Why don't directory backlinks show up in Open Link Explorer?
-
Why don't we see linking root domains like yelp, google, yahoo, etc? Is there any way to get a more accurate list of links to a domain where webmaster tools are not an option?
-
Thanks Everybody for the quick and thoughtful responses. I'm sure I'll find the data I'm looking for with the suggested tools.
-
Hi Scott,
Sadly, we don't have quite the server farms and processing power and PhDs that Google and Bing have to throw at this, so we don't have as robust an index. For sites that you can't verify in Google Webmaster Tools, don't forget to check out Bing. They announced at SMX Advanced in June of 2012 that they're again offering up a ton of link data for even non-verified sites.
-
SEO SpyGlass is not a half-bad additional link tool to check out as well. SpyGlass is slower and will not pull data instantaneously like Majestic or OSE. However, what I like about SpyGlass over the other tools is it will actually visit the sites and see if the links still exists, which is why it takes so long to get all the data together.
-
Open Site Explorer actually has quite a limited crawl. We don't find it unusual for OSE to report under 5% of the links that something like Majestic reports. However it does try to target the top end, so you don't end up wading through page upon page of dross.
You should also be aware that it isn't updated as often as some of the other tools. That can mean that newer links don't appear.
OSE is good for finding a picture of the links that are likely to actually be helping in rankings. If you want a full and fresh set then it probably isn't the best tool, but you might find that "full and fresh" isn't always the most useful.
As broadbeach says, Ahrefs or Majestic would be good options (I love ahrefs at the moment). Raven just uses data from OSE and majestic, so there are no new sources in that, although it is a great tool for many other reasons.
-
Hi Scott,
If you believe that Open Site Explorer doesn't show every single link (which may well happen), you can always double check a website by using the following tools:
-
Majestic SEO (very very good)
-
Ahrefs
-
Raven Tools
I believe the best one is still the link report you can find in Google Webmaster Tools (with Majestic SEO second), but as you say, that is not always an option.
Best of luck.
-
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
-
Manual Links Vs. Smart Links
Hey Everybody, Is there any downside to the smart link plugins that I see all over wordpress? Basically in short I enter a keyword and where I want that link to go (primarily internal) and set the parameters of repetition etc and it automatically adds the link to that. Now other than the obvious situation where it might put a link in an awkward place, is there anything wrong with this sort of software? Part of me things that this sort of software would not be liked by Google, and that it isn't really getting counted as a true link, but i wanted to see if there were other thoughts or experience with this.
Link Building | | HashtagHustler0 -
Links are still showing in Opensite explorer?
I did some link building for some friends last year, since then our relationship has changed & I removed the links I created. It's been 2 months & the links still show up in Open site explorer, & their website is still kicking butt. How long will it take for the links to be unassigned for their profile?
Link Building | | KristopherWho0 -
Link Detox and Link Removal
I have a question about which links to remove after running a link detox from Link Research Tools. First a little back story. I had had an SEO company link building for one of the websites I own. But I have recently stopped working with them. In the last month my rankings have near dropped off the charts. I have just recently gotten access to Google webmaster tools and noticed an unnatural link warning from back in March. So yesterday I ran link detox and it reported 19 toxic links, 120 suspicious links, and 24 healthy links. It's rather obvious that I should remove all of the toxic links. They all from sites that have been deindexed by google. But my question is a about the suspicious links. What should my criteria be for removing them? Am I better off removing them all and leaving my site with only 24 healthy links or should I personally comb through them and remove only the worst of the worst so that I leave my site with a few more links? I'd really like to get the site ready to resubmit to google as soon as I can. Thoughts? yyCOf.png
Link Building | | CobraJones950 -
Open Site Explorer
Typically when using Open Site Explorer to analyze links, how long does it take for them to show up? I have some links that are on high page ranking sites, yet they still do not show up with the Open Site Explorer. Thank you
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Backlink's using duplicate content in article directories
I've had a link build report of all the links an SEO company have got us but a simple search for some of the content in Google with phrase match brings up about 3 pages of the same content posted to different article sites. I think it is doing something but will it just be penalised over time?
Link Building | | acs1110 -
Why are Backlinks not showing up?
I've been building backlinks for about 2 months now, but the links are not showing up in seomoz. What is going on? I've built backlinks across many different domains and using a variety of techniques including: directories blog posts blog commenting pr websites industry sites that allow blog posting and press release posting industry forums Some of the links I built were from finding links competitors had and then creating a similar link, like blog commenting. In some cases I took blog articles from our site and published them on industry blog sites. I've searched for many of the pages and I CAN find them, so they ARE being indexed by Google, but they are not showing up as backlinks. I've read some posts that say it can take anywhere from 2 to 5 months or longer before the links show up. I've also read that Google's Webmaster Tools may show the links before seomoz does. Couple questions: Why don't the links show up as backlinks in seomoz? Will they show up eventually in seomoz and, if so, when? Should the links show up in Google Webmaster tools before they do in seomoz? Is there any good reason to believe some of the links will never get recognized, or should I be confident that they will eventually get recognized?
Link Building | | rickt0070 -
Directories
Hello, We are a UK based business targeting the UK market (at the moment), we are looking at placing our sites URL in directories that are based in the UK as well, should we stick to this market or should we be placing our URL in non UK based directories? Thanks Daniel
Link Building | | LushDuck0