How accurate is Open Site Explorer?
-
I noticed for one of my sites, a large number of links do not show up in Open Site Explorer, including some of my stronger links. That being the case, how much weight can I put on using these tools to compare sites?
I'm not trying to bash here, I really like the tools but if my PA is 29 and my competition is 34, how much weight can I put on these numbers? Or if it says my site has 50 links from 25 domains and my competition has 60 links from 30 domains, these numbers obviously aren't very accurate? So how much weight can I put on these comparisons? Are there better tools?
-
I agree with Ryan completely. I would only add that the ultimate metric is your ranking for keywords, and as you are the only one who knows what is happening to your site and link profile, you need to track and measure everything to see what effect your changes have.
Link scape is a great tool, and certainly one of the best on the planet. But it, like any of the tools need to be assessed with an understanding of the task they undertake, their methodology in doing so, and a clear understanding that it, and all tools , are guides, mere hints if you will, as to what is happening in the hallowed halls of Google search.
-
OSE is dependent upon the Linkscape index. The Linkscape database is refreshed about once per month and contains the top 25% of web pages. For SEO, that's mostly what matters. The index was last updated July 25th.
It can take 60+ days for you to have visibility to a link in OSE. It depends upon when the link was created and when Linkscape began crawling the internet.
It's a great tool to use if you understand it's limitations.
-
That's what I figured. I'm just surprised that it seems as if the majority of my sites stronger links aren't showing up. Actually, after I asked this question I began setting up an account with Majestic SEO.
What do you find seomoz most helpful for then, if you don't mind me asking?
-
I can't speak to how thorough OSE is. I know they don't find every link, but in my experience, they seemed to find most of the strong links. I can suggest Majestic SEO for a very thorough, but not free, backlink profile.
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
-
Solved Would my site's DA be transferred if I redirect to another?
Re: How to create link from google redirect? I am thinking of changing my domain name from https://experts.ng to https://expertsclan.com and wondering if my DA could be transferred to the new site
Moz Pro | | dodo1234 -
Search Console says 111 links. Moz says 3\. Do I have a site problem?
I understand that Moz doesn't show all links; but i would think that out of 111 links from 43 root domains, they'd at least show 20 or 30 root domains. I definitely have more than 3 credible sites linking back to me. So do I have an issue? I've been trying to get my site ranking for 9 months, and I've tried EVERYTHING. Still no significant movement. Please help me figure out what's going on. I've been trying to get my site ranking for 9 months, and I've tried EVERYTHING. Still no significant movement. I'm wondering—maybe even hoping—that this will help me uncover a problem that could set the whole thing back on course. Please help me figure out what's going on.
Moz Pro | | jheath0 -
Get into Google : New Sites
I have a brand new website. It was created 10 days ago. How long would it take for it to show up in search results? I understand that since the site is new, there are no sites sending it backlinks. Also, i have optimized the page for my keyword "xyz" and it received an A grade. The site does not figure even in the top 50 results. Please help me out. It is a one page web application that needs to drive traffic to survive.
Moz Pro | | dl_s0 -
Open site explorer
"Unable to retrieve linking pages on this anchor at this time." This is the notice I get when trying to see links for anchor text. Can someone help?
Moz Pro | | Joseph-Green-SEO0 -
Seomoz and site explorer completely different
seomoz and site explorer completely different results on own site and competitors on moz i am ahead in all aspects in site explorer i am way off par...why
Moz Pro | | lordmoose85450 -
Is anybody else having great difficulty in finding good link opportunities on Open Site Explorer?
I've been using OSE for a while now, and I'm struggling to see any value in it. When I search my competitors link profiles, I find just hundreds and hundreds of crappy reciprocal links, splogs or the like. I have to go through days and days (thousands of links) before I find anything worth using. Is anybody having this sort of problem? Thanks
Moz Pro | | kevinmorley0 -
Why does Open Site Explorer show less inbound links than yahoo site Explorer?
Hello, We have a question regarding inbound link measurement. We used to measure our inbound links with yahoo site explorer. Now that it's been shut down we use opensiteexplorer.org. However, Open Site Explorer only shows a fraction of inbound links compared to yahoo site explorer. For our website www.theprintspace.co.uk yahoo site explorer measured approx. 14,000 inbound links, whereas open Site Explorer only counts approx. 3,000. This is more than 10,000 links less. For our other website www.theprintspace.de Open Site Explorer also shows 3000 links less than Yahoo. How can this be? Does Open Site Explorer count the links in a different way to Yahoo? Please explain. It would be great if you could help us with this. Thank you!
Moz Pro | | Waplington0 -
Domain and Submain : which choice ? (open explorer tool)
Hi, 1/ Please could you tell me why Moztrust and Mozrank give not similar figures for subdomain and root domain ? 2/ Which is the best way for Google webmaster tool for configuring : Sub or Root domain ? 3/ Finally, regarding anchor text, Sub or root domain ? Tks for links or knowledge base about it....
Moz Pro | | mozllo2