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Backlink Profile Audit

Most audits export 50,000 rows from one tool and stall. The problem is that link counts are meaningless without knowing which links Google actually still sees, and third party indexes keep dead links in their data for months after the page has gone. You need a profile view that separates live earned links from expired, self made and scraped noise before you judge anything.

CATEGORY
Links & authority
FORMAT
backlink-profile-audit.md
STEPS
6
PRICE
Free - no account
WHEN TO REACH FOR THIS

Use when you inherit a site and need to know whether its link profile is an asset, a liability, or mostly noise.

The skill file

backlink-profile-audit.md 
---
name: backlink-profile-audit
description: Use when you inherit a site and need to know whether its link profile is an asset, a liability, or mostly noise.
---

# Backlink Profile Audit

Most audits export 50,000 rows from one tool and stall. The problem is that link counts are meaningless without knowing which links Google actually still sees, and third party indexes keep dead links in their data for months after the page has gone. You need a profile view that separates live earned links from expired, self made and scraped noise before you judge anything.

## What you need first

- exports from at least two link indexes so you can spot index specific ghosts
- Search Console link report as the only Google verified sample
- a list of the site's own properties, PR agencies and past SEO vendors

## Method

1. Merge the exports and dedupe to one row per linking domain, keeping the strongest link per domain - domain count is the unit that matters, per link counts just inflate whatever the site has most of.
2. Recrawl every linking URL yourself and mark link still present, page 404, link removed, or page noindex. Expect 20 to 40 percent of a two year old export to fail this check.
3. Tag each surviving domain by how it was acquired: editorial, directory, forum or profile, guest post, syndicated press release, sponsored, or unknown.
4. Cross reference against Search Console - a domain that no index shows but Search Console does is real, and a domain no crawler can reach is not worth arguing about.
5. Chart referring domains by first seen date and look for vertical spikes; a month that added 300 domains from one country or one footprint is a campaign, not growth, and should be inspected link by link.
6. Write the profile up as three numbers: live editorial domains, live but low value domains, and dead. Any recommendation you make from here refers to the first number only.

## What this produces

A deduped, recrawled linking domain table tagged by acquisition type and live status, with three headline counts.

## Where this goes wrong

- treating total backlinks as the metric when one site wide footer link can produce 40,000 of them
- trusting a third party index's live flag instead of crawling the page yourself
- judging a link by a proprietary authority score alone rather than whether the page has any traffic or its own links

---

From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/backlink-profile-audit
Free to download · no account, no email

What you need first

  • exports from at least two link indexes so you can spot index specific ghosts
  • Search Console link report as the only Google verified sample
  • a list of the site's own properties, PR agencies and past SEO vendors

Method

  1. 01 Merge the exports and dedupe to one row per linking domain, keeping the strongest link per domain - domain count is the unit that matters, per link counts just inflate whatever the site has most of.
  2. 02 Recrawl every linking URL yourself and mark link still present, page 404, link removed, or page noindex. Expect 20 to 40 percent of a two year old export to fail this check.
  3. 03 Tag each surviving domain by how it was acquired: editorial, directory, forum or profile, guest post, syndicated press release, sponsored, or unknown.
  4. 04 Cross reference against Search Console - a domain that no index shows but Search Console does is real, and a domain no crawler can reach is not worth arguing about.
  5. 05 Chart referring domains by first seen date and look for vertical spikes; a month that added 300 domains from one country or one footprint is a campaign, not growth, and should be inspected link by link.
  6. 06 Write the profile up as three numbers: live editorial domains, live but low value domains, and dead. Any recommendation you make from here refers to the first number only.

What this produces

A deduped, recrawled linking domain table tagged by acquisition type and live status, with three headline counts.

Where this goes wrong

  • treating total backlinks as the metric when one site wide footer link can produce 40,000 of them
  • trusting a third party index's live flag instead of crawling the page yourself
  • judging a link by a proprietary authority score alone rather than whether the page has any traffic or its own links

Use this skill in your own AI

The download is a plain markdown file with the name and trigger in its frontmatter. Where an assistant supports skills it can load itself, that frontmatter is what it reads to decide this one applies.

Claude Code Save it as ~/.claude/skills/backlink-profile-audit/SKILL.md and Claude loads it on its own when what you are doing matches the trigger line. Put it in .claude/skills inside a project instead if the whole team should have it.
Claude Upload the file in the skills section of your settings. Once it is there it applies itself in any conversation where the trigger fits, so you do not have to remember it exists.
ChatGPT There is no skills format to install into, so paste the file contents into a Project instruction or a Custom GPT instead. It then applies to every chat in that project rather than only the one you paste it into.
Anything else Paste the markdown into the chat before your question. It works in any assistant, it just has to be pasted again each time.

Questions about this skill

When is a full profile audit the right method rather than pulling one backlink report?

When you have inherited a site and every recommendation downstream depends on which links are real. A single export gives you a count; the audit gives you domains that survive your own recrawl. Third party indexes carry dead links for months after the page has gone, so expect 20 to 40 percent of a two year old export to fail that check.

What do I need in hand before starting, and what happens without it?

Exports from at least two link indexes, the Search Console link report, and a list of the site's own properties, PR agencies and past SEO vendors. Without the vendor list you cannot tag acquisition type, so self made links get counted as editorial. With only one index you cannot separate an index specific ghost from a link that genuinely exists.

What do I end up with, and which part actually gets used?

A deduped linking domain table, recrawled and tagged by acquisition type and live status, plus three headline counts. Only the first, live editorial domains, drives anything afterwards. The other two exist so nobody quotes a total backlink figure in a board deck, and so you can show what share of the profile has already expired.

What most often ruins this, and what does it cost?

Judging links by a proprietary authority score instead of whether the page has traffic or links of its own. Scores are modelled and easy to inflate, and they will rank a dead scraper above a small live trade blog. Counting links rather than domains costs you the same way: one site wide footer link can produce 40,000 rows and swamp the picture.

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