The backlinks ecosystem

The backlinks ecosystem is a graph (network) of domains that are related to each other by links. The ecosystem is constructed in three steps that correspond to the three main parts of the ecosystem:

Core

The core is a principal domain and one or more competitor domains (these are core domain types). These domains are specified at the start of the analysis.

Typically, there are no links between these domains, so in the graph of backlinks referral relationships there are no relationships between them.

The inner ecosystem

The inner ecosystem is populated by obtaining the top n referring domains for all core domains. The number of referring domains is specific to the report, but is typically 75-100. Ranking is achieved using a domain authority analogue from our data partner.

This is the part of the ecosystem where you will find inner domain types such as principal referrer and shared referrer. These domains have links to one or more core domains, which is reflected in the graph of backlinks referral relationships.

The outer ecosystem

The outer ecosystem is populated by obtaining the top n referring domains for all inner ecosystem domains (using the same approach as for the inner ecosystem).

This is the part of the ecosystem where you will find outer domain types such as obscured and multi-obscured (distance 2). These domains have links to one or more inner ecosystem domains, which is reflected in the graph of backlinks referral relationships.