Here's the read most competitor audits skip entirely — internal vs external power

Here's the read most competitor audits skip entirely — internal vs external power

Word is everyone audits a rival's external backlinks and ignores how they route the equity inside. That's where pages actually win.

— Ahrefs' Internal backlinks count on a ranking page shows how aggressively a competitor funnels its own authority to it.
— Spotted: a DR-equal rival outranking on a term not from more external links but from 200+ internal links pointing at the money page.
— Cross-check external referring domains against that internal count — if their externals barely beat yours but internals crush yours, the gap is architecture, not acquisition.

The operators read both halves. External tools tell you what came in; internal-link views tell you where it went. Win the second read and you outrank on links you already have. Watch this space.