Backlink Gap

/digital-marketing-pro:backlink-gap

Purpose

Identify the highest-leverage backlink prospects — domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you — and rank them by an opinionated priority score that combines authority, link-overlap signal, downstream traffic, and topical relevance. Produces a numbered output bundle ready for outreach handoff.

Context efficiency

Heavy skill. Grep before Read any referenced file, then Read only matched ranges with offset + limit. List ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/<brand>/ before opening files. On re-invocation mid-session, skip files already in context.

When to Use

• Quarterly backlink audit — "where did our competitors grow links this quarter and we didn't?"
• Pre-launch link-building plan for a new product or content hub
• Digital PR qualification — separating "would-link-to-anyone" prospects from "high-confidence-will-link-to-our-space"
• Competitive recovery — a competitor displaced you and you want to know which links moved
• Onboarding a new client and need a "first 50 link targets" backlog

Don't use when you just need backlink quantity numbers (use the brand's connected backlink MCP directly) or when you need anchor-text analysis of your own profile (that's a separate audit — covered in seo-audit).

Brand context (auto-applied)

1. Read ~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json for the active slug, then load ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json
2. If no brand exists: ask "Set up a brand first (/digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults
3. Apply skills/context-engine/industry-profiles.md for industry-specific link-quality thresholds (YMYL industries should set higher --min-dr)
4. Apply skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md to filter out blocked publishers (e.g., PBN-style or paid-link networks the brand has explicitly banned)

Inputs

One competitor is allowed (the script warns rather than errors) but the resulting "shared signal" is noise — single-competitor gap analysis is really just "who links to them" rather than "who consistently links in our space."

Process (10 steps, numbered-file output)

All outputs go to ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/backlink-gap/{YYYY-MM-DD}/.

1. 00-input.md — capture our domain, competitor list (with rationale: why these N?), filter parameters, run timestamp
2. 01-data-pull.md — pull backlinks for {brand}.tld and each competitor via brand's connected backlink MCP. Budget guard: if the MCP exposes credit cost, sum estimated cost and ask "Continue? (y/N — default N)" before fetching when total > 200 credits.
3. 02-ours.csv — our backlink export (raw)
4. 03-comp-{competitor}.csv — one CSV per competitor (raw)
5. 04-gap-run.json — run the script:

   python "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/backlink_gap.py" \
       --ours "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/backlink-gap/{date}/02-ours.csv" \
       --competitors \
         "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/backlink-gap/{date}/03-comp-competitor1.csv" \
         "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/backlink-gap/{date}/03-comp-competitor2.csv" \
       --min-dr {brand.profile.min_link_dr or 20} \
       --top 100 \
       --out "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/backlink-gap/{date}/04-gap-run.json"

   --competitors takes an explicit space-separated list of CSV paths (nargs="+") — enumerate each 03-comp-*.csv file; the script does not expand a * glob, so a quoted 03-comp-*.csv would fail with FileNotFoundError. List one path per competitor.
6. 05-quality-scorecard.md — read quality_scorecard from 04-gap-run.json. If status: needs_review, diagnose:
   • data_freshness: fail → input CSV(s) older than 90 days. Re-pull data; backlink graphs decay fast.
   • sample_size: fail → any input < 50 unique referring domains. Either the domain is too new or the export was truncated. Re-export with no row limit.
   • competitor_coverage: warn → only 1 competitor. Add at least 1 more for genuine overlap signal.
   • link_overlap_signal: fail → fewer than 5 referring domains link to ≥2 competitors. Either competitors are poorly chosen (they don't share a content space with each other) or the data is incomplete. Re-choose competitors.
7. 06-prospect-shortlist.md — top 30 prospects, formatted for outreach handoff: domain, DR, link count across competitors, suggested outreach angle (guest post, broken-link, resource-page mention)
8. 07-broken-link-candidates.md — subset where one or more competitor links return 4xx (run a quick HTTP HEAD pass on competitor backlink URLs — use the brand's connected web-fetch MCP). These are "easy wins" — pitch your URL as the replacement.
9. 08-outreach-templates.md — three template variants: (a) cold-pitch resource-page, (b) broken-link replacement, (c) competitor mention. Each pre-filled with brand voice from the brand profile's voice fields + skills/context-engine/guidelines-framework.md.
10. PLAN.md — single-page summary: stats + scorecard + top 10 prospects with outreach angle + recommended cadence (3-5 pitches/week for sustainable outreach quality).

Output format

${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/backlink-gap/2026-06-04/
├── 00-input.md
├── 01-data-pull.md
├── 02-ours.csv
├── 03-comp-{competitor1}.csv
├── 03-comp-{competitor2}.csv
├── ...
├── 04-gap-run.json
├── 05-quality-scorecard.md
├── 06-prospect-shortlist.md
├── 07-broken-link-candidates.md
├── 08-outreach-templates.md
└── PLAN.md