Spotted: the anchor-text read that separates real audits from screenshot audits

Spotted: the anchor-text read that separates real audits from screenshot audits

Word is most "competitor anchor analysis" stops at Ahrefs' anchor cloud. The operators go deeper with a second source — and it flips the conclusion.

— Ahrefs aggregates anchors across the whole live profile. Clean, but it dilutes recent manipulation into the historical average.
— Pull anchors filtered to the last 3 months only — suddenly the exact-match spike a rival is building shows up, hidden in the lifetime cloud.
— Cross-check with Majestic's anchor data: if exact-match anchors cluster on low-Trust-Flow donors, that's a paid push, not editorial.

The tell isn't the anchor ratio. It's the anchor ratio over time, on the right donors. One tool gives you the average. Two give you the move. Watch this space.