Set the export up so it cannot lie
A gap export lists domains that link to a competitor URL and not to you. Most rows are not buyers. Directories, dead posts, university citations, and footers will dominate. Before you sort by DR, name three things at the top of the sheet: the competitor URL you care about (a ranking page, not their homepage), the query that URL ranks for, and the date you pulled the export. An undated export becomes 'the competitive landscape' in a deck six months later. The date stops that.
You need your own tool login for this. ChainEpic does not ship a competitor index. The sheet below uses invented referring domains on purpose, marked SAMPLE, so there is a worked deletion. Replace every SAMPLE host with a row from your export. Do not leave the samples in a client deliverable.
Eight sample rows and the decision
| SAMPLE referring URL | Page type | Catalog match | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| sample-news.example/startups/renewal-tools | News | General News, only with a news peg | Delete for Ledgerline. A feature recap is not news. TECH-107 would be the row if you had a peg. |
| sample-review.example/saas/ledger-alternatives | Review | SaaS & Tech. SAAS-102 is the review-shaped row. | Keep as a type. Map to SAAS-102 only if your page is a review, not the homepage. |
| sample-compare.example/compare/renewal-tracking | Comparison | SaaS & Tech. SAAS-109 sample path is /compare/. | Keep as a type. This is the closest shape on the catalog. |
| sample-cli.example/blog/bash-renewals | Tutorial | Developer Tools | Delete unless you ship a CLI. DEV-110 is the wrong room for a finance UI. |
| sample-dir.example/startup-list | Directory | None. Directories are the $99 launchpad, not a guest post. | Delete from the guest-post list. Price the launchpad separately if profiles are actually the gap. |
| sample-footer.example (sitewide) | Footer | None | Delete. A sitewide href is the pattern you are not trying to copy. |
| sample-edu.example/papers/2019-ops | Citation | None | Delete. You will not get a university to add you because a competitor earned a citation. |
| sample-pbn.example/insights/top-tools | Sponsor list | None, even if DR is high | Delete. Open three pages before you even write the DR down. See the PBN worksheet. |
Two keeps out of eight is a normal result. If your real export 'keeps' half the rows, you are not applying the topic sentence. A keep means you can name the ChainEpic code or you can write none and still pursue the type outside this catalog. 'High DR' is not a keep.
Map a keep to a code, or write none
The shipped niches are AI and machine learning, SaaS and tech, developer tools, crypto and Web3, marketing and business, and general news. A keep that sounds like a finance newspaper is none. There is no finance-news code. Writing SAAS-109 next to it because both are 'B2B' is how the gap turns into the wrong placement. SAAS-109's title hint is an enterprise productivity and AI SaaS comparison engine. Use it for the sample-compare row. Do not use it for the university row.
Price the keeps from the cells, not from the competitor's DR. The comparison-shaped keep maps to SAAS-109 at $179 for a guest post. The review-shaped keep maps to SAAS-102 at $119. Two keeps, $298, if both stories fit your pages. That is the gap budget. It is smaller than the export and it is the number you can order. The price baskets show what happens when you skip this mapping and add five codes because they were cheap.
Directories are the row people smuggle back in. The $99 launchpad is described in the package copy as submissions to 60+ directories with a sheet in 7 days. If the export is mostly directories, that package is the line to discuss, and you still read the sheet. It is not a reason to order TECH-107 so a news site can pretend to be a directory.
Hand the sheet to the person who will order
The order gets one row of this sheet at a time, with the safety note filled. A gap sheet with twelve keeps is not twelve orders for Monday. It is a queue. Week 1 is the closest type match. You look at the live URL before week 2, which is the calendar in the campaign plan. If week 1's site fails the three-URL worksheet, that keep was wrong, and you delete the similar keeps rather than hoping the next domain in the same niche is cleaner.
The handoff note is three lines. 'Keep: comparison type. Code: SAAS-109. Our URL: /renewals. Brief is the approval-trail paragraph. Do not add the directory rows. Do not add sample-cli. Budget for this keep: $179 guest post, not the insertion, until they name a URL.' The person placing the order should be able to work from those three lines without reopening the export. If they need the export, the keep is not actually decided. Go back to the decision column. A handoff that says 'see the Ahrefs file' is how sitewide footers re-enter the cart.
FAQ
Can you run the export for me inside ChainEpic?
No. The catalog is a list of placements you can buy. A gap export comes from your Ahrefs or Semrush account, dated, against a URL you name. This page only shows how to cut that export down to rows this catalog might actually match.