External Links Discrepancy
-
Hello folks Apologies for my ignorance, but a SEO novice here… One of our competitors boasts over 300,000 external links, however when we analysed their links via http://www.opensiteexplorer.org we can only see around 10,000 in there “Number of Domains Linking to this Page” section. Can someone please assist and point out something which I assume is painfully obvious! Cheers, Chris
-
Thanks Marie - I agree with you 100% on using multiple tools and resources. I'd pull the data from as many sources as possible (OSE, Webmaster Tools, Ahrefs, Majestic), and then combine it all in one master spreadsheet, deduplicate, and then analyze.
-
Mark's got a great answer. I just wanted to add that in my experience with looking at sites that have been penalized in one way or another, the links reported in OSE are usually quite a bit smaller than what is available from webmaster tools. OSE does a decent job, but they don't get all of the links.
-
brilliant, thanks Mark. Legend
-
Make sure you're looking at the right metrics, first off. External links to the domain is different from external links to a particular page.
More importantly, external links is the total number of external links pointing to the page. This has nothing to do with the number of domains linking to your page. A site could have a sitewide link to your competitor in their footer, and with it being a big site, that one domain could have something like 500, 1000, or even 10,000 links pointing to your competitor. So while OSE will say that the competitor has 10,000 links from one domain, that's 10,000 external links, but only 1 domain linking to this page. That's why you'll have a discrepancy between numbers of external links and domains linking - they measure two different things.
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
-
Broken URL Links
Hi everyone, I have a question regarding broken URL links on my website. Late last year I move my site from an old platform to Shopify, and now have broken URL links giving out 4xx errors. When I look at Moz Pro>Campaigns>Insights>links, I can see the top broken URL links, however there is a difference if copy & paste URL directly from Moz Pro and by Export CSV file. For example below, If I copy and paste links direct from Moz Pro, it has the “http://” in front as below: http://www.thehairhub.com.au/WebRoot/ecshared01/Shops/thehairhub/57F3/1D8F/D244/C675/E27D/AC10/003F/35AD/manic-panic-colours.jpg But when I export the list of links as an CSV file, the http:// is removed. www.thehairhub.com.au/WebRoot/ecshared01/Shops/thehairhub/57F3/1D8F/D244/C675/E27D/AC10/003F/35AD/manic-panic-colours.jpg Another Example below: By copy & paste URL direct from Moz Pro
Technical SEO | | johnwall
http://thehairhub.com.au/Shop-Brands/Vitafive-CPR/CPR-Rescue By export CSV file.
thehairhub.com.au/Shop-Brands/Vitafive-CPR/CPR-Rescue Which one do I use to enter into the “Redirect From” field in Shopify URL Redirects? Do I need to have the http:// in front of the URL? Or is it not required for redirects to work? Kind Regards, John Wall
The Hair Hub0 -
Using Sub Domains For Back Linking
Hey Guys! I'm building links for my page and happened upon the "Hoth" link building page. I tried it out and it built some no follow links and some links on several sub domains. I know that, when back linking via guest posting, no follow links do not juice my site. My question is, does building links on a subdomain from another company juice my site? If it's not helpful, could you explain why? Does it juice my site in any way? If you could link sources, I would really appreciate it. Also, do any of you have input on Hoth or platforms like it? Are they worth it? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | rodv0 -
Keeping external links after moving from http to https?
Hi, Does anyone have experience moving a website to https? I am about to do so. I have 84 linking root domains and around 2k+ external links. If i move a website to https will these links be lost? And how to keep these links? Many thanks, Dusan
Technical SEO | | Chemometec0 -
Link Webmaster Tools to Tag Manager
I know it is now possible to verify google webmaster tools accounts using google tag manager, but is it also possible to create a link from webmaster tools to tag manager? I would like to connect the two. I have analytics already linked to tag manager, but can't find a clear answer regarding webmaster tools. Anybody? tx!
Technical SEO | | susancompass0 -
Too Many Page Links
I have 8 niche websites for golf clubs. This was done to carve out tight niches for specific types of clubs then only broadens each club by type - i.e. better player, game improvement, max game improvement. So far, for fairly young sites, <1 year, they are doing fairly well as I build content. Running campaigns has alerted me to one problem - too many on-page links. And because I use Wordpress those links are on each page in the right sidebar and lead to the other sites. Even though visitors arrive via organic search in most cases they tend to eventually exit to one of the other sites or they click on a product (Ebay) and venture off to hopefully make a purchase. Ex: Drivers site will have a picture link for each of the other 7 sites. Question: If I have one stie (like a splash page) used as one link to that page listing all the sites with a brief explanation of each site will this cause visitors to bounce off because they will have one click, than the list and other clicks depending on what other club/site they would like to go to. The links all open in new windows. This would cut down on the number of links per page of each site but will it cause too much work for visitors and cause them to leave?
Technical SEO | | NicheGuy0 -
Asking to remove links from other sites
How hard is it to get people to take off links that point to your site that are on theirs? I have about 4 sites that I would like my link OFF of their blogroll because I think I was hit by the penguin update because of that. Do you know if there is anything you can do if they DON'T take it off?
Technical SEO | | SeaC0 -
Modifying urls cause broken links?
I want to modify my urls for the purpose of creating clean, informative urls that can be pasted directly for backlink purposes. Instead I have urls with long, garbled, strange characters. When I change the URL it breaks existing back links! Any way around this?
Technical SEO | | natearistotle0 -
Any value in external links to image files?
Let's say you have www.example.com. On this website, you have www.example.com/example-image.jpg. When someone links externally to this image - like below... { is < {a href="www.example.com/example-image.jpg"} {img src="www.example.com/example-image.jpg"} {/a} The external site would be using the image hosted on your site, but the image is also linked back to the same image file on your site. Does this have any value even though the link is back to the image file and not the website? Also - how much value do you guys feel image links have in relation to tech links? In terms of passing link juice and adding to a natural link profile. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | qlkasdjfw1