Follow the backlinks your site gained and lost in Ahrefs each week

SKILL.md---
name: ahrefs-new-and-lost-backlinks
description: "Every Friday, the referring domains Ahrefs found linking to you this week, the ones that stopped, and the links worth a follow-up email. Use when the user asks for this, or when it runs on a schedule."
---

# Ahrefs new and lost backlinks

Every Friday, the referring domains Ahrefs found linking to you this week, the ones that stopped, and the links worth a follow-up email.

Links arrive and disappear without telling you. A blogger cites your study, a directory drops your listing in a redesign, a partner page starts redirecting. Ahrefs records all of it, but the New and Lost tabs mix strong links with scraped junk, and the useful few are easy to miss.

The agent asks the Ahrefs API for the week's changes, keeps one link per referring domain, drops the low-quality ones and ranks the rest by Domain Rating. Lost links come with their reason, because a removed link and a page that now redirects call for different emails.

## Two ways to get the data

Use the API or MCP route when you have an MCP server, a CLI or an API token for the app. Otherwise, if you can drive a browser the user is signed in to (Claude in Chrome, a Playwright or Chrome DevTools MCP server), use the browser route. Say which one you used.

## Route A: API or MCP server

### What you need

- An Ahrefs plan with API access (Lite and above since mid-2026) and an API key, kept in `AHREFS_API_KEY` or held by the official Ahrefs MCP server.
- Room in your API units: each request is charged by the rows and fields it returns, with a 50-unit minimum, so the skill selects only the fields above.

If something is missing, say what and stop; do not invent numbers.

### Steps

1. **Pull links that changed this week** (Ahrefs): Call the Ahrefs API v3 `site-explorer/all-backlinks` endpoint with `target=example.com`, `mode=subdomains`, `history=since:<7 days ago>` and `aggregation=1_per_domain`, so each referring domain appears once. Select the linking and target URLs, anchor, the source's Domain Rating, follow status and the first-seen and lost dates.
2. **Split new from lost**: A link is new when it was first seen in the last 7 days, and lost when its lost date falls in that window. Keep the reason Ahrefs gives for each lost link: Link removed, Not found, 301/302 redirect, Noindex, Dropped or Crawl errors.
3. **Drop the noise**: Leave out sources below DR 20, nofollow links from comment sections and forums, and domains that look like scrapers or mirrors (thousands of outbound links, no organic traffic).
4. **Add the live totals** (Ahrefs): Read `site-explorer/backlinks-stats` for the live count of referring domains, and keep last week's figure so the card can show the net change.
5. **Write the follow-ups**: New links by DR with anchor and target page, then lost links with the reason and a suggested next step: ask to restore a removed link, or to point a redirected one at your new URL.

## Route B: the browser

### What you need

- Signed in to Ahrefs on a paid plan with Site Explorer access; no project is needed for the target.

If something is missing, say what and stop; do not invent numbers.

### Steps

Start at https://app.ahrefs.com/site-explorer. The user is signed in already; never type passwords or codes, and ask if a sign-in page appears.

1. **Open the Backlinks report for the site**: Open `https://app.ahrefs.com/site-explorer`, enter `example.com` with the mode set to `Subdomains`, and click `Backlinks` in the left menu.
2. **Read the new links**: Switch the report to `New` and set the period to `Last 7 days`. Set grouping to one link per domain, filter `DR` to 20 and up and link type to `Dofollow`, then sort by DR and note source, target page and anchor for the top rows.
3. **Read the lost links with reasons**: Switch to `Lost` for the same 7 days and keep the DR filter. Read each row's lost reason (Link removed, Not found, 301/302 redirect, Noindex, Dropped, Crawl errors); the status filter narrows to one reason at a time.
4. **Take the live total**: Go back to `Overview` and read the `Referring domains` figure, with last week's number for the net change.
5. **Write the follow-ups**: Skip scraper-looking domains. Suggest an email for each lost link worth keeping: ask to restore a removed link, or to point a redirected page at your new URL.

Note: The UI counts can differ from the API by a few links because of crawl timing and the spam filter. Each table pages at 100 rows; for a site gaining hundreds of links a week, use Export and read the file.

## The report

- **Net change in referring domains** this week: new, lost and the live total.
- **New links** worth knowing about, by Domain Rating: source, target page, anchor and follow status.
- **Lost links** with the reason Ahrefs gives and a follow-up for each.
- The one outreach email to send first.

## Post it to Briefkin

When `BRIEFKIN_TOKEN` is set, or `~/.config/briefkin/env` exists (the installer from https://briefkin.dev/docs writes it), also send the result to the user's Briefkin board as one card. Keep the `item_key` the same on every run so the card updates in place, use a new `event_id` per run, and put today's real numbers in place of the example ones. If the request fails, say so once and carry on.

```bash
[ -n "${BRIEFKIN_TOKEN:-}" ] || . ~/.config/briefkin/env
curl -sS -X POST "${BRIEFKIN_URL:-https://briefkin.dev}/v1/events" \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $BRIEFKIN_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d @- <<'JSON'
{
  "v": 1,
  "event_id": "ahrefs-new-and-lost-backlinks/<date of this run, e.g. 2026-10-16>",
  "item_key": "ahrefs-new-and-lost-backlinks",
  "project": "example.com",
  "source": "Ahrefs new and lost backlinks skill",
  "kind": "update",
  "title": "17 referring domains gained, 6 lost",
  "summary": "Ahrefs found **17 new referring domains** and **6 lost** this week; the live count is 1,284 (+11). The strongest new link is a DR 90 dev.to article citing the late payments study; the costliest loss is a DR 80 alternatives page that now redirects.",
  "widget": [
    {
      "type": "Text",
      "props": {
        "text": "New this week (top 4 of 17)",
        "variant": "heading"
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Table",
      "props": {
        "columns": [
          "Domain",
          "DR",
          "Links to",
          "Anchor"
        ],
        "align": [
          "left",
          "right",
          "left",
          "left"
        ],
        "rows": [
          [
            "dev.to",
            90,
            "/blog/late-payments-study",
            "a study of 40,000 invoices"
          ],
          [
            "indiehackers.com",
            79,
            "/pricing",
            "transparent pricing"
          ],
          [
            "freelance-weekly.example",
            54,
            "/templates/invoice-pdf",
            "free invoice template"
          ],
          [
            "saas-directory.example",
            47,
            "/",
            "Example"
          ]
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Text",
      "props": {
        "text": "Lost this week (top 3 of 6)",
        "variant": "heading"
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Table",
      "props": {
        "columns": [
          "Domain",
          "DR",
          "Reason",
          "Was linking to"
        ],
        "align": [
          "left",
          "right",
          "left",
          "left"
        ],
        "rows": [
          [
            "alternatives-hub.example",
            80,
            "Redirected",
            "/"
          ],
          [
            "accounting-blog.example",
            58,
            "Link removed",
            "/blog/net-30-payment-terms"
          ],
          [
            "old-partner.example",
            41,
            "Page not found",
            "/integrations"
          ]
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "type": "Callout",
      "props": {
        "text": "Email alternatives-hub.example first: the page moved to a new URL, and asking for the link there is an easy yes.",
        "tone": "info"
      }
    }
  ]
}
JSON
```

Widgets come from the Briefkin catalog (https://briefkin.dev/v1/catalog). Without a token, just give the user the report.

## Run it on a schedule

Suggested: Fridays at 10:00 (`0 10 * * 5`). From cron, with the agent signed in on that machine:

```bash
0 10 * * 5 claude -p "Run the ahrefs-new-and-lost-backlinks skill"
# Codex: codex exec, Gemini CLI: gemini -p, Copilot CLI: copilot -p, OpenCode: opencode run
```

Or use the agent's own scheduler (Claude Code routines, Codex automations, Claude or ChatGPT scheduled tasks): https://briefkin.dev/skills/ahrefs-new-and-lost-backlinks#schedule

Source: https://briefkin.dev/skills/ahrefs-new-and-lost-backlinks