What does "Number of Linking Root Domains" in Open Site Explorer actually mean?

[karrabarron]

I've read through the forum, but I'm confused as to what "Number of Linking Root Domains" means in the Linking Domains report. For example, if the root domain is Moz.com and the number is 135,000 does that mean there are 135,000 links from Moz pointing back to my site or does it mean there are 135,000 sites linking back to Moz?

Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

[karrabarron]

Thanks Gaston, this makes so much sense! Appreciate your added insight!

[karrabarron]

YES! I totally get it now. Thank you so much Tawny!!

[tawnycase]

That sounds correct to me - if the number of Linking Root Domains associated with SearchEngineLand is 135,000, that's links pointing to SearchEngineLand's domain, not Moz's domain.

[GastonRiera]

Hello there!
Just to help Tawny clarify this.

In those reports, " Root Domain" means just the domain. In the case of Moz, it is moz.com. This also means that they are taking into account the whole site.
So, for example, consider that you have 3 pages:

1. site.com
2. site.com/landing-page-A
3. site.com/important-keyword

On one hand, if every page has one separate link pointing, fron different sites. Let's say: example-1.com, my-blog.org and site-overseas.com
In the report, when checking for site.com, you'll fine 3 root domain links.
On the other hand, if every page ( just to keep it generalistic, but it could be applied for just onepage) gets a link from the same root domain, but from diffetent pages (let's say: site-A.net/page1, site-A.net/keyword-two and site-A/whatever) in the repport you'll see just **ONE **root domain link.

Can you see the difference?

Hope I've helped.
GR.

[karrabarron]

Thanks Tawny. So just to make sure I absolutely understand, here's another example:

If the root domain I entered in Open Site Explorer is www.moz.com and one of the root domains that appears in the resulting Linking Domains report is SearchEngineLand and the number of Linking Root Domains associated with SearchEngineLand is 135,000, that means SearchEngineLand has 135,000 sites linking back to it -- not Moz right?

[tawnycase]

Hey there! Tawny from Moz's Help Team here!

The number of Linking Root Domains you see is links from other sites pointing back to your root domain (or the root domain you entered in the search bar in Open Site Explorer). So, in your example, that would be 135,000 sites linking back to moz.com somewhere on the site.

I hope that helps! If you have any more questions, feel free to drop us a line at help@moz.com and we'll answer them for ya!