How to find popular, heavily linked content in any niche using Ahrefs

Executive overview

Knowing which content earns the most backlinks in a niche lets you identify proven topics and outreach targets. Ahrefs Content Explorer surfaces the most-linked and most-shared content by keyword or domain in seconds.

Search any keyword, sort by referring domains, then replicate and outreach to every linking site.

Finding top-linked content by keyword

• Open Content Explorer and enter a keyword (e.g. "content marketing").
• Sort results by the referring domains column to rank by link count.
• The top result shows which content attracted the broadest link profile — e.g. 1,600 linking domains.
• Skim the winning article to identify what makes it link-worthy (unique asset, video, infographic).
• Create a stronger version of that page as your link-building target.

Building your outreach list

• Hover over the backlink icon on any Content Explorer result to open Site Explorer.
• The backlinks report lists every domain linking to the original piece — your full outreach prospect list.

Finding top content on a specific domain

• Paste a domain name directly into Content Explorer's search field.
• Sort by referring domains to see which pages on that site earned the most links.
• Useful for benchmarking competitors or identifying a site's flagship content before outreach.