Link Optimisation: How to Use Sape for Competitor Analysis

I was given a task where I needed to quickly select links for a competitor. The usual route that I have taken a thousand times:

• Put the competitor into Ahrefs/Semrush, export the donors.
• Check the distribution by authority (DR, AS, CF — whatever is preferred).
• Dive into my spreadsheet, filter the sites with the necessary metrics.
• Then go through each exchange one by one: check if the donor is still alive there, if the price has gone up, or if it has disappeared from the rental.
• Gather the basket, agree (if necessary), pay.

About two hours of work. But this time I felt a bit lazy and decided to cut corners. I entered the project into Sape’s link analysis, thinking it would show its vision, and then I would argue with it.

Interestingly, it really laid things out clearly. Not just «you have fewer links,» but specifically by authority segments:

• my profile: 4 strong domains, 18 average
• the competitor has 11 strong, 31 average

It provided a recommendation: I need 7 links with AS 50+ and 12 with AS 15-50.

I went to my spreadsheet, starting to select donors with AS 50+ relevant to the topic. I noticed that, in principle, the same candidates appeared that I would have selected manually. The exchange also highlighted good options with its neural network. The same goes for the average segment.

For complex cases, where a non-standard approach is needed or the niche is narrow, my spreadsheet remains my main tool. It contains nuances about specific donors and notes on dynamics that I have collected for so long. And for routine tasks like «here’s a site, do it like theirs,» it’s now easier to run it through Sape and purchase there.