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.
- Document and hand off. Outputs feed
seo-offpageandseo-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, or state the gap per the data-availability rule.
- 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.
If required data is unavailable
This skill's output depends on data, measurements, or tool results it cannot generate on its own. When a required input, tool, or data source is unavailable or unverifiable, the sanctioned output is the deliverable with the gap stated: what was needed, what was actually obtained or verified, and which parts of the output are affected. Fabricating, estimating, or interpolating a required number to complete the deliverable is never sanctioned. A stated gap is a complete answer.
Reference files
references/toxic-link-criteria.md- Decision framework for classifying a link as toxic, including the disavow file format and threshold guidance.
