Google and Open Site Explorer not showing as many links
-
I've noticed this past week that when you search for the links pointing to a given site, by using the "link:" operator, that Google not showing as many links as they use to.
I noticed this also with Open Site Explorer, it is not showing the detail link information as much as it did before.
Is Google trying to mask what we can view now on competitors backlinks?
If so, how can we see the backlink building that our competitors are doing?
-
Thanks Takeshi.
I am using Open Site Explorer, and notice a drop there too, but realized different results with the addition or exclusion of "www".
I have used the other tools you mentioned. I just wanted to make sure that Google wasn't trying to mask or restrict our access to seeing website's backlinks. That could really hurt our abilities to build backlinks.
Thanks for your input.
-
Google has never really shown an accurate count of backlinks.
Your best bet is to look at 3rd party backlink tools. The top 3 tools are OSE, Majestic SEO, and Ahrefs. Each of these indexes the web separately from Google, so can provide information that Google withholds. However, these are all paid tools, and are not comprehensive, but they do a good job of detecting the highest value links.
Another great free tool is the site explorer in Bing Webmaster Tools, which uses Bing's index to identify backlinks.
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
-
Site Explorer shows links as followable but they have nofollow tags
Hello, I am looking at site explorer and sites linking to my site moneyfact.co.uk. I've got thousands of links showing as 'followable' but when i check them they have rel="nofollow" tags. e.g: http://www.dianomioffers.co.uk/partner/moneyfacts.co.uk/brochures.epl?partner=93&partner_id=93&partner_variant_id=33 Why would they show as followable when the links are nofollowed? Thanks Steve
Moz Pro | | SteveBrumpton0 -
How many competitors can you track?
Hi All, How many competitors can you track in a campaign? It appears to only allow 3 competitors. Thanks,
Moz Pro | | toby-02
Toby1 -
Data from Open Site Explorer to Excel
Hello, Im having a problem with the data I pull off from Open Site Explorer. Everytime I download a report in CSV, when I open it in Excel 2007, all the information is like this: http://i.imgur.com/rwMxO.png What can I do to extract the information exactly as it appears in the Open Site Explorer with all the fields in the right place? Tks guys, Regards, Pedro Pereira [
Moz Pro | | PedroM
](<a href=)" target="_blank">a> rwMxO.png
0 -
How can I get a report of the top 500 national sites using Domain Authority and Page Authority? Does someone have to type sites in one by one on Site Explorer or is there another way?
I want to know what sites and blogs have the to rankings overall based on their Domain Authority and Page Authority - Top 500 - 1000 in nation - I want to know which ones are follow and no-follow too - Does anyone know? Has anyone run such a report yet? Thanks for help - BD
Moz Pro | | creativeguy0 -
Does Google have a direct link with facebook and twitter?
Google monitor social media. What I'm wondering is do Google use the same tools we have on Facebook's API, Twitter's API etc to use in their SERPs Or do Facebook grant Google more detailed access to see who has liked links etc. I think it's quite an interesting point as surely I can push up my own count by repeatedly sharing my own links, which wouldn't be genuine. If Google had better access they could then determine what's been faked etc.
Moz Pro | | PhotoGazza0 -
Rankings in Google UK
Hi everyone, I've posted before on this and I'm still not satisfied that the answer is correct. Basically, my ranking report is saying that hardly any of my keywords are ranking in the top 50 of Google UK. Now, I appreciate that rankings can be affected by my search history, but I've tried other computers, other IP addresses, logged out of Google, cleared cache etc.. and I'm still seeing the terms I'm wanting to rank for on the first and second pages of Google UK. What is going on? My boss is wanting to see progress with these terms - I'm confident that we're ranking well, but the report is saying otherwise.
Moz Pro | | columbus0 -
Is Open Site Explorer ignoring 301 redirects now?
I just recently saw a huge decline in the page rank of a specific page on my site. When I investigated a bit further I noticed that the drop in page rank looks like it is due to the fact that most of the links to the page come through 301 re-directs from an old page. I know you just made a change to Open Site Explorer. Did you change the way that you are treating 301 re-directs? Here is the new page: http://www.justjen.com/shop/big-sister-tshirts.htm Here is the old page: http://www.justjen.com/shop/bigsister-tshirts.htm Up until the last couple of days, the new page was showing the links from the old page in your cache, but as of today, the new page is only showing the links that go to it, not the links to the old page that is re-directed to it. If there was a change recently, was this intentional (trying to replicate the search engines better) or is it an oversight or database anomaly?
Moz Pro | | gametv0
