Export Top Referring Domains from Semrush into Google Sheets

The Scenario

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

Your agency has a standard format. The client expects the sheet in the format by the end of the week.

The bad version of this project:

• You open Semrush and pull the referring domains report for the client's domain
• Semrush shows you the data in its own interface sorted its own way
• You export 100 rows to CSV, paste them into the sheet
• The columns are not in the format the client expects, so you reorder them
• Country codes come back as two-letter codes and the client wants full country names
• You spend an hour writing a lookup table to convert US to "United States," GB to "United Kingdom," and so on
• You send the sheet late and it still has DE for three rows you forgot to convert.

The fast version is one prompt.

The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI

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

Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in cell A1 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 sheet called BacklinkSources. Sort by authority score descending. Expand country codes to full country names.

SheetXAI pulls the data, sorts it correctly, expands the 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 your outreach effort goes. High authority, multiple backlinks to the client already, English-speaking market. Those are the domains to re-engage first.

Scroll to the bottom for opportunistic targets: medium authority, single backlink, different market. You can flag them for a separate outreach sequence without rebuilding the sort.

What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready

Referring domain audits get complicated when the client has edge cases.

When the domain in A1 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, and Semrush returns referring domains to each. You only want root-level referring domains counted once.

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in cell A1 from Semrush. If Semrush returns data broken out by subdomain, aggregate to the 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 only. Referring domains from other countries are lower priority but should not disappear.

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 referring domains against a prospecting list

Your agency maintains a list of high-value domains you actively try to get links from. You want to flag which of those are already linking to the client.

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

When the full outreach brief needs data, scoring, and prioritization in one operation

The account manager needs a ready-to-act outreach sheet, not raw data.

Fetch the top 100 referring domains for the domain in A1 from Semrush. Write domain, authority score, backlink count, and country into columns A through D. Then score each domain 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" for the account manager to fill in.

The pattern: the data pull, the scoring logic, and the outreach structure come out in one prompt. The account manager starts working the list without any 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 the authority score distribution of backlinks or the Semrush in Google Sheets overview.