# Research a competitor's domain and your backlinks

> Look up what a competitor's domain ranks for, save its keywords, drill into its top pages, and see who links to your own site.

Source: https://docs.use-mark.com/docs/research-competitors

**Competitors** shows what any domain ranks for in Google, and who links to
your own site. Select **Analysis** > **Research** in the sidebar, then the **Competitors**
tab. The domain lookup is at the top. **Backlinks** is below it.

Opening the tab is free. It shows results you already fetched. These buttons
fetch new data, and each press is a paid lookup:

* **Look up**
* **Look up top pages**
* **Keywords** on a row of **Top pages**
* **Refresh backlinks**

Opening an entry in **Recent lookups** is free.

## Look up a domain

1. Enter a domain like `example.com` in **Domain**, or paste a URL. The line
   under the box shows the domain Mark will look up.
2. Keep or change **Location** and **Language**. The form starts from the
   lookup on screen. With no earlier lookup, it starts at United States and
   English.
3. Select **Look up**.

**Rank by** sorts the keywords by **Traffic**, **Search volume**, or
**Position**. **Keyword contains** is optional. It keeps only keywords with
that word in them.

If you change a field after a lookup, you'll see "Settings changed — look up
again to apply." The results on screen stay as they were until you select
**Look up** again.

## Read the results

The line above the results shows when the data was fetched. The data updates
weekly.

Three cards sit at the top:

* **Estimated organic traffic**: estimated visits per month from Google.
* **Organic keywords**: how many keywords the domain ranks for, with counts of
  new, lost, up, and down.
* **Position spread**: a bar chart of ranked keywords by Google position, so
  it shows how many rank near the top and how many sit further down.

Below the cards, the table lists up to 100 ranked keywords:

* **Position** is where the domain ranks in Google for the keyword.
* **Volume** is how many people search for the keyword each month.
* **Difficulty** is "How hard it is to reach the top 10 for this keyword, from
  0 to 100. Under 30 is easy, 70 and up is hard." Point at the score to see
  **Easy**, **Medium**, or **Hard**.
* **Traffic** is "Estimated monthly visits this ranking brings the domain,
  from search volume and the click rate at its position."
* **URL** is the domain's page that ranks.

To narrow the table, select **Show in table** on a **Top pages** row to see
one page's keywords, or type part of a URL, like `/blog`, in **Filter by
URL**. Both filter the keywords already shown, so they are free and make no
new lookup. Each has its own **Clear**, and selecting **Look up** again
resets both.

## Save keywords

Rows already saved for the shown location and language show a **Saved** badge.

1. Select the box next to each keyword you want, or the box above the table
   to select all.
2. Select **Save selected**.

The keywords save to the location and language shown next to the button. A
line confirms how many were newly saved and how many were already saved. Find
them under **Research** > **Keywords** > **Saved**, where new ones show
**Domain** as their source.

## Look up top pages

1. Optionally enter part of a URL in **URL contains**, like `/blog`, to see
   only matching pages.
2. Select **Look up top pages**. It uses the same domain, location, and
   language as the form.

**Top pages** lists the domain's pages by estimated traffic per month, with
how many keywords each page ranks for.

To see one page's keywords, select **Keywords** on its row. A panel opens with
that page's ranked keywords, by traffic. Rows already saved for that location
and language show **Saved**.

## Reopen an earlier lookup

**Recent lookups** lists your workspace's 25 most recent domain lookups, with
each one's location, language, **Rank by**, **Contains**, and date. Select one
to show its stored results. **Showing** marks the one on screen.

## Check your backlinks

**Backlinks** shows who links to your own site. If you haven't added a site
yet, it says "No website yet." Add one under **Settings** > **Websites**
first. See [Manage websites](/docs/manage-websites).

1. If you have more than one site, pick it from the row of site buttons.
2. Select **Refresh backlinks**. Until the first refresh, the line next to the
   button says there's no backlink snapshot yet for your site.

When the refresh finishes, you'll see "Updated just now." The line next to
the button shows when the snapshot was captured.

## Read your backlinks

**Overview** shows the totals for your site: **Backlinks**, **Referring
domains**, **Referring pages**, **Rank**, **Broken backlinks**, **Broken
pages**, and **Spam score**.

Two charts sit next to it:

* **Backlink growth** plots backlinks and referring domains at each refresh.
  It needs at least two refreshes to draw a line.
* **Links first seen** counts the links in this snapshot by the month they
  were first picked up.

Under the charts, two tabs split the links:

* **Backlinks** lists each link: **Source**, **Target**, **Anchor**,
  **Flags**, **Link rank**, **Domain rank**, **Spam**, and **First seen**.
  **Flags** shows **Nofollow** when the link is nofollow. **Spam** is the
  link's spam score.
* **Top pages** lists the pages on your site that get the most links, with
  **Referring domains** and **Best domain rank** for each.