---
title: "What is Link Graph? Definition & Examples | Kitbase"
description: "A complete map of a domain's backlink profile from an external index, including links that never send any traffic."
canonical: https://kitbase.dev/glossary/link-graph
---

[Home](/) [Glossary](/glossary) Link Graph

Backlinks

# What is Link Graph?

A complete map of a domain's backlink profile from an external index, including links that never send any traffic.

A link graph is a complete map of a domain's backlink profile pulled from an external, independently-crawled index — covering not just the links that send traffic, but the, usually much larger, share of links that don't. Referral-traffic detection alone only ever sees the links people actually click; a link graph fills in the rest.

A typical link-graph refresh returns three things: a profile summary (total referring domains and inbound links, how many are dofollow, and overall domain authority), lost links (domains the index no longer sees linking to you, including ones that never sent a click), and a competitor gap — domains that link to at least one tracked competitor but not to you, ranked by how many competitors they link to and by their own authority, which is close to a ready-made outreach list.

Because it depends on a paid external index rather than data a product already collects, a link-graph refresh is usually the one part of a backlink toolset that costs money to run — typically refreshed on a schedule, like weekly, rather than continuously, with an option to force an on-demand refresh when needed.

## Example

A referral-traffic view shows 40 backlinks with traffic behind them. A link-graph refresh reveals the domain actually has 380 total backlinks across 90 referring domains — the other 340 links exist but have simply never been clicked, and would have been completely invisible without the external index.

## Related Terms

[

Backlink

A link from another website pointing to yours, treated by search and AI engines as a signal of trust and relevance.

](/glossary/backlink)[

Lost Backlink

A backlink an external index previously confirmed and now reports as gone — the link itself was removed, not just broken.

](/glossary/lost-backlink)[

Domain Authority (Domain Rank)

A relative score estimating how much trust and ranking power a domain carries, based on its backlink profile.

](/glossary/domain-authority)[

Competitor Gap Analysis

Finding domains that link to your competitors but not to you, ranked as a prioritized outreach list.

](/glossary/competitor-gap-analysis)

## Find your backlinks with Kitbase

Detect new backlinks from real referral traffic, recover links pointing at dead pages, and find the domains AI engines cite so you know where to earn more.

[Explore Backlinks](https://docs.kitbase.dev/backlinks)