How do I know what my actual backlink profile is?
-
The number of inbound links to my site varies so much across tools (GA, Google Webmaster, Bing, SEOMoz, Majestic SEO, site: operators). What's reality?
-
Google, Bing, SEOmoz, and Majestic all have their own programs that crawl the web, each having their own priorities and algorithms and limitations. Google is generally best for showing you links to a site you have verified in Google Webmaster tools. The other three will show you links for sites that are not your own. For Open Site Explorer (the SEOmoz tool), our index is not as large as Google's (I think they have more cooks in their cafeterias than we have employees altogether at Moz), but we do offer the additional metrics that you can't get from Google.
Google Analytics will show you which links bring visitors to your site that use javascript, and your log files will also show referring sites. If there's a link to your site that no one clicks on, it won't show in your log files.
The exact number of links may never be known, especially if you have links from an intranet behind a firewall that none of the bots are allowed to crawl. That's when you'll see something in GA that you won't see in any of the other tools.
I know this may not be the easy answer you were looking for, but I hope it helps. Let me know if I can do anything to help clarify things for you.
-
I would go with WMT. Besides the fact that it is Google, they seem to update every week or 2 vs moz who can barely stay on track for their monthly updates.
I dont think there is a 100% tool but from what ive seen all the links that show up in other tools can be seen on webmaster tools and then some. although this may not be true for everyone it is so for my current profile.
also keep in mind that just because it doesnt show up in the profile does not mean it is not counting for you.
-
Thanks. That's what I've been using as my true "yard stick".
-
Open Site Explorer gives you about as complete a view as is possible. It does it by crawling the web itself and finding those links for you. You can then run reports on them, etc.
Google Webmaster Tools is a close second, because it represents how Google sees links to your site. It's hardly comprehensive, however, and you have to build your own reports. But, still, anytime Google will give you better detail, take it.
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
-
Moz reports way fewer backlinks than google search?
My site is only 11 months old but has steadily (if not slowly) been gaining backlinks. My question, is why Moz shows me at 303 backlinks and Google search console is showing at 1,237? I am more than a little suspicious that this could highlight the reason Moz shows such an unfavorable DA ranking for our site at a DA12. Other competitors that rank for similar keywords to mine are DA 42, DA 65, DA 73, etc. If the largest ranking factor is links, and they have mine reported incorrectly - is this the issue with DA as it relates to sites like mine? Any answer from someone who has experienced similar, or has a definitive answer is more than welcome to chime in! Thanks, Kevin
Reporting & Analytics | | kvncrll0 -
60% of Direct traffic is actually Organic
For some pre-reading, Groupon experimented with deindexing part of their site back in 2014 and found that they had a big drop in direct traffic: http://searchengineland.com/60-direct-traffic-actually-seo-195415 Recently I've conducted a similar test on a very large site and have found that Direct dropped somewhere between 50-80% for the pages deindexed, depending on the day (It has been running for ~4 days). Has anyone else tried this experiment before? If so what were your results?
Reporting & Analytics | | Leads.Bz
What I'm most interested in now is to find out why this traffic is classed as Direct - there appears to be no reason why the site or server would interfere, so I can only imagine that Google is sending traffic without referrer data. Does anyone have any thoughts as to why they would do that?0 -
Backlinks Tracking Websites/Tools/Software
I have multiple websites that I need to keep track of their backlinks. How do you guys keep track of your backlinks? What are some cool tools that you use ?
Reporting & Analytics | | AngelosS0 -
GA: Want to have a profile tracking only 3 out of 4 subdomains only?
Hi Mozzers, I would like to track 3 out of 4 subdomains in a profile on GA. I have 4 subdomains: www.example.com m.example.com subdomain1.example.com subdomain2.example.com I would like to create a profile with only the first 3 subdomains without subdomain2.example.com. Can someone tell me what to do to get this? I also have a profile called combined profile that includes all of them with this filter(attached). Can I add another filter to this profile? if it is the case what should I add and how? if not, creating another profile would be the only other way, right? if it is the case how can I filter it to get Thanks a lot! u4HxY06
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Google Webmaster. Backlinks
GWMT only shows that there are 3 domains pointing to a site of mine. I'm looking under "Links to site". But this can't be true because the site is pretty old and I know there are hundreds of domains that point to this one. What would explain this discrepancy? And is there some other free tool that will show all the backlinks? I've used Opensite explorer but that tool isn't close to comprehensive as GWMT usually is (based on other sites I've analyzed)
Reporting & Analytics | | priceseo0 -
Does anyone know what's happened to google analytics -> traffic sources -> SEO -> queries many of my accounts are showing a drop to zero in the laste few days
Howdy mozzers It's in the question title really. Zero impressions showing for the last few days on. Multiple accounts Any thought out there
Reporting & Analytics | | Big_Partnership0 -
Property or profile?
I have Google Analytics installed on my website and have a blog going live shortly which I also want to track. The blog sits on a subdomain. It is built on Wordpress vs a custom CMS that the website is on but the idea is to have a seamless transformation helping traffic from blog to product pages on our website. Should I install the same Analytics from our website onto the blog and then set up a few new filters or should i create a separate analytics property for the blog (or even a new profile)? (sorry I should also add that the look and feel of both is very similar sharing main navigation links like SEOmoz - don't know if this makes a difference)
Reporting & Analytics | | design_man0 -
How do I find backlinks and/or SERPs for a subdomain
I realize this is probably a very basic question but if I want to find backlinks to a sub-domain of my site, how would I do that? Also, if I wanted to see what search terms were bringing traffic to one specific page of my site, how would I do that?
Reporting & Analytics | | aarnswife0