Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Hidden Backlinks
-
Hi,
I hope someone can help me with this. We have a competitor who appears to be ranking No1 for a competitive search term with a very lame site and above some authoritative sites. He has been here for some time as well. When we check out his back link profile through OSE, Majestic and Ahrefs they show as only 3 backlinks from no PR sites.
However, someone pointed out that they could be using a link network that is blocking every crawler apart from Google, Yahoo and BIng.
I would like to know if there is a way to confirm this. For instance I know that we can use screaming frog to mimic Googlebot, however, if there a way to reveal the real backlinks to a site like this using any tools.
Thanks
-
You could try searching NerdyData for a search operator like below:
href="http://example.com
Make sure to leave the closing quotation mark out to account for any sub pages.
This may or may not return some different results, it's worth a shot.
-
Thanks for the advice, looks like they are creating a Silo effect and mass linking to the home page. Spotted a few links by using links:http://theredomain.com . To be honest at first because I didnt see the links I just wondered what they were doing so well to rank, but now I know they are not actually doing anything well at all, just guess I will have to sit back and wait.
Thanks
-
I know it's probably matter of curiosity and frustration. You just want to know why. In the end, however, we know what tends to win out over time, a good site that is well optimized and created quality, new content that is remarkable and getting that content in front of people. Oh, and doing an awesome job with your business. So, just focus on what you need to do to grow your own company/website and don't worry so much about your competition. It usually just wastes your time and makes you mad. Not worth it.
Good luck with your site.
-
Oh it's hard to find those types of links. Try what Chris said. You should also try putting just the URL in the google search bar to see what else comes up. There are other tactics you can do but in the end it's worthless because you can't really do anything about it. Even reporting it wont help.
Ive seen plenty of those before the last update, but now most are nowhere after the update so the algorithm has gotten better detecting those "ghost" networks.
-
I suspect that you're not going to find anything else but you could go straight to google and use the link:www.domain.com search operator to see what Google shows as back links. That search won't show you everything but should give you an idea if there's more to the picture than what's showing up in those services.
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
-
Backlinks from The Sun, New Yor Post, etc...
Hello there, Some of my competitors have backlinks from very well-known newspaper websites like New York Post or The Sun. And it is really obvious that their backlinks are paid ones. On these news websites, they don't talk about ghost writing stuff or "partnership" for backlinks. They only write about banner advertising. So I was wondering how they can get a backlink from them.
Link Building | | Veptune
Do some writers sell those backlinks somewhere else, under the table? Are they in contact with SEO agencies who paid them and if this is the case, does their "manager" know it? or does the company directly have partnerships with SEO agencies? Basically, how to get a backlink from the NY Post or The Sun ? Thanks0 -
All backlinks not showing on my website
hey folks, i am fairly new to SEO and i have noticed that i have backlinks that tools like ubersuggest or SEM rush are nothshowing my product is lazyapply.com. -> It's an automated job search application can anyone suggest me what should id do ? PS - for example i have backlink from crunchbase.com but my website is not showing me that
Link Building | | viveklazy0 -
Backlinks on Moz not on Google Search Console
Moz is showing thousands of backlinks to my site that are not showing up on Google Search Console - which is good because those links were created by some spammer in Pakistan somewhere. I haven't yet submitted a disavow report to Google of well over 10K links because the list keeps growing every day with new backlinks that have been rerouted to a 404 page. I have asked Google to clarify and they put my question on their forum for an answer, which I'm still waiting for - so I thought I'd try my luck here. My question... If Moz does not match Google Search Console, and backlinks are important to results, how valid is the ranking that Moz creates to let me know how I'm doing in this competition and if I'm improving or not. If the goal is to get Google to pay attention and I use Moz to help me figure out how to do this, how can I do that if the backlink information isn't the same - by literally over 10 000 backlinks created by some spammer doing odd things... They've included the url from their deleted profile on my site with 100s of other urls, including Moz.com and are posting them everywhere with their preferred anchor text. Moz ranking considers the thousands of spam backlinks I can't get rid of and Google ignores them or disavows them. So isn't the rankings, data, and graphs apples and bananas? How can I know what my site's strength really is and if I'm improving or not if the data doesn't match? Complete SEO Novice Shannon Peel
Link Building | | MarketAPeel
Brand Storyteller
MarketAPeel0 -
Blog post outreach for backlinks
Hi all, My understanding of obtaining backlinks by way of blogpost outreach is that it's best to include several outbound links to related high domain websites within blog post copy (as well as a link to the website you're marketing, obviously) such as this post https://www.scoopearth.com/why-should-you-use-royalty-free-music-for-youtube-videos/ or this one https://small-bizsense.com/how-to-create-quality-content-for-your-business/. However, I've recently read a few articles that suggest that from a human perspective only having one clear link in the copy, such as this post https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment/movies/the-benefits-of-royalty-free-cinematic-music-for-your-videos/, increases the chance of the reader visiting the site in question. I guess the thinking is that if there's only one link to be clicked on it increases the chances of click-thru, as opposed to the reader possibly clicking on another external link that's only there because of current SEO advice. So is it best to follow SEO guidelines and include several outbound links within guest blog posts, or is it better to only have the one link to your client's site (to focus the readers attention on it)?
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD0 -
Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links
Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne
Link Building | | NCOREGSEO0 -
Does LinkedIn Pulse Backlinks add to domain authority?
I'm working on linkbuilding and content partnerships to drive referral traffic and boost our page ranking and domain authority. I wanted to check and see if Medium and LinkedIn Pule backlinking work just as well as other sites? Best, Jonathan
Link Building | | kjomalley0 -
NoFollow & Directory Scraper Backlinks
I was wondering how important it was to remove/disavow: NoFollow backlinks - many ("buy viagra" etc). Directory backlinks - many questionable/generic directories. Obviously the focus is the equity passing links but both of the above constitute a significant proportion of backlinks to the site - I've seen that "scrapers" are seen as natural and obviously NoFollow do not pass link juice - but does the sheer number have a bearing and therefore make them equally important to address? Thanks in advance for your responses. Regards
Link Building | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Are backlinks to a domain that redirects useless?
I am working on trying to get backlinks. We are currently redirecting a few Domains to our current domain name. One of the Domains that is redirecting is the main Domain, we will be advertising in the near future. Can I send backlinks to the redirected URL or does it only carry link juice if it is to the main Domain?
Link Building | | hfranz0