink data available in Google Search Console is limited (likely because Google wants to avoid incentivizing link schemes)
You may keep track of the links you’ve built manually, but this won’t tell you any information on links you’ve naturally attracted, which are even more important.
Two of the very best tools to use for analyzing your site’s backlinks include:
Both tools allow you to search for any domain and see a breakdown of:
There are other tools available to evaluate your backlink profile, but so long as they provide you with accurate information, the differences come down to UI, so your choice should be based on personal preferences.
Every tool on the market has its pros and cons.
We have found detrimental links through Moz that were invisible to Ahrefs backlink lookups, so having the complete picture with both tools is helpful.
As an evaluative tool, your backlink profile’s main function is to help you measure how far you are from the ideal, and whether your efforts are being translated into measurable results.
If you’re not seeing results, you can dig deeper into your link specifics to see which areas are lacking.
Even if you’re seeing moderately good results, you can identify key areas for improvement, based on whether they adhere to “ideal” standards.
So what are these “ideal” standards? You should be able to judge a backlink profile on the following dimensions, and reasonably determine whether it’s going to be effective in building your search rankings:
Accordingly, it’s good to keep a close eye on the number of backlinks in your profile.
This will help you ensure that you’re executing on your goals, like if you have a target of publishing 10 new links a month, but will also help you notice and evaluate links that come to you naturally.
Perhaps even more importantly, finding a deviation in your link numbers can clue you into a problem with your strategy, such as a publisher removing your links from publication.
Link quantity also matters for your individual pages, since you’ll need to focus on both domain authority and page authority.
For a general strategy, you’ll want to build links pointing to a variety of internal pages, but if there’s a specific landing page or a specific piece of content you want to emphasize, you may want a disproportionate number of links pointing to it.
By that same token, you should keep an eye out for links from low-quality or questionable sources.
If Google notices one or more links from a source that could be considered spam, it could diminish your domain authority and hurt you more than help you.
Hopefully, you aren’t actively seeking these low-authority sources, like article directories and shady forums, but it’s still possible that a link to your site could show up there.
Evaluating your link profile in this dimension can help you remove links from questionable sources; to do this, usually all you have to do is send an email to the webmaster (though in some rare cases, you may need to disavow the link).
You can also determine whether you’re meeting your high-DA linking goals, and take action if not.
This can alert you to any sites that are linking to your pages nefariously or without link quality in mind.
Again, it’s a good trigger to reach out and remove them.
Otherwise, this can help you stay on track with your goals by giving you a bird’s-eye view on the relevance of your linking domains.
Ideally, you’ll get links from a diversity of different sources, and your link profile analysis will inform you how close you are to that goal.
If you notice lots of links from the same source or series of sources, it should motivate you to branch out.
That said, it’s worth noting that even if you aren’t getting authority benefits from inbound links on certain domains, they can still be valuable to you, earning you referral traffic and brand exposure.
Keep these secondary effects in mind
A link profile analysis is the perfect opportunity to evaluate which keyword terms you’re using, and how much brand exposure you’re getting in that anchor text.
Generally speaking, anchor text that features your brand name (or a variable of your brand name, like a product name, abbreviation, or nickname) is more valuable than other kinds of anchor text.
And no, this type of anchor text is no longer considered “natural”
You can also use keywords in your anchor text to improve your relevance for search queries that include or are similar to those keywords.
Chances are, if you’re planning a keyword and/or link building strategy, you’re already orchestrating your keywords intentionally.
Still, observing your anchor text patterns is valuable in a link profile analysis because you’ll see what types of keywords or brand-related terms are being used in natural backlinks, and you can see whether certain types of anchored links are being removed.
For example, if you’re writing an article about roof repair and you’re linking to your law firm’s homepage, the anchor text “repair a roof” might be relevant to the core article, but won’t be relevant to your law firm.
The anchor text “contact an attorney” might be relevant to your home page, but won’t be as relevant to the core article.
Your anchor text relevance doesn’t need to be perfect, but you should examine the patterns of anchor text you use and make note of trends of irrelevance.
The more semantically natural and appropriate the anchor text is, the better it’s going to be for the integrity of your link.
When monitoring your anchor text, be sure you understand how your site compares to what is normal overall and what might be normal for your industry.
If you notice too many instances of the same anchor text, but you still want to target the same keywords, you can experiment with synonyms and different phrasings to achieve a similar result.
After all, Google takes synonyms and similar phrases into account when populating results.
Again, your strategy may already specify which pages you want to target, but your link profile analysis is a good opportunity to evaluate how you’re doing (and potentially make adjustments).
As you add more valuable content to your site, you can work it into your rotation and ensure there are always new destinations to target.
The following graphs from Ahrefs show better than I could tell:
Massive unnatural, sitewide link procurement and the subsequent fall-off after our link removal request.
And, the subsequent recovery from the decline, which took almost a year:
Yes, the recovery took time, but in the absence of backlink monitoring, the recognition of a problem in the link profile and the subsequent recovery would have been unnecessarily extended.
And, revenue would have suffered for longer than necessary.
Google also wants to see fresh links, not all redirects from some PBN built on expired domains. If all your links are from several years ago, with minimal recent links, or if your new links come in massive spurts (rather than being built iteratively), it could be a bad sign.
Make sure you have plenty of new inbound links to keep your link profile modern and relevant—though if you’re already working on your link profile analysis, you’re probably investing in new links regularly.
These are the areas you should bear in mind when evaluating your current links, at least in terms of authority and SEO contributions.
However, as briefly referenced above, links have more than just authority or SEO value.
When evaluating the overall effectiveness of your link building strategy, you should keep in mind other, secondary benefits, like brand exposure, thought leadership demonstration, referral traffic, and earning you future publication opportunities.
Because some of these factors are difficult to measure, you may not be able to objectively assess them during your link profile analysis.
If you’re interested in evaluating your competition’s backlink profiles, keep an eye out for the following:
Consistency is key if you want your link profile analysis to be effective.
You can start by committing to a regular schedule; at periodic intervals, you should be checking your progress, keeping an eye on your domain authority and number of inbound links.
If and when those results deviate from your expectations, or on a defined rotation, you can dig into the “meat” of your backlink profile, identifying lost links, inconsistencies, mistakes, or potential areas of improvement.
The Ahrefs site audit tool will consistently perform audits on your site to ensure your site is working like a well-oiled machine
The exact timing here depends on your brand and your goals.
For example, if you’re managing links for a large company and you have significant competitors and a high volume of outgoing content, you should be checking your link profile at least a few times a week, and doing a deep dive once a week.
For smaller businesses just getting their feet wet in SEO, a monthly deep dive may be plenty.
Link profile monitoring also shouldn’t be your only mode of evaluation; for example, you’ll need to study the patterns in your referral traffic closely if you want a better understanding of how your strategy is panning out, and evaluate other elements of your strategy (such as onsite optimization) if and when you notice deviations from your expectations.
Your link profile, while important, is only one piece of the bigger puzzle of SEO analysis.
The insights you glean while studying your link profile aren’t going to mean much unless they lead to real, actionable changes in your link building strategy.
For example, if you lose a link, the knowledge might help you find peace with the fact that your domain authority is taking a hit, but it isn’t going to restore or replace that link.
And if you notice you aren’t accumulating a diversity of linking domains as quickly as you intended, that knowledge is only going to benefit you if you change your approach.
Accordingly, the best way to structure a link profile analysis is to summarize it with action-focused takeaways.
Instead of making a bullet point that “anchor text lacks diversity,” make a memo to come up with new keyword targets and/or phrases, and designate a point person to be accountable for seeing the change through to fruition.
From there, check in regularly to make sure you’re following and/or achieving those action items.
Alternatively, you could work with a link building agency to make sure you’re building natural links for SEO as efficiently as possible.
If you’re ready to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit on your site, or if your link building strategy is in need of an overhaul, contact us today!
Don’t do your backlink profile analysis without first checking out our free backlink checker tool!
We’ll work with you to get your brand featured in the best publications out there—and your link profile will look better than it ever has before.
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