The Scenario
You are an SEO agency analyst. Quarterly link-building strategy session is on Thursday and you have 25 competitor domains in a Google Sheet.
You need total backlinks, referring domains, and spam score for each one in columns B, C, and D before the meeting.
It is Tuesday morning.
The bad version:
- You log into your backlink tool and check the first competitor domain
- You write down the three numbers in the sheet manually
- You do this for five more domains before realizing you have nineteen left
- You try to find a bulk check feature in the tool and discover it requires an enterprise plan
- You export what you have, re-import it, and spend 40 minutes reconciling two differently formatted CSVs
- You walk into Thursday with incomplete data and a format problem.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI is an AI agent inside your spreadsheet that reads your competitor domain list, calls DataForSEO's backlinks summary endpoint for each domain in batch, and writes every metric directly into the sheet.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
For each domain in column A of my Competitors sheet, fetch the DataForSEO backlinks summary and write total backlinks, referring domains, and spam score into columns B, C, and D.
SheetXAI calls the DataForSEO backlinks endpoint for all 25 domains, waits for results, and writes every value back to the matching row. You come back to a fully populated table.
What You Get
A complete competitors sheet with three new columns:
- Column B — total backlink count
- Column C — referring domain count
- Column D — spam score (0-100 scale)
All 25 domains enriched, no manual lookups. You can sort by referring domains to rank competitors by link authority, or sort by spam score to find which competitors are building low-quality links worth noting in the strategy session.
If you want additional metrics like top TLD breakdown or dofollow vs. nofollow split, tell SheetXAI to add those columns and it will request the expanded fields from the DataForSEO endpoint.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Competitor domain lists are rarely clean. SheetXAI handles the preparation and the pull in one prompt.
When domains have inconsistent formatting
Some rows in column A have "https://example.com" with full protocol, others are just "example.com," and a few have trailing slashes.
Normalize all domains in column A of my Competitors sheet to bare domain format without protocol or trailing slash (e.g., "example.com"). Then fetch DataForSEO backlinks summary for each and write total backlinks, referring domains, and spam score into columns B, C, and D.
When you want to include a referring domain trend over time
The strategy session needs to know which competitors are actively growing their link profiles this quarter versus last.
For each domain in column A, fetch the DataForSEO backlinks summary and write current referring domain count into column B. Also fetch the referring domain count from 90 days ago and write it into column C. In column D, calculate the percentage change and label the trend direction.
When you want to flag high-spam domains as a separate category
Some competitors in the list are clearly buying links and you want them flagged before presenting to the client.
Fetch DataForSEO backlinks summary for all domains in column A. Write total backlinks, referring domains, and spam score into columns B through D. Add a column E called Risk Category: mark "High Risk" for spam score over 60, "Medium Risk" for 30-60, and "Low Risk" for under 30.
When you need the full backlink pull plus a strategy brief in one shot
The Thursday meeting needs the data table and a written starting point for the link-building recommendations.
Fetch DataForSEO backlinks summary for all 25 domains in column A. Write total backlinks, referring domains, and spam score into columns B through D. Then create a new sheet called Strategy Brief and write a short paragraph identifying the top two competitors by referring domain count, the average referring domain count across all 25, and one sentence on what a realistic link gap to close in the next 90 days might look like.
The pattern: the data pull and the strategic framing happen in one prompt — you walk into Thursday prepared.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any sheet with a list of competitor domains, then ask it to pull backlink summaries from DataForSEO. The DataForSEO integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to pull bulk SERP rankings into a sheet or the DataForSEO in Google Sheets overview.