How dependable is Open Site Explorer and the DA metrics

[VanadiumInteractive]

I wanted to get some feedback from the community on the accuracy and dependability of the Open Site Explorer and its DA metrics when evaluating the strength of a website and its authority on the web.

It seems that the data available to OSE is quite different (limited) as compared to that of Google Webmaster tools.

A site I'm evaluating shows the following discrepancy:

Linking domains OSE = 11

Linking domains WMT = 95

Total Links OSE = 39

Total Links WMT = 579

With such a large discrepancy of linking domains and link backs, how accurate can the DA / PA metrics be - what goes into vs whats does not?

I read some place that date OSE is not comprehensive but should account for the top 20% of links (I maybe off here), that said in comparing root domain data it seems to be missing many domains with high DA scores but includes others with very low DA scores.

I would love some feedback or pointers on how much value I should be placing on the info provided by OSE, and opinions on how to truly define a baseline for a sites strength and its linkback structure.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

Ah, this is a very good question.

If you're looking to measure links by pure link count, then OSE will never match the number of links you find in Google Webmaster Tools. On average, OSE accounts for anywhere between 20-60% of links typically recorded in GWT.

But GWT is a terrible way to measure link building campaigns.

The problem is, Webmaster Tools records "junk" links equally with high value links, and there's no guarantee or seeming degree of consistency with the links they do choose to report. I have 1000's of links in many of my Webmaster Tools accounts, and most of them aren't worth anything.

On the other hand, OSE assigns a "weight" to each link, in terms of different metrics such as MozRank and Domain Authority, so you can get a feel for how much value is passed by that link. And OSE tends to focus on links and those areas of the web that actually pass ranking value, while ignoring many of the less valuable, spam and garbage links.

OSE metrics are highly correlated with a site's ability to rank, and are often adjusted according to Google's algorythm through correlation analysis.

So if you build more links, they will show up in GWT, but you'll never know how much they are worth.

On the other hand, if you raise your domain authority, this is likely correlated with a rise in rankings (assuming  your site is well optimized)

Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO!

[VanadiumInteractive]

As I'm digging a little further into this, it seems that using the OSE ranking matrix for measuring our SEO efforts may not be the best idea.

i.e. http://www.seomoz.org/q/link-analysis

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Based on your experience the data provided by Google Webmaster Tools (incoming links, domains ...) -- is that 100% of things out there connected to the site or is that partial data as well?  Is that the best dataset to  baseline the state of the site and building a history of link building performance?