This is a great response. Thanks for this!

Thanks for the update!

I would imagine that the date of which a link was acquired does, in fact, impact the links value.

More importantly, though, I would say it is much more important that you keep getting new links - For instance, if you got a few backlinks on really great sites a few years back and then just let those sit without acquiring new links, Google might think your company has dropped in relevance and that people no longer care about you.

Old, credible backlinks are good - consistently getting new backlinks is better.

I'm not sure what dictates a "published study," but I have read countless articles on how important maintaining consistent NAP-info on business listings. But I'm interested in seeing what other people have to say, so I'll comment to follow this thread.

Bump.

I'm going to comment on here again to bump this post. This is a little aggravating: I ran a report on one of our clients using OSE and it says they have 3 backlinks. I then immediately ran a report on RavenTools and their report says we have 61 backlinks.

Why would I want to use OSE if it is only going to provide me >5% of my client's backlink profiles? I simply don't understand.

I personally believe that that is far too many clients for one person (or two people with the person training under you). If they are paying you for SEO services and you haven't touched some of them in 5 months, that's a problem. These companies want to see results, and if no work is being done and there's no difference in their rankings, traffic, etc., then they will most likely leave your company. Retention is very important and it looks like the way things are structured there that you will certainly start to have clients leave...

Kris beat me to it! I was coming here to say basically the same thing.

Thanks for the well articulated response, Chris! It's much appreciated.

I'm gonna contest your last statement though, and I'd like to see what you have to say. If I use Moz to check my backlinks, and it gives me (4 root domains, 15 total links) VS. using someone else and getting (150 root domains, X amount of links) ---- How is this a good way to be equipped to act on my backlink portfolio, in regards to using Moz? I wouldn't be able to know if I have spammy backlinks, or a good amount of high quality links?

Hey everyone!

Can somebody explain to me why this keeps happening: Whenever I'm trying to backlink my competitors, I typically use RavenTools. Every time, without fail, if I put that same URL into Moz's Open Site Explorer - It gives me about 1/20th of what RavenTools shows me. Sometimes it literally comes up with 2 or 3 links total.

Unfortunately, RavenTools has a cap on how many backlink checks you can perform in a month - so once I've used those up, I have to start using OSE... But, it just doesn't work.

Does anyone else have this issue?

Thanks!