Outbound link client finder
The people paying for placements are already listed — in the outgoing links of the sites selling them.
Export a publisher's outgoing links and the businesses that paid separate out from the ordinary citations. Import a second publisher and anything appearing in both moves up, because that overlap is the real evidence.
How the list is built
One export, read from the other side
Point your tool at a publisher you believe sells placements and export its outgoing links. Every domain it links to comes back scored for how likely it is a paying customer.
The overlap is the signal
A business seen on one publisher might be a citation. Seen on three unrelated publishers, it is buying. The count is recomputed across your whole workspace every time you look, so it is never stale.
The obvious wrong answers removed
Affiliate destinations, platforms, reference sites and household names are disqualified outright, each with the reason on the card, so you can see it was a decision rather than an oversight.
Evidence you can open
Every candidate carries its signals, the publishers it appeared on, and the articles the links sat in — so you can read the page before you write to anyone.
Saved candidates keep their reasons
Save one and the score, the signals and the evidence are frozen onto it. The analysis behind it can expire; the reason you saved it does not.
Straight into outreach
A saved business gets contacts, templates aimed at buyers, and the same follow-up rhythm as the publisher side.
Questions
Why outgoing links and not backlinks?
A backlink export tells you who links to a site. Turn it around: the sites a publisher links out to include the businesses that paid it. That is a list of people who have already spent money on placements, which is a far better list than one of people who might.
How does it tell a customer from an ordinary citation?
A citation and a paid placement look different in the data. A single dofollow link from a page that links out sparingly, to a company with a modest domain rating and its own brand as the anchor, reads very differently from a site-wide link to a household name. Every judgement is shown as a list of signals with points.
What makes a business look like a regular buyer?
Turning up in more than one publisher's export. One link can be editorial. The same company across three unrelated publishers is buying. That count is worked out across every export in your workspace and folded back into the score, so importing another publisher changes the picture.
What about affiliate sites and big brands?
They are thrown out with the reason shown. An affiliate link to a VPN brand and a citation of a major platform are not sales leads, and a page full of them would waste your day.
Does it work with SEMrush as well as Ahrefs?
Both. SEMrush's outbound export carries no anchor text and no follow information, so scores from it are weaker — and the screen says so rather than quietly filling in the gap.
Start with one publisher
Export the outgoing links of a site you already know sells placements, and see who has been paying it.
Try it with an export