Best Backlink checker - OSE or Hrefs?

[AndersDK]

Hi Guys

I am looking for a new back link tool but i'm not sure which one to go for.

Should I continue using Open Site Explorer or should I go for something else like Ahrefs.com or something else?

[matbennett]

Both are quite different, so it really depends on what you are after.  I'm actually a big fan of majestiseo (just to confuse things further).  OSE is good for understanding the big picture. However I find that its crawl isn't anywhere deep enough for the stuff I work on - particularly in terms of deep pages on large authority sites.  Example:  links from the bbc are almost the holy grail for some of the projects that I work on, but OSE often misses them.

Ahrefs is better, and majestic goes deeper still. The down-side of that is that you get a lot more low quality stuff to sort through.

In terms of majestic v ahrefs, ahrefs definitely wins in terms of interface / tools.  I'm an excel guy though, so it is all about the data for me - hence majestic being my "weapon of choice".