Seo Backlink Audit

SEO Backlink Audit

Audit a backlink profile using data pulled from the Ahrefs MCP. Stack-agnostic. Produces a profile health assessment, a toxic link list (if needed), a reclamation list, and a gap analysis against competitors.

When to use

• Periodic backlink health check (quarterly or biannual)
• Recovering from a Google manual action or unnatural link warning
• Scoping a disavow file
• Pre-acquisition due diligence on link equity
• Planning a link building campaign (need a baseline)
• Investigating ranking drops correlated with link loss
• Recovering lost links after a migration or replatform

When NOT to use

• Building new links (use seo-offpage)
• General SEO audits (use seo-audit-orchestration)
• Keyword opportunity analysis (use seo-keyword-gap-audit)
• Technical issues unrelated to links (use seo-site-health-audit)

Required inputs

• Target property (root domain, subdomain, or URL prefix)
• Competitor set (3-5 properties with comparable strategies)
• Time window (typically last 12-24 months)
• Confirmation Ahrefs MCP is connected and has access to the property
• Search Console manual action status (if any)
• Recent SEO history (migrations, link campaigns, penalties)

The framework: 5 dimensions of a backlink profile

A profile is healthy when all five dimensions are healthy. Issues in any one can cap rankings or invite penalties.

Dimension 1: Referring domain quality

Volume of links matters less than the quality and relevance of the linking domains.

Pull from Ahrefs:

• Total referring domains (current and trended)
• Domain Rating distribution (DR bands)
• Topical relevance of linking domains
• Geographic distribution (where appropriate)
• Domain age and trust signals

Healthy signal: a long tail of relevant, established domains. Concentration in any single source is a risk.

Dimension 2: Link velocity

How fast links are gained or lost.

Pull from Ahrefs:

• New referring domains per month (trended 12-24 months)
• Lost referring domains per month
• Net change

Healthy signal: steady positive growth. Sudden spikes suggest paid campaigns or negative SEO. Sudden drops correlate with redirect mistakes, content removal, or the linking sites going down.

Dimension 3: Anchor text distribution

The mix of anchor types tells search engines what the property is about and whether the profile looks natural.

Categories to map:

• Branded (the brand name)
• Naked URL
• Generic ("click here", "this page")
• Exact-match keyword
• Partial-match keyword
• Image (alt text or none)

Healthy signal: branded and naked URL anchors dominate. Exact-match keyword anchors are a small minority. Heavy exact-match concentration triggers spam filters.

Dimension 4: Link types

Not all links are equal.

Categories:

• Dofollow versus nofollow
• Editorial versus directory or comment
• In-content versus footer or sidebar
• Sponsored or UGC tagged
• Redirect chains
• Lost links recoverable via outreach

Healthy signal: editorial in-content dofollow links from relevant sites dominate.

Dimension 5: Competitive gap

What links do peers have that you do not?

Pull from Ahrefs:

• Domains linking to 2+ competitors but not the target
• Domains linking to 1 competitor with high relevance to the target
• Top performing competitor pages by referring domain count

Healthy signal: the gap is shrinking over time. A widening gap is a strategic risk.

Workflow

• Charter the audit. Goal, scope, time window, competitor set.
• Pull baseline data. Referring domains, anchor text, link types, lost links, competitor overlap.
• Map the profile across 5 dimensions. One section per dimension.
• Identify red flags. Velocity spikes, anchor concentration, low-DR concentration, suspect TLDs, repeated footprints.
• Build the toxic list (if needed). Use the criteria in references/toxic-link-criteria.md.
• Build the reclamation list. Lost links worth recovering via outreach.
• Build the gap list. Domains linking to peers, prioritized by relevance.
• Synthesize. Profile health verdict, top 3 risks, top 3 opportunities.
• Recommend. Disavow (rare), reclamation outreach, link building targets, monitoring cadence.

10. Document and hand off. Outputs feed seo-offpage and seo-audit-orchestration.

Failure patterns

• Disavow happy. Most profiles do not need a disavow. Disavowing legitimate links damages rankings. Use it only after a manual action or clear algorithmic signals.
• Counting links instead of evaluating them. A profile with 10,000 referring domains can be weaker than one with 200 high-quality editorial links.
• Ignoring lost links. Recovering a lost link is faster and cheaper than building a new one.
• No competitor benchmark. Profile health is relative. A "low" backlink count for a tier-1 competitor is a "great" count for a niche site.
• Anchor text panic. A high exact-match percentage in absolute terms is fine for niche sites where the brand and keyword overlap. Investigate before disavowing.
• One-time audit. Profile health drifts. Audit on a cadence (quarterly minimum for active properties).
• Treating Ahrefs as ground truth. Ahrefs sees most links but not all. Triangulate with Search Console for completeness.
• Over-indexing on Domain Rating. DR is a relative metric, not a quality signal. A DR-30 niche site can be more valuable than a DR-80 generalist.

Output format

A backlink audit document with:

• Executive summary. Profile health verdict and top risks.
• Profile snapshot. Key metrics: referring domains, DR distribution, anchor mix, velocity.
• 5-dimension analysis. One section per dimension with findings.
• Toxic link list. If needed. Disavow file ready format.
• Reclamation list. Lost links worth recovering, with contact paths.
• Gap list. Top 50 domains linking to competitors but not target.
• Recommendations. Disavow (Y/N), reclamation outreach plan, link building targets.
• Methodology. Data sources, pull dates, criteria used.

Length: 8-15 pages depending on profile complexity.

Reference files

• references/toxic-link-criteria.md - Decision framework for classifying a link as toxic, including the disavow file format and threshold guidance.