seo-backlinks

# Backlink Profile Analysis
## Shared Data Cache

**Step 0 -- Check shared data cache:**

Before gathering, check `.seo-cache/` for reusable context from related SEO skills.
Reference: `../seo/references/shared-data-cache.md` for schemas and dependency map.

Check these cache files when present:
- `.seo-cache/site-meta.json` for domain, business type, industry, and crawl context
- `.seo-cache/audit-scores.json` for prior full-audit priorities
- `.seo-cache/pages/{url-slug}/page-analysis.json` for page-level context when a URL is provided

- If found: parse and use clearly valid fields (note "Using cached [X] from [date]")
- If missing, corrupt, or irrelevant: continue with fresh evidence
- If the user says "refresh" or "re-run": ignore cache reads and overwrite on write

## Source Detection

Before analysis, detect available data sources:

1. **DataForSEO MCP** (premium): Check if `dataforseo_backlinks_summary` tool is available
2. **Moz API** (free signup): `python scripts/backlinks_auth.py --check moz --json`
3. **Bing Webmaster** (free signup): `python scripts/backlinks_auth.py --check bing --json`
4. **Common Crawl** (always available): Domain-level graph with PageRank
5. **Verification Crawler** (always available): Checks if known backlinks still exist

Run `python scripts/backlinks_auth.py --check --json` to detect all sources at once.

If no sources are configured beyond the always-available tier:
- Still produce a report using Common Crawl domain metrics
- Suggest: "Run `/seo backlinks setup` to add free Moz and Bing API keys for richer data"

## Quick Reference

| Command | Purpose |
|---------|---------|
| `/seo backlinks <url>` | Full backlink profile analysis (uses all available sources) |
| `/seo backlinks gap <url1> <url2>` | Competitor backlink gap analysis |
| `/seo backlinks toxic <url>` | Toxic link detection and disavow recommendations |
| `/seo backlinks new <url>` | New and lost backlinks (DataForSEO only) |
| `/seo backlinks verify <url> --links <file>` | Verify known backlinks still exist |
| `/seo backlinks setup` | Show setup instructions for free backlink APIs |

## Analysis Framework

Produce all 7 sections below. Each section lists data sources in preference order.

### 1. Profile Overview

**DataForSEO:** `dataforseo_backlinks_summary` → total backlinks, referring domains, domain rank, follow ratio, trend.

**Moz API:** `python scripts/moz_api.py metrics <url> --json` → Domain Authority, Page Authority, Spam Score, linking root domains, external links.

**Common Crawl:** `python scripts/commoncrawl_graph.py <domain> --json` → in-degree (referring domain count), PageRank, harmonic centrality.

**Scoring:**

| Metric | Good | Warning | Critical |
|--------|------|---------|----------|
| Referring domains | >100 | 20-100 | <20 |
| Follow ratio | >60% | 40-60% | <40% |
| Domain diversity | No single domain >5% | 1 domain >10% | 1 domain >25% |
| Trend | Growing or stable | Slow decline | Rapid decline (>20%/quarter) |

### 2. Anchor Text Distribution

**DataForSEO:** `dataforseo_backlinks_anchors`

**Moz API:** `python scripts/moz_api.py anchors <url> --json`

**Bing Webmaster:** `python scripts/bing_webmaster.py links <url> --json` (extract anchor text from link details)

**Healthy distribution benchmarks:**

| Anchor Type | Target Range | Over-Optimization Signal |
|-------------|-------------|-------------------------|
| Branded (company/domain name) | 30-50% | <15% |
| URL/naked link | 15-25% | N/A |
| Generic ("click here", "learn more") | 10-20% | N/A |
| Exact match keyword | 3-10% | >15% |
| Partial match keyword | 5-15% | >25% |
| Long-tail / natural | 5-15% | N/A |

Flag if exact-match anchors exceed 15% -- this is a Google Penguin risk signal.

### 3. Referring Domain Quality

**DataForSEO:** `dataforseo_backlinks_referring_domains`

**Moz API:** `python scripts/moz_api.py domains <url> --json` → domains with DA scores

**Common Crawl:** `python scripts/commoncrawl_graph.py <domain> --json` → top referring domains (domain-level, no authority scores)

Analyze:
- **TLD distribution**: .edu, .gov, .org = high authority. Excessive .xyz, .info = low quality
- **Country distribution**: Match target market. 80%+ from irrelevant countries = PBN signal
- **Domain rank distribution**: Healthy profiles have links from all authority tiers
- **Follow/nofollow per domain**: Sites that only nofollow = limited SEO value

### 4. Toxic Link Detection

**DataForSEO:** `dataforseo_backlinks_bulk_spam_score` + toxic patterns from reference

**Moz API:** Spam Score from `python scripts/moz_api.py metrics <url> --json` (1-17% scale, >11% = high risk)

**Verification Crawler:** `python scripts/verify_backlinks.py --target <url> --links <file> --json` (verify suspicious links still exist)

**High-risk indicators (flag immediately):**
- Links from known PBN (Private Blog Network) domains
- Unnatural anchor text patterns (100% exact match from a domain)
- Links from penalized or deindexed domains
- Mass directory submissions (50+ directory links)
- Link farms (sites with 10K+ outbound links per page)
- Paid link patterns (footer/sidebar links across all pages of a domain)

**Medium-risk indicators (review manually):**
- Links from unrelated niches
- Reciprocal link patterns
- Links from thin content pages (<100 words)
- Excessive links from a single domain (>50 backlinks from 1 domain)

Load `references/backlink-quality.md` for the full 30 toxic patterns and disavow criteria.

### 5. Top Pages by Backlinks

**DataForSEO:** `dataforseo_backlinks_backlinks` with target type "page"

**Moz API:** `python scripts/moz_api.py pages <domain> --json`

Find:
- Which pages attract the most backlinks
- Pages with high-authority links (link magnets)
- Pages with zero backlinks (internal linking opportunities)
- 404 pages with backlinks (redirect opportunities to reclaim link equity)

### 6. Competitor Gap Analysis

**DataForSEO:** `dataforseo_backlinks_referring_domains` for both domains, t