# Competitor backlinks, ranked by how likely you are to get them > From the unlinked mention that is practically yours to the bought guest posts you should not touch. URL: https://claudegpt.si/news/competitor-backlinks-ranked-by-odds Published: 2026-10-26T05:14:18.852Z Author: ClaudeGPT Si Newsroom Section: AI Tools Topics: Backlinks, Link building Publisher: ClaudeGPT Si ## Key takeaways - Unlinked mentions, roundups and resource pages are the competitor links most likely to be open to you. - Partner, investor and sponsor links follow money or contracts, so email will not get them. - Google counts bought links that pass ranking credit as link spam, so a rival's paid links are the worst part to copy. Everyone wants their competitor backlinks. Fewer people stop to ask which of those links were ever available to anyone else. A rival's link list is part recipe, part autobiography: some links came from good work, some from a funding round, and some, possibly, from a seller of "high DA guest posts". Here is every type of competitor link, ranked from most to least likely to end up pointing at you. First, how to get the list without crying into a spreadsheet. Pull the linking sites for two or three rivals that outrank you, plus your own, all from one tool. Keep the sites that link to at least two rivals and not to you. Those are your leads. seogeoaeo.ai's Backlink Finder hands you the 100 strongest linking sites per domain for 70 credits, with a spam score attached so you can see which of them you would rather not be associated with. Now the ranking. ## Rank 1: the page that already mentions you without a link Odds: very high. Somebody wrote your name and then just did not link it. Ask nicely. This is the only cold email in SEO where the recipient has already agreed with you. Find them by searching your brand in quotes and excluding your own site. ## Rank 2: the "best tools for X" roundup Odds: good. The author has to update it anyway, and an update with nothing new in it is embarrassing. Ask to be considered next time. Have a one-line reason that is not "we exist". ## Rank 3: the resource page Odds: good. A page whose entire purpose is listing useful things. If your guide or tool is actually useful, this is a matching exercise, not a negotiation. ## Rank 4: the edited directory Odds: decent. Submit. Note the word "edited". A directory that rejects nobody is a directory Google's spam policies specifically name as link spam. If you can find yourself in it without trying, so can every casino affiliate. ## Rank 5: the guest article Odds: depends on whether you have something to say. Pitch a subject the site has not covered. If the pitch could go to fifty sites unchanged, it is not a pitch. ## Rank 6: the news story Odds: low. The rival got covered because something happened. Emailing the reporter to say "us too" is not something happening. Make news, then talk. ## Rank 7: sponsor, award and conference pages Odds: you can have this link, it just costs a booth, an entry fee or a trophy that someone else decides. Treat it as a marketing line item, not link building. ## Rank 8: partner, customer and investor pages Odds: zero by email. That link exists because money or a contract changed hands. You cannot cold-email your way onto someone's portfolio page. ## Rank 9: the dozen unrelated blogs with identical keyword anchors Odds: available to anyone with a card, and that is the problem. Those were bought. Google's spam policies count buying or selling links that pass ranking credit as link spam, and that includes "we sent you a free product, please link to us". Paid links are allowed only when tagged rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Copying a rival's paid links is copying the part most likely to blow up. ## How to send the email Short. Name their page. Say where your link fits. Give one concrete reason: a tool missing from the list, a newer figure, a broken link they will want fixed. Send it to a human who edits the page. Follow up once after a week. After that, accept the silence. Most of these get none. ## The tool question For this job you need the linking sites for three or four domains, not a quarterly contract. seogeoaeo.ai prices per run: 70 credits per Backlink Finder lookup, plans from $29 a month for 2,000 credits. It covers whole domains, the strongest 100 linking sites each, no contact details, and it does not pretend to know which links Google counts. If you run link gaps for twenty clients every week, a full suite such as Semrush, whose Backlink Gap compares up to five sites in one report, will earn its $139 a month. For everyone else, [the competitor backlinks walkthrough](https://seogeoaeo.ai/blog/competitor-backlinks) has the spreadsheet formulas, and the leads from positions one to four above are enough to keep you busy for a month. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do I see a competitor's backlinks? Run a backlink tool on their domain. seogeoaeo.ai's Backlink Finder lists the 100 strongest linking sites for 70 credits. ### Are directory links still worth it? Only edited directories that reject some listings. Google lists low-quality directory links as link spam. ## Sources - [Backlink Finder: see who links to any site](https://seogeoaeo.ai/tools/backlink-finder), seogeoaeo.ai - [Spam policies for Google web search](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies), Google Search Central - [Qualify your outbound links to Google](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/qualify-outbound-links), Google Search Central - [seogeoaeo.ai pricing](https://seogeoaeo.ai/pricing), seogeoaeo.ai - [Semrush plans and pricing](https://www.semrush.com/prices/), Semrush - [Competitor backlinks: how to find the links you're missing](https://seogeoaeo.ai/blog/competitor-backlinks), seogeoaeo.ai