CL Tools: Link Prospector

If a stellar piece of content falls in the forest, and no one sees it, does it still make an impact? Probably not.

That's why we built the Citation Labs Link Prospector.

There are a billion websites at your fingertips. Our tactics and tool can help you find the opportunities you’re looking for. In this series, we discuss advanced strategies for mastering the Link Prospector tool.

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Prospecting for Blogs Using Auto-Complete Suggestions

Finding Unique and Untapped Audience Facets and Topics

By Garrett French

September 5, 2018

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Content Planning, Prospecting, Understanding & Serving Audiences

(NOTE: This article walks through a prospecting approach that includes mass-scraping auto-complete suggestions using a tool that we have not made public. It’s useful for prospectors even if you don’t have the tool, but just wanted to warn you before hand.) Also, here’s a webinar on the same topic: OK so let’s say you want ... Read more

VIDEO: Finding Research Phrases for the Link Prospector

by Ken McGaffin and Megan Hannay

By Megan Hannay

April 26, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector

Megan: One of the first pieces of advice using research phrases, and this is something I think a lot of new users to the link prospect are getting confused about, is we really encourage users to go outside of sales and SEO keyword space. I have this example here of this person, for their campaign, ... Read more

Link Prospector Features You May Have Missed

By Megan Hannay & Ken McGaffin

By Megan Hannay

March 17, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector

Do you know how to use the Link Prospector as a brand monitoring tool? How to eliminate undesired websites from your reports? How to widen or narrow your search? How to create a highly custom report? In this set of videos from our Link Prospector best practices series, Ken McGaffin and Megan Hannay reveal a slew of ... Read more

VIDEO: Finding Press and PR Opportunities With The Link Prospector

With Ken McGaffin & Megan Hannay

By Ken McGaffin

February 15, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Outreach Tips, Public Relations

In this third video of our Link Prospector best practices series, Ken McGaffin and Megan Hannay review how to find topically-relevant journalists and PR opportunities. Megan: So with reporters, we actually have three report types. The first one is probably our most common. It’s accessible reporters. Search for topics, and we’ll help you find reporters who ... Read more

VIDEO: Finding Links and Resource Pages with the Link Prospector

with Ken McGaffin & Megan Hannay

By Ken McGaffin

January 19, 2016

Topics: Agency Hacks, CL Tools: Link Prospector, Link Building Industry Insights

In our 2nd video in the Link Prospector series, Megan Hannay and Ken McGaffin explain the best strategies for links and resource pages finding with the Link Prospector. Check it out, or if you’re more of a reader, we’ve got a transcript below. Megan: I’m Megan Hannay, and we’re today going to be talking about ... Read more

VIDEO: Finding Guest Post Opportunities with the Link Prospector

With Ken McGaffin & Megan Hannay

By Ken McGaffin

January 6, 2016

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Intro to Link Building, Outreach Tips

This video is the first in a series between myself, Ken McGaffin, and Megan Hannay on finding outreach opportunities with the Citation Labs Link Prospector. Megan: We’re just going to go through quickly, in a few minutes, if you’re looking for guest posting opportunities in your niche, how to use the Link Prospector to find ... Read more

Opportunity Prospecting

A Webinar With Habits & Hacks to Enhance Your Campaign

By Megan Hannay

August 28, 2015

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Webinar

We're not supposed to pick favorites, but this may be our most beloved webinar so far. It's no secret that Garrett loves prospecting in a way that can only be described as "devout and fanatical," so he couldn't wait to share his favorite tips during this session.

Using the Link Prospector to find Media Opportunities

A Video Discussion

By Ken McGaffin

April 8, 2015

Topics: Campaign Creation, CL Tools: Link Prospector, Public Relations

In this video, we'll go through the process of finding three types of press opportunities with the Link Prospector:

1) Finding accessible reporters
2) Finding press resource linkers
3) Finding opportunities for audience input

Press List Prospector

A Video Tutorial of a New Feature in our Link Prospector Tool

By Megan Hannay

December 12, 2014

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Public Relations

We've been beta testing it for a couple of weeks, and we're finally ready to announce the arrival of a new feature in our Link Prospector tool.

Our three new report types search through Google News to help prospectors and PR teams build thorough press lists for any topic area.

Big Prospecting with Authority Anchors

A Process Guide

By Garrett French

August 22, 2014

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Technical Link Building Tips

Though our team has passed the 30 member mark I still hold tight to link and audience prospecting. This is in part because I love the hunt, but also because the relevance of our prospects to our promoted assets massively impacts conversion rate (being on a mission helps too...).

That said, I have recently formulated a scalable and repeatable process for some of the deepest, broadest niches of audience and link opportunities that exist. Think 10s of thousands of ops at a strike. Here goes…

Link Prospecting Pro Tips

Discovering New Pages on Massive, Multi-Author Sites

By Garrett French

August 13, 2014

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Technical Link Building Tips

Terry Van Horne of the SEOTrainingDojo presents the first video in a series of tips for using Link Prospector to perform SEO and Webmaster tasks. Use two tools to solve a common problem for anyone marketing a large website with multiple departments and webmasters constantly adding content to the site.

Domain Authority on Demand

Announcing a new feature in the Link Prospector

By Garrett French

May 14, 2013

Topics: Citation Labs News, CL Tools: Link Prospector

You want it? You got it!

The Link Prospector now provides domain authority on demand for all of your qualification needs.

Here's how it works.

How to Use the Link Prospector for Multilingual Prospecting

How to set up a report for non-English prospects

By Garrett French

December 21, 2012

Topics: Campaign Creation, CL Tools: Link Prospector

We get a small but steady trickle of inquiries about using the link prospector in languages other than English. The answer, in short, is YES, absolutely.

The Link Prospector now supports searches in some non-English languages, including French, Spanish, Dutch, German or Portuguese.

Contact Finding + Link Outreach

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 22, 2012

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Outreach Tips, Technical Link Building Tips

Congrats, Link Prospector - you've come a long way in learning how to use the link prospector tool. You've selected your link building tactic, discovered productive research phrases, dialed in your parameters to a razor focus and qualified your list down to 100 or 1000 of the best-suited prospects.

Now, at last, it's time for you to start on the final outreach portion of the process.

Exporting and Qualifying Your Link Prospects

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 17, 2012

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector

Congratulations, Link Prospector - you're moving right along! By now you've selected your tactic, identified some productive prospecting phrases, and dialed in your parameters.

Now, learn some next steps, including using regular expressions, tracking your non-op domains, and learning about special options the Link Prospector provides.

Finding Highly Productive Research Phrases

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 12, 2012

Topics: Agency Hacks, CL Tools: Link Prospector, Content Planning, Enterprise Link Building Tips

The Link Prospector takes your research phrases and combines them with tactic-specific footprints. This is what we use to find prospects for you. Your research phrases determine how useful and relevant your prospects will be. Learn our three rules for selecting successful research phrases.

Choose Your Link Building Tactic

Link Prospector Mastery

By Garrett French

May 9, 2012

Topics: Campaign Creation, CL Tools: Link Prospector

This is part of a series on using the Link Prospector. After creating a new campaign for your account (campaigns are essentially "folders" for organizing your link prospects) it's time to click "Find Prospects" and pick a report type. The report types in the Link Prospector are roughly organized around tactics. Here are a list of the report types, the tactics they support, the resources you're likely to need and any notes.

5 Advanced Guest Post Prospecting Tips for the Link Prospector

A guest post by James Agate, founder of Skyrocket SEO

By Garrett French

April 26, 2012

Topics: CL Tools: Link Prospector, Intro to Link Building

My team and I are pretty heavy users of the link prospector tool. Combined with a couple of other sources, Link Prospector helps us to find a large number of guest posts consistently every month for our clients.

Today, I'm sharing a few of the little tips and tricks we’ve uncovered after several months of heavy usage of the tool.

New Bulk Backlink Checker Tool

Input URLs, Check for Links

By Garrett French

October 7, 2011

Topics: CL Tools: Broken Link Builder, CL Tools: Link Prospector

In some types of campaigns - value-add commenting and broken link building for example - you know the URL where your link will show up, assuming it gets published. And until today though I've always had to go, URL by URL, to see if my links went up. So I built a bulk backlink checker tool for my fellow link monkeys out there!