Runbook
Linking root domains checker: a runbook for counting by market
You do not need a new tool, only an export and an afternoon. This runbook turns a raw backlink list into a table you can read market by market.
The five-step count
- 1
Export
Download the referring domains report from Ahrefs, Semrush or Majestic. Search Console's Links report works as a free fallback, though it only shows what Google chooses to list.
- 2
Paste into one sheet
One row per domain, with a column for its Domain Rating or equivalent.
- 3
Add a market column
Read the suffix: .de, .pl, .com.br go to their country. A .com needs a quick look, so mark it unknown.
- 4
Pivot
Count rows by market and by language. Do the same for each rival.
- 5
Compare
Highlight markets where you trail your rivals by more than half.
What the numbers will not tell you
A count is not a quality score. Fifty linking root domains from forgotten directories weigh less than five from sites people read.
Tools disagree, too. Ahrefs, Semrush and Majestic run their own crawlers, so the same site shows different totals in each, and a gap of 10 to 20 percent between them is ordinary. Pick one tool and stay with it for comparisons.
Also watch for a trap in country suffixes. Plenty of .com and .net sites serve one country, and a few .de domains serve global audiences, so treat the suffix as a first guess and the content language as the final word.
Columns worth having in the sheet
- Domain and registered root domain
- Domain Rating or the tool's equivalent score
- Country suffix and your guess at its language
- Date first seen, as reported by your tool
- Dofollow or not, where the tool shows it
- Your own note: relevant, doubtful or junk
Reading the pivot
Look at ratios, not totals. If a rival has 60 Polish domains and 10 English ones, while you have 9 Polish and 13 English, your profile leans the wrong way for a Polish customer.
Small numbers are fine. A niche local site might compete on 30 sound domains, and in 2024 and 2025 several Google updates, including the March 2024 core update, rewarded sites that looked useful to their own audience rather than sites with the biggest totals.
Write one sentence under the table. Something like: we trail by 20 Polish domains, and the nearest rival is the one to beat. A sentence forces a decision, which a table alone never does.
Glossary of the three terms people mix up
| Term | Meaning | Counted how |
|---|---|---|
| Backlink | One link from one page to yours | Every link, even duplicates |
| Referring domain | A website that links to you | Once per site |
| Linking root domain | The same idea, counted at the registered-domain level, so blog.example.com and shop.example.com merge | Once per root |
Repeat the count every month and keep the old sheets. After a quarter you will see which markets grow by themselves and which need feeding.
Where the marketplace fits
Once the sheet names your thinnest market, open the marketplace and filter by that language. Rows already show the donor's own referring domains, which makes comparison quick.
That is all. Our sister guides on rival gaps and language matching pick up from here.
Plan a monthly rhythm: count on the first, buy a small basket on the third, check Search Console on the fifteenth. A boring calendar beats a heroic burst, and it keeps your spending visible to whoever approves the invoices.
Treat every export as a snapshot. Tools refresh on their own schedules, a link you bought last week might not show for a while, and a lost link can linger in the report until the next crawl.