OSE returns strange domains and pages
-
Hi guys, I've just started using Seomoz and so far it is awesome! However, there is one thing that I can't figure out.
When using Open Site Explorer to analyze inbounds links my competitors got, I've found that one of them has links coming from strange domains like fema.gov. It is unlikely that they have a link coming from such a site, but all these sites have a download as the top linking pages. Probably the top 20 linking root domains are like this.
So my question is; is this a bug in OSE, how do I find out if they really have a link coming from this site?
-
Thanks, but I rather not since the competition is reading this as well
-
Hi Keri,
thanks for your answer. Definitely a bug, because the strange results have disappeared since the last Linkscape update. It's a lot more usable now!
-
Hi Erik,
This is a dwindling bug in OSE. As OSE has had deeper crawls, it's come across downloadable files and wrongly counted them as links. We've tweaked things and mostly fixed this problem, but you will come across a few strays (or more than a few in this case). The number of wrong links like this is generally going down with each index update; check back in a day or so when this latest index update is posted and hopefully it will be reduced for you as well.
Keri
-
Can you supply me with your competitors URL you are evaluating so i can review the OSE results?
-
No, there is no connection what so ever.
The top ranking root domain linking to my competitor is fema.gov and their top linking page is http://www.gismaps.fema.gov/2005graphics/storms/Katrina/downloads/rs_katrina_03Sep05_1800.hld?page=guest&p=10116
Must be some error, right?
-
So you are saying the zip & image files are being hosted by the competitor and fema.gov is displaying them via absolute links?
-
That's the strange thing, the links are not coming from pages but from downloads.
The fema.gov "page" returns a download about hurricane Katrina, some other return images or zip-files.
-
The easiest way to see if they are legitimate links is to check them out yourself. Use OSE to link through to the page, view the source, and then do a find for the competitors URL. From there you will be able to tell if it was actually a link or just a fluke.
Out of curiosity, what is your competitors domain?
Regards - Kyle
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
-
What to do with high-traffic pages that are not related to e-commerce?
Hello folks! We run a webshop selling wine and spirits, which obviously serves the purpose to generate revenue. To add further value to our customers, we have a section on the site, suggesting food recipes. The main purpose of that section is to inspire and educate about how wine and foods can be combined. Rankings are getting higher on "important" keywords for our business, in terms of products and product categories. However, the recipe pages, which are less important, are getting much more organic traffic. So here comes my question: Having "less important" pages that do not convert in terms of purchases, but however do get loads of organic traffic, what could I do with these pages, in terms of SEO? Could they be used to pass link juice to other, more "important" pages, that we actually want to rank on? Thanks!
Link Building | | jyskvin0 -
How do Domain Authority and the Price of a Paid Listing Relate?
I'm just starting to do some in-house link building for the first time. Having looked at some of our competitors it seems that they have paid for links on some B2B sites and I was wondering how the Domain authority and the price charged were related. The follow up question is then how do you estimate the ROI of a link? So for example looking at a site with a DA of 30 and a page authority of 17 how much should one pay for the link? How do you decide how much you should pay for a link - and whether it is value for money? btw I'm not interested in buying links I'm curious 🙂 Thanks for any thoughts
Link Building | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Does more product pages mean better rankings?
We've recently been told that one of reasons why our site doesnt rank as well as a particular competitors because they have much more product pages than us. We can see that they have better quality links, which we are working on improving, which we sort of understand can be helping them beat us, but we didn't think that they would be ranked higher just because of more products. They also do not have much interesting blog / content on site. So should our limited resources be focused on getting better links, better content, or increasing our depth of product range? Thanks all.
Link Building | | onwardsandupwards0 -
Educational and Governmental ref. backlinks/domains
I have two question in my mind, decided to first time post and ask the community for better information. 1-How important Educational and Govermental Ref Domains/backlinks are? Shell we try to gain them? Or they are just like the others backlinks/domains? 2-When we break down the backlinks to Images-textlinks. What percent of backlinks should be images? (for info my website has 97 percent textlink and 3 percent image backlinks)
Link Building | | FRUTIKO0 -
Example of good author page for guest posting
Hello, A client of mine is looking to guest post on other sites. What's an example of a good Author page that is working well. We're interested in knowing what to put on this page, and if the author page should be in the main navigation of my client's website. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
Why do the results in SEOmoz and OSE for Linking Root Domains differ?
In SEOmoz, in a campaign we set up, it shows 600+ Linking Root Domains, but in OSE it shows 300+ Linking Root Domains- quite a difference. Any help gratefully received. Thanks.
Link Building | | ThinkingJuice0 -
Links from Domain Portfolio Advertising Sites
I recently purchased a domain from a someone with a large portfolio and my site's link is still found on thousands of his one page/low quality sites. I find these links on Open Site Explorer but not in WT. Should I ask the portfolio owner to remove the link from his low quality domain advertising sites?
Link Building | | mj7750 -
SEO value of expired Pages
We run a classified site and after every day there are thousands of ads/pages that get expired which has no use to visitors. What is the best practice to deal with them keeping SEO factor in mind? Should we keep them as they are linking to home page. redirect 301 to existing, 404 to home page or any other practice. Please advise.
Link Building | | razasaeed0