/seo-backlinks

name: seo-backlinks
description: Backlink profile analysis — referring domains, anchor-text distribution, toxic-link flags, competitor link gap, and link-building targets. Uses a connected link-data MCP (DataForSEO, Moz, or Bing) for full metrics and authority scores when present; otherwise builds a qualitative profile from web-search mention and linking-domain discovery (no exact counts, authority, or confirmed toxicity without a provider). Trigger when the user says "backlinks", "link profile", "referring domains", "anchor text", "toxic links", "link gap", "link building", "disavow", or "backlink audit".

seo-backlinks

**Family:** seo **Status:** Stable

Purpose

Backlink intelligence on a free-to-premium ladder. **Tool-aware:** with a link-data MCP connected (DataForSEO/Moz/Bing) it returns a full referring-domain profile with metrics; without one, it assembles a *qualitative* profile from public signals (Common Crawl web graph, Bing Webmaster) plus web-search mention discovery — rarer than it sounds on the free tier, and a genuine differentiator.

Triggers

• "backlinks" / "backlink audit"
• "link profile" / "referring domains"
• "anchor text"
• "toxic links" / "disavow"
• "link gap" / "competitor backlinks"
• "link building"

Inputs

• Domain
• Optional competitor domains (for gap analysis)
• Tier preference (auto | built-in | premium)

Steps

1. **Detect tooling.** Check whether a link-data MCP (DataForSEO/Moz/Bing) is exposed this session (`scripts/workflow/capability_probe.py` reports relevant keys). 2. **Premium path (Tier 1, if connected).** Pull the full profile via the connected MCP (referring domains, anchors, authority metrics); flag toxic links on conservative thresholds; compute competitor gap. 3. **Built-in path (Tier 2, always available).** Assemble a qualitative profile with WebSearch: discover brand/URL mentions and likely linking domains, and group them. If you have access to a public web-graph (Common Crawl / Bing Webmaster), fold it in — the plugin ships no such fetcher, so treat it as optional. Label the result qualitative: exact counts, authority, and confirmed toxicity need Tier 1. 4. **Synthesize.** Produce the inventory, an anchor-text read, conservatively-flagged toxic candidates (with the caveat that confirmation needs metrics), and a competitor-gap prospect list. 5. **Report which tier ran** and what a link-data MCP would add.

Capability routing

This skill follows the plugin's capability-tier cascade (`references/CAPABILITY-TIERS.md`):

1. **Tier 1 — link-data MCP.** DataForSEO/Moz/Bing if connected → full metric profile. 2. **Tier 2 — built-in (default).** Common Crawl / Bing public signals + WebSearch mention discovery → a qualitative profile and prospect list. 3. **Tier 4 — guided.** If the user needs authoritative counts/scores and no MCP is connected, deliver the qualitative profile and name the setup to unlock metrics.

Always state which tier ran and what a link-data provider would add.

Outputs

• Backlink inventory (metric-rich on Tier 1; qualitative on Tier 2)
• Anchor-text distribution read
• Toxic-link candidates with a disavow-file recommendation (conservative)
• Competitor gap with a link-building prospect list

Dependencies

• Optional (Tier 1): a link-data MCP — `seo-dataforseo` (DataForSEO), or Moz/Bing —

adds full metrics; free path works without it

• Built-in (Tier 2): WebSearch; public Common Crawl / Bing Webmaster signals
• `scripts/workflow/capability_probe.py`

Notes

Toxic-link thresholds are conservative by default — better to under-flag than to recommend disavowing a healthy link. Free-tier backlink intelligence is the differentiator here.