Brand closed a 1,200-domain link gap and took the category in 5 months

Brand closed a 1,200-domain link gap and took the category in 5 months

Word is a DTC skincare brand ran a link gap analysis against the three sites owning their main category page. The intersect report told the whole story.

What the gap showed:
— competitors shared ~1,200 referring domains the brand didn't have
— but 70% were dermatologist blogs, 'best of' roundups, and ingredient-explainer sites — replicable, not random

The play they ran against it:
— targeted the 180 roundup pages all three competitors sat in; landed 64 of them in one quarter
— skipped the unreplicable PR hits entirely

The outcome in the footprint: referring domains went from 340 to 510, and their category page moved from position 14 to 3. The competitors' shared-domain moat was the exact map of where to dig.

Gap analysis isn't a list of links you're missing — it's a list of pages that already say yes to your niche. Watch this space.