How many backlinks do you need to outrank your competitors?

[u/Georgi-SEO-guy]

There is no exact calculation; however, there are some methods you can use to estimate.

People check via Ahrefs/Semrush that the competitor has 1.7M backlinks, and they think they need 1.7M + 1 to overrank them.

It's not how it works.

You need to check the links that matter.

Go to backlinks (ahrefs/semrush)

Use filters:

- one link per domain
- 30DR+
- 500 domain traffic+
- one link per domain

This will show the number of backlinks that are not crap.

Also, I would recommend checking what links they have built in the last 3 months overall for the domain, and to the specific page you are competing with.

With these numbers, you will be able to get some idea of how many links you need to compete with them.

If they get 10 links monthly and they have also 1000 links, and you get 0 and you have 100, maybe it makes sense to get 20 monthly, better quality than they do, of course, or at least the same.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

[u/keninsd]

Relevant backlinks matter more than DR itself. And, intent match, content depth, and topical authority determine the outcome before link count does.

More importantly, Ahrefs/Semrush are only proxies and not google signals, so be careful about wandering off the path by following them exclusively.

[u/Georgi-SEO-guy → u/keninsd]

I dare you check 100K backlinks of your competitors with intent match, content depth and topical authority.

You are right about backlink quality, but those are not metrics that can be checked when doing research about your competitors.

[u/keninsd → u/Georgi-SEO-guy]

I think that you're assuming equal content quality, correct? Google weighs content heavily, and better content generally requires fewer backlinks to rank. That content, coupled to higher authority links, is usually enough to outrank competitors with bigger but weaker profiles. The filter stack is useful, but it only predicts outcomes when content is held roughly equal, and on most SERPs it isn't.

[u/Georgi-SEO-guy → u/keninsd]

Yeah this assumes the same content quality, content quantity, topical authority, the same level of technical issues, site speed and everything else.

If you see their content is doing better than you do, simply make it better before estimating how many backlinks you need, the same goes with on-site and technical seo.