Crawlgraph: Find Every Site Linking to Your Competitors — Free
The reason most small businesses never do backlink research is price: the big tools like Ahrefs and Semrush run well over a hundred dollars a month, which is hard to justify to check a few links. Crawlgraph breaks that barrier. It is a backlink checker and competitor gap analyzer built on Common Crawl’s open web data, with a genuinely free gap-analysis tool and a one-time price for the extras instead of a subscription. For finding where your competitors get their links — and where you should be getting yours — it is the most accessible tool I have come across.
Key facts
- Free — Run competitor gap analysis at no cost, unlimited
- $99 once — One-time for contact finder, exports, and API — not monthly
- Common Crawl — Built on the open web-crawl dataset
- No signup — Start checking backlinks without an account
What Crawlgraph is
Crawlgraph is a backlink checker built on Common Crawl — the massive, open, freely available crawl of the web — with no signup and no monthly fee to get started. Its headline feature for small businesses is competitor gap analysis: enter your site and a competitor, and it shows you every domain linking to them but not to you. Because it runs on open data rather than a proprietary index you rent, it can offer that core analysis for free, which is exactly the part most businesses need and most tools charge dearly for.
The free gap analysis is the point
A backlink gap is the set of domains linking to your competitor but not you, and Crawlgraph’s gap analysis is free to run as many times as you want. That is a big deal: the single most actionable output in link building — a list of real, reachable sites already linking in your niche — with no subscription gating it. You can check yourself against several competitors, re-run it whenever their links change, and never see a monthly bill. For a small business, free-and-repeatable turns backlink research from a luxury into a habit.
How it compares to Ahrefs and Semrush
The big tools are more comprehensive — bigger indexes, deeper metrics, more features — and if you are an SEO agency living in this data all day, they earn their price. But for a small business that mainly wants to know 'who links to my competitors so I can go get those links,' most of that firepower is overkill you are renting monthly. Crawlgraph covers that core job on open data for free, with a one-time upgrade for the extras. It is a link-focused tool at a fraction of the cost, aimed squarely at the task most businesses actually have.
What the paid tier adds
If you want to act on the gaps at scale, the paid tier is a one-time fee — around ninety-nine dollars, not per month — and adds the contact finder, CSV exports, and the API. The contact finder matters most: it pulls the email so you can go from 'here is a site to target' to 'here is who to pitch' without hunting. The lifetime tier includes a generous monthly allowance of lookups and gap jobs. Paying once for tooling you will use for years is a very different proposition from an open-ended subscription.
A simple way to use it
Start free: enter your site and your top two or three competitors and run the gap analysis. Sort the resulting domains by relevance and reputation, and pick a first batch of realistic targets — resource pages, roundups, industry blogs. Work out why each linked to your competitor, then reach out with a specific, useful pitch. Re-run the analysis every so often to catch new links your rivals earn. That loop — gap, target, outreach, repeat — is a complete, low-cost link-building program, and Crawlgraph supplies the hardest part for free.
Where it fits your strategy
Crawlgraph is not a whole SEO strategy; it is the backlink piece, and a very good one for the money. It pairs naturally with the rest of what makes a site rank — speed, structure, real content, and syndication to spread that content. Think of it as the tool that hands you the target list, while a fast, well-built site and genuine outreach turn that list into links. For a business that has been ignoring backlinks because the tools were too expensive, it removes the excuse.
Put it to work on your rankings
If backlinks are the reason competitors outrank you, Crawlgraph is the cheapest way to see exactly where they get them. I build fast, SEO-ready sites and can help you use tools like Crawlgraph to map and close your backlink gap — turning your competitors’ link profile into your roadmap. Get a free quote and let’s build the site and the strategy together.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
What is Crawlgraph?
Crawlgraph is a backlink checker and competitor gap analyzer built on Common Crawl, the open web-crawl dataset. Its core competitor gap analysis is free with no signup, and a one-time fee unlocks the contact finder, exports, and API.
Is Crawlgraph really free?
The competitor gap analysis is free to run as many times as you want. If you want the contact finder, CSV exports, and API, it’s a one-time fee — around ninety-nine dollars — rather than a monthly subscription.
How does it compare to Ahrefs or Semrush?
Those are more comprehensive and priced accordingly for daily professional use. Crawlgraph focuses on the backlink and gap-analysis job most small businesses actually need, runs it on open data for free, and charges once for extras — a fraction of the cost.
What does the paid tier add?
A one-time fee adds the contact finder (which pulls the email for outreach), CSV exports, and the API, with a generous monthly allowance of lookups and gap jobs on the lifetime tier.
How do I use it?
Run a free gap analysis on your site versus your top competitors, pick relevant, reputable target domains, work out why each linked to your rival, and pitch them. Re-run periodically to catch new competitor links.
Map your competitors’ backlinks
I build fast, SEO-ready sites and help you use tools like Crawlgraph to find and close your backlink gap. One flat fee, built to outrank.
Get my free quote