Why did my DA and Links go down?
-
How could I begin to research this to find out why we have less total links and a lower domain authority.
Our DA has gone down two points and our total links dropped by a few thousand. I'd like to find out why that happened but I'm just not sure where to start. Thanks!
-
Well I'm glad to hear you've had a traffic increase at least!
We're seeing different things at Majestic. I'm seeing 124 different domains with deleted links. Examples include:
<colgroup><col width="470"></colgroup>
| http://blog.sellingpower[dot]com/ |
| http://www.honeywellaidc[dot]com/en-US/partners/Pages/find-a-partner.aspx |
| http://www.sellingpower.typepad[dot]com/ |
| http://www.dcvelocity[dot]com/whitepapers/ |
| http://spectrumsuppliermarketplace[dot]com/Listing/Index/Printing__Surface_Treatment/Bar_Coding/3497/681 |
| http://www.thomasnet[dot]com/products/barcode-labels-42422006-1.html |
| http://www.business[dot]com/technology/electronics/ |
| http://www.supplychain247[dot]com/company/supply_chain_services |
| http://fc.webmasterpro.de/stat.php?name=hotelab&source=referer |I agree the purchasingandsupplysourcingguide link is active. I see that as well.
"A_nd I run my report against the same competitors every month but theirs actually increased_." Sorry, here I don't know what report you're referencing. Are you saying you run Moz reports each month that tells you the number of links you and your competitors have? I thought Moz used Open Site Explorer data for that - the same data we're talking about so can't speak to that.
Lastly, yes - none of the tools are 100% accurate. They're all based on sampling and projections. Yes, I agree Moz estimates tend to be lower than other sources of link data. I really think the reason you're seeing such a huge variation in link counts is because of the small number of sources you have for incoming links and the relatively small sample size Moz uses to make it's projections. I agree 80% is huge, but from what I can see in Majestic, you've lost 60% (124 of 198) of your link sources recently so that would explain it, at least partially.
That's the best I can come up with Ken.
-
I agree there are many factors. But I have worked tirelessly over the last year to add links. Actual traffic to our site has increased by 100% in that time.
Interestingly Google Webmaster Tools gives me 7021 total links. MajesticSEO gives me 4898 and the deleted links are actually not deleted, but probably changed/moved. And the 211 links listed as deleted in MajesticSEO are all duplicates of one site. The one that is listed as a lost link (211 times) in MajesticSEO is actually live at: http://purchasingandsupplysourcingguide.com/Guide/SearchListing?searchTerm=supply+chain+services&PageSize=10&PageNo=1&IsBasicSearch=True§ionType=&categoryId=0&headingId=0&rbPhraseType=1&StateProvince=&CityOrZip=&Radius=100&video=false&exhibitor=false.
So that's not accurate either. So we haven't lost a single link. And I've added more than that since the last update. And if we're talking sample size it should not vary more than 5-10%.
And I run my report against the same competitors every month but theirs actually increased.
I guess I can't trust any of the tools to be accurate. But, with all the other data, I know MOZ is under reporting. And I am only comparing previous MOZ reports after multiple MOZ updates, so I know that isn't the problem. There's definitely something wrong with reporting 80% fewer links but nobody will give me a straight answer.
-
I'm not trying to be slippery here Ken, there are just so many factors to consider.
If you're talking about supplychainservices.com, I plugged it into a third link tool (MajesticSEO) and was told you have 4,195 backlinks from 198 different source domains. 124 of those sources are reporting deleted links, so it would seem to make sense that your numbers are dropping.
Different tools are always going to give you different numbers because their methods, sampling tools and timings differ. I find Webmaster tools tends to report the highest numbers.
If you've been seeing 15,000+ total links to your website in Moz for months, it could be that there was only one update to the Moz metrics in that time period. Moz data only gets updated about every 4-8 weeks, so your numbers are going to be static in between updates. (Here's the update schedule and history.) Depending on the sample size, the numbers could drop dramatically between updates especially given the small number of source domains you have linking to you with active links.
If you want a download of the MajesticSEO links, private message me and I'll forward them to you.
-
I have been showing over 15000 total links to our web site in MOZ for months. I continue to add links so I would naturally think that number would go up. This month MOZ only shows 3000, an 80% drop. I could live with some fluctuation but not that much. Even sampling should be more consistent than that over time. I'm just getting non answers from MOZ support. Google webmaster tools is showing over 7000. So I have 3 numbers and don't know which one is valid.
-
Hi there Sika,
As Ryan says, it's normal to see fluctuations in domain authority and the number of links each new update. That's because the sample size and sources fluctuate from update to update. I'd worry if I saw this pattern continue over several updates or if I saw warnings in Google Webmaster Tools.
Domain authority and link quantities also naturally end to diminish over time unless you're making an effort to bolster and sustain them. That means you need a strategy and plan to continue to grow inbound links from authoritative sources to your site. If you're not doing that, you should be.
Have you really lost links, or is it an outcome of the sampling? To answer that question you'd need to have a baseline of the number of inbound links to your site from a variety of sources including Moz and maybe Google Webmaster Tools, Majestic SEO or Ahrefs, and a few others. Then you'd need to compare your baseline to whatever you have today. Just remember none of the tools are perfect. They all sample rather than inventory, so you're just checking for patterns.
Hope that helps.
-
Moz just recently pushed their latest update: http://moz.com/products/api/updates which tends to affect these numbers. The important thing is to check how you're comparing to your competition. Often they see fluctuations as well. With the previous update, Rand put out this post regarding fluctuations: http://moz.com/community/q/have-questions-about-the-jan-27th-mozscape-index-update-get-answers-here:
...we crawled a massively more diverse set of root domains than ever before. Whereas our previous index topped out at 192 million root domains, this latest one has 362 million (almost 1.9X as many unique, new domains we haven't crawled before). This means that DA and PA scores may fluctuate more than usual, as link diversity are big parts of those calculations and we've crawled a much larger swath of the deep, dark corners of the web (and non-US/non-.com domains, too). It also means that, for many of the big, more important sites on the web, we are crawling a little less deeply than we have in the past (the index grew by ~31% while the root domains grew by ~88%). Often, those deep pages on large sites do more internal than external linking, so this might not have a big impact, but it could depend on your field/niche and where your links come from.
Cheers!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is There a Tool to Link Moz Keyword Rankings With Google Adwords Campaigns?
I wanted to know if there is a tool or other way to automatically link my Moz keyword rankings with my Google Adwords account for the purpose of allowing me to "pause" Adwords campaigns for keywords for which I rank well in the SERP's and to "activate" Adwords for keywords for which I do not rank well. Since these rankings can change from week to week, it would be great to be able to turn on and off Adwords for specific keywords depending upon my rankings that week.
Moz Pro | | hildebrandlaw0 -
Sudden increase in on-page links
Within one week, the site crawl shows my on-page links going from ~10 to ~100+ Does anyone know of a rational reason for this? Sucuri shows my site is clean, so I don't think it's a hack. 10 seems too low to begin with anyway. Any ideas? Thanks 🙂
Moz Pro | | pupstar0 -
OK Crawl Test Link Question Again!
I've downloaded a crawl test and column G Link Count reads 62 and yep there are a total of 62 links on the page in question. Column AM Internal Links reads 303 and yep there are somewhere in the order of 303 pages pointing at this one. Root Domains is surprisingly low at 6, so maybe there are only 6 domains linking to this page. BUT... External Links read 51. There are not 51 links pointing away from this domain on this page, no way hozay, so can anybody tell me what is meant by 'External Links? A humble thank you in anticipation of an education. Jem
Moz Pro | | JemRobinson0 -
How to Link sub-pages of a category without cannibalization?
What's the best practice to link to sub-categories without cannibalizing SEO? Main page title = Dog Sub page title = dog collar Sub sub page = spiked dog collar I used SEOMoz program and it showed the link from the main page to the sub page as cannibalized and also as duplicate title Same thing for the sub-sub page. How to avoid it? Please provide examples Questions: Would you use: dog_collar or dog-collar for the sub-page? How would you link to the sub page from the main page? How to title the sub pages to avoid duplicate titles? How would you link to the website from other websites? What kind of tags would you want used in the links?
Moz Pro | | HMCOE0 -
Does Google have a direct link with facebook and twitter?
Google monitor social media. What I'm wondering is do Google use the same tools we have on Facebook's API, Twitter's API etc to use in their SERPs Or do Facebook grant Google more detailed access to see who has liked links etc. I think it's quite an interesting point as surely I can push up my own count by repeatedly sharing my own links, which wouldn't be genuine. If Google had better access they could then determine what's been faked etc.
Moz Pro | | PhotoGazza0 -
Too Many On-Page Links
The SeoMoz site crawler says all my pages have too many links. I am using Dreamweaver with a horizontal Spry drop-down menu bar. My site has several hundred pages and about 100 of them show up in this Spry menu bar. I believe that this would be considered a false positive for too many links - am I right? Or is Google seeing this also as too many links per page? I am trying to get my Google rankings back after being hurt badly by the Penguin. I am using php but don't see another way to do the site links without going to a CMS type site. Thanks for any help you can give.
Moz Pro | | johnsearles0 -
Find pages containing broken links.
hi everyone, for each internal broken links I need to find all the pages that contain it. In the Seomoz report there is only a refferer link for each broken link, but google webmaster tools indicates that the dead link is present in many pages of the site. there is a way to have these data with SEOmoz or other software, in a csv report ? thanks
Moz Pro | | wwmind0 -
On page links tool here at Seomoz
Hi Seomoz - first of all, thanks for the best SEO tools I have ever worked with (this is my first question in this forum, and also I just subscribed as a paying customer after the 30 days trial you guys offer). My question: After having worked for several weeks on getting the numbers of links in our forum on www.texaspoker.dk down, we are somewhat surprised to see that we didn't succeed in getting lower numbers. For instance, this page: http://www.texaspoker.dk/forum/aktuelle-konkurrencer/coaching-projekt-bliver-du-den-udvalgte has (that's what Seomoz seo tool tells us): 239 on page links. Can this really be true? We can't find these links, and we actuually did a lot to lower the numbers of links, for instance the forum members picture was a link before, and also there was a "go to top" link in each post in the forum. Thanks a lot.
Moz Pro | | MPO0