Export Top Referring Domains from Semrush into Excel

The Scenario

You are an SEO consultant who just landed a new client. Your first deliverable: a prioritized list of outreach targets for link building, based on real data. The client's domain is in cell A1 of the Domains tab. You need the top 100 referring domains from Semrush, each with authority score, backlink count, and country of origin, in the format the client expects.

The client wants the workbook by end of week.

The bad version of this project:

• You open Semrush and pull the referring domains report for the client's domain
• You export 100 rows to CSV and paste them into the workbook
• The columns are not in the format the client expects, so you reorder them manually
• Country codes come back as two-letter codes and the client wants full country names
• You spend an hour writing a lookup table: US → "United States," GB → "United Kingdom"
• You send the workbook late and three rows still have DE instead of "Germany."

The fast version is one prompt.

The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI

SheetXAI reads the domain from cell A1 and pulls the referring domain data from Semrush directly into the format the workbook expects.

Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in cell A1 of the Domains tab from Semrush and write each referring domain, its authority score, number of backlinks to our site, and country into columns A through D on a new tab called BacklinkSources. Sort by authority score descending. Expand country codes to full country names.

SheetXAI pulls the data, sorts it, expands country codes, and builds the BacklinkSources tab. The client's format is ready.

What You Get

A BacklinkSources tab with 100 rows sorted by authority score descending:

• Column A — Referring Domain — root domain linking to the client
• Column B — Authority Score — Semrush 0–100 score
• Column C — Backlinks to Our Site — number of links from that domain
• Column D — Country — full country name

The top of the list is where the outreach effort goes. High authority, multiple backlinks already, English-speaking market. Those are the domains to re-engage first.

What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready

Referring domain audits get complicated when clients have edge cases.

When the client's site has a subdomain structure and you need root domains only

The client's site has blog.example.com and docs.example.com as separate subdomains. Semrush may return referring domains broken out by subdomain. You only want root-level referring domains counted once.

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in cell A1 of the Domains tab. If Semrush returns data by subdomain, aggregate to root referring domain level before writing. Write root domain, authority score, total backlinks across all subdomains, and country into columns A through D on the BacklinkSources tab.

When the client only cares about domains from specific markets

The client is an EU company targeting English-speaking and German markets. Referring domains from other countries are lower priority.

Pull the top 100 referring domains for the domain in A1. In column E, write "Priority" for domains from United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Germany, or Austria. Write "Review" for all others. Sort Priority rows to the top within the existing authority score sort.

When you want to cross-reference against an existing prospect list

Your agency maintains a high-value prospect list in the Prospects tab. You want to flag which of those domains are already linking to the client.

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in A1 and write into BacklinkSources as above. Then check the Prospects tab. For any referring domain that also appears in the Prospects tab, write "Already Linking" in a Status column on the BacklinkSources tab.

When the full outreach brief needs data, scoring, and ready-to-action structure in one pass

The account manager should be able to open the workbook and start working immediately.

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in A1. Write domain, authority score, backlink count, and country into columns A through D on BacklinkSources. Score each for outreach priority: High if authority score is above 50 and country is US, UK, AU, or CA; Medium if authority score is 30–50; Low if below 30. Write the score in column E. Sort by Priority then by Authority Score descending. Add a blank column F labeled "Outreach Notes."

The pattern: the data pull, the scoring logic, and the outreach structure come out in one prompt. The account manager starts working without reformatting.

Try It

Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and put any domain in cell A1, then ask it to pull the referring domain list from Semrush. The Semrush integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For a related workflow, see how to audit authority score distribution of backlinks in Excel or the Semrush in Excel overview.