Checklist for auditing your link profile

Assess the authority of your site's link profile. In Serpstat, it's called SDR. This indicator depends on the number and quality of the sites linking to the analyzed one. The higher it is, the better. If the SDR is below 15, your site has an extremely weak link profile. Do not worry — now, you know what you need to improve.

Visually evaluate the dynamics of your link profile development. Is the number of unique referring domains increasing or decreasing? Is the growth smooth or sudden? The ideal dynamic is a smoothly growing graph. If it is not the case for you, you need to fix it.

By looking at the ratio of unique referring domains to your trust score (SDR), you can determine the average quality of active backlinks. If you have 200 unique referring domains, but your site's authority is less than 10, you are using links from non-trustworthy sites, and you should try to improve this situation by building up trust links.

How many malicious links to your site are there? Toxic can be considered backlinks that are adjacent to various forbidden topics. It is better to remove such links. The most effective way to identify toxic links is to review each referring domain manually and determine its quality. If the number of donors is large, use external services that help determine the quality of the donor.

Check for lost backlinks. Links are an investment in your project. Do not lose your money. Examine the lost links, try to restore them.

Make sure you have a secure anchor list that consists of 80% unanchored links and a maximum of 20% commercial anchors. If you see a bias toward the latter, adjust your strategy immediately.

Analyze the pages of the site based on the number of backlinks. Are you promoting the right pages with the help of backlinks? Which pages are naturally attracting a lot of links? If the focuses of your link-building strategy are incorrect, fix them.

Pay attention to the ratio of dofollow, nofollow links in your link profile. It should look natural, that is, not be different from the average in the niche. Does it look natural? Is it very distinct from your competitors?

The most important step. You have to know your competitors by sight, or, to be precise, by link profile ???? The Competitors in Search Engine Rankings report will show you which sites are competing with you. Having made a list of competitors, let's move on to research.

Looking at a comparative table of trust, a number of unique backlinks, traffic, keyword visibility, you can understand your position on the market and identify the most interesting competitors to analyze.
The ideal competitor for analysis is a site that has achieved tangible results over the past 1-2 years. I recommend examining them in as much detail as possible.

Look at the number and kinds of links your main competitors get. This way, you can count their investments in link building in terms of money right now.

Dive into detailed reports, study what types of links they get, and how. Do you use them? Pay attention to what landing pages they are promoting.

Document your observations. Analyze not only what links your competitors use but also what they promote. Honestly answer the question: can you compete with them? Do your budget and knowledge allow doing it?

Once you've completed these steps, adjust your link-building strategy based on the new knowledge. At least once a quarter, repeat this process and make changes to your strategy.