Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. How do sites have so many 'total links'?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    How do sites have so many 'total links'?

    Link Building
    3
    5
    1514
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • TBiz
      TBiz last edited by

      I've been analyzing some of our competitors: essayedge.com and papercheck.com

      Both sites have a large number of 'total links'... about 93,000 each.  The former has about 1,200 linking root domains while the latter only has 195.  Even for 1,200 linking root domains, 93k total links seems like a ton to me.

      Our site has 101 linking root domains and only 299 'total links'.

      I'm quite new to this whole SEO game and admittedly still learning a TON.  Am I missing something here?  How do sites generate so many links?  This seems nuts to me.

      Thanks for any help!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • TBiz
        TBiz @marcinlejman last edited by

        Thanks Marcin, that makes more sense.

        For example, I noticed papercheck had a ton of links from verisign.  It appears they did some case-study for the company and the links were all over their other country specific domains, etc.

        It makes sense that it would be more about increasing the number of linking root domains than the total number of links and I now understand how one link on a very large site can result in hundreds, if not thousands, of links.

        I didn't really understand this and in the back of my mind I keep hearing Rand telling me that link building is valuable but hard work and time consuming.  I'm thinking... s*$t, it really is going to be a lot of work to get 100,000 links   🙂

        But it's nice to know I need to simply focus on high quality linking domains... easy enough 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • TBiz
          TBiz @Keszi last edited by

          Thanks for the reply, that helps and makes sense!

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • marcinlejman
            marcinlejman last edited by

            Hi,

            it's very simple to achieve with site-wide links, for example in a sidebar or in a footer. It's quite possible that a single domain. This is exactly the case with at least one of the domains you provided, as far as I can tell after a quick look-up.

            Generally, if a large site links to you with a link which is present on each page of that site (think blogroll), you can easily get thousands of links. However, their value will not be significantly stronger than a single link from the same site would hold.

            Hope it helps.

            TBiz 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
            • Keszi
              Keszi last edited by

              Hi TBiz,

              The fact with these website is the following: they have a lot of sitewide links (link that appear on more then one page of the linking website). For ex, footer links (such as "created by" or "designed by", etc.), advertising which appears on each page, etc.

              Although it can drive a big number of inbound links, I would still go and ask the question of quantity vs. quality? Which one is better for a website? (If it would be me, I would choose quality).

              I hope that helped,

              Istvan

              TBiz 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • 1 / 1
              • First post
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • JackBarrie

                Do you disavow all the links on the WhatsApp Gold site?

                Do you disavow all the links on the WhatsApp Gold site? https://www.watsabgold.com/

                Link Building | | JackBarrie
                0
              • NCOREGSEO

                Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links

                Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne

                Link Building | | NCOREGSEO
                0
              • BrianYork-AIM

                Spammy links redirecting to homepage of site -

                Hey guys, I'm auditing a website at the moment and Moz is showing a few spammy links linking to it. The problem is these domains are all 301 redirecting to the domain I'm auditing. Let's say I'm auditing Site A. Site B is been flagged in Moz OSE with 12 spam flags. When I try to open Site B in a browser, it redirects back to Site A. What's the best thing to do, here? Disavowing domains redirecting to the site is surely a bad idea? Cheers.

                Link Building | | BrianYork-AIM
                0
              • T0BY

                What Makes A 'Natural Link Profile'?

                I find it hard to recognize unnatural link patterns when the links to my site are so familiar.  It can be hard to see the wood for the trees!  How many links from one site is too many?  Does it depend on the size of the site?  Thanks for your advice on this.

                Link Building | | T0BY
                0
              • aidanlawlor

                Where to put reciprocal links on my site?

                I am starting a link bulding campaign and want to know where to put the reciprocal links on my site. Do i create a new specific Link Page? or do i place them on the pages that i want ranked higher? This is my first question on SEOMoz. Please be kind....:) Thanks

                Link Building | | aidanlawlor
                1
              • ukss1984

                What are some good easy links to get for new sites?

                We are in the process of launching a couple of new sites and while we know it will be a long process to get them to rank, achieving some long-tail keywords would be beneficial. What sites would you recommend for getting some easy links to start with that can help the indexation and ranking process along in the preliminary stages? Or another way to put the question - when you launch a new site, what steps do you go through?

                Link Building | | ukss1984
                0
              • aaran

                How many links per week is too fast in link building?

                For a new website/blog how many links per week looks suspicious or hurt the rankings?

                Link Building | | aaran
                1
              • A Former User

                Does google scrape links from PDF files? do these links pass link juice?

                Title is pretty much the whole question.

                Link Building | | A Former User
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.