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.
What is the difference between "external backlinks" & "referring domains" on Majestic SEO?
-
According to Majestic SEO's glossary, a "Referring domain, also known as "ref domain", is a domain from which a backlink is pointing to a page or link."
Given this definition, I'm not sure what an external backlink is?
-
If you've noticed this anomaly in SEOmoz tools, email the SEOmoz help desk. If you've seen it in Majestic SEO, email their help desk -- SEOmoz and Majestic are two separate companies with two separate tools.
- topic:timeago_earlier,2 months
-
If you find that example again, email help@seomoz.org and let them know so they can either see if it's a bug or let you know why it's happening.
-
You've stumped me there. Maybe its not giving you an accurate count of backlinks, or maybe its counting the www and non-www version of the domain name as 2?
-
I've noticed some cases where the referring domains are more than external backlinks. How would that be possible?
-
Say you had links coming from example.com/page1.html and example.com/page2.html. You would have 2 external backlinks from one referring domain.
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
-
What is the relationship between inbound links and linking domains?
In doing competitor research, there's a specific competitor that has fewer linking domains, but dramatically more inbound links. How do these two relate to each other? I do have a higher domain authority and more internal followed links with them having more internal nofollow and external (both follow and nofollow) links. I'm trying to understand how they can have 3.7k linking domains and 4.8 million inbound links while I have 4.1k linking domains and only 601k inbound links. What really defines an inbound link and what's there relationship between inbound links and linking domains?
Competitive Research | Sep 7, 2022, 7:40 AM | grayloon0 -
How do you select which keywords to push in SEO?
Hi Guys Selecting the right keywords that a website can realistically rank for is a key to gain top rankings relatively quick. I am just curious to hear how you guys do it (the methodology) when selecting which keywords to push? I mean you need to check the competition for each keyword as well so how to check this quickly to see what we realistically can rank for? Cheers John
Competitive Research | Apr 19, 2024, 6:52 AM | igniterman751 -
How can you rank nr 1 for high competitive keyword with low DA and only 1 backlink?
Hi! Was wondering if anyone can explain this a bit clearer...
Competitive Research | Nov 6, 2015, 4:49 AM | AleksanderOlsen
Image attatched... How is it possible to rank on Google Norway for spot nr.1 (page in English language) and spot nr.2 (page in Norwegian language) , when all you competitors have higher PA, DA and a lot more backlinks and better on-page optimization according to MOZ? Is there something I´m misunderstanding?
Just when I thought SEO started to make sense 😞 7sXH00d0 -
Does link equity still count after an expired domain is purchased?
Hi guys, We've recently noticed a (very) minor competitor competing with us, as well as some of our industry's biggest names, in the Google SERPs - and the reason why has us absolutely stumped. Aside from an awful website from an aesthetic/UX point of view, their on-site content is horribly over-optimised, with keywords on the homepage even STRONG TAGGED for crying out loud! A backlink check using OSE and Ahrefs found 19 linking domains - most of which were just trash - but there were 5 that boasted some decent DA, the highest being 43. The thing is, these 5 sites are all very generic industry-relevant "blogs" that provide exceptionally poor quality content. The thing is, they have some very high quality backlinks (the BBC, the Guardian and CNN to name just three) acquired when the websites were something different entirely. The competitor has basically bought expired domains, turned them into basic websites related to our industry and linked them to their main domain. My question then is: is this competitor benefiting from the very high quality links that are pointing at sites that are then linked to their main domain? I found an article from 2009 that suggested old links stop counting after being purchased by someone else, but we are stumped as to why they could be otherwise. Thanks in advance everyone! John
Competitive Research | Mar 12, 2015, 7:16 AM | NAHL-14300 -
History of Page or Domain Authority...how?
Hi everyone, is there a way (tools) to see the "history" of any given website in terms of Page or Domain Authority? Like if I went to Alexa and typed in www.angieslist.com it tells me the site ranks #**2,691 **Globally and #670 in the USA. But, is there a way to see how the rank has gone up over time, or where it was a year, two or more ago? Thanks
Competitive Research | Apr 8, 2014, 3:04 PM | co.mc0 -
Is it possible to create "hidden" backlinks?
Don't miss interpret this... I DON'T mean hidden backlinks that you would stick on a page using html/css. What I am trying to figure out is if it's possible to create backlinks from sites that aren't visible by crawlers or SEO tools like Moz?... Does that make sense? Another words, let's say I place a visible/genuine/follow backlink to any external website from my blog. Is there a way to keep crawlers like Moz or other SEO tools from "seeing it"?
Competitive Research | Jan 11, 2014, 9:44 PM | co.mc0 -
Free tools to find country of origin of backlinks/urls
Hey are there any free tools out there which can allow me to insert a large list of urls, and it determines the country of origin of the domain. I know the paid version of majestic does, but i was wondering if theres any free tools? Cheers, Chris
Competitive Research | Dec 11, 2012, 7:00 PM | monster990 -
Different SERP results in browsers / different result pages for keyword in browser
Hi, I am making the SEO reports for a travel agency and I have the following problem. SEOmoz shows me the website is on page 1, for a keyword. Yesterday, a google search with firefox showed me the same position, while, searching from a different computer on google using firefox gave me another position. The URL shown was also different. I asked some friends to do the search - the results were the same - first page. Today, firefox shows me the second URL on the 4'th page, and the result from the first page of google does not appear, while Chrome still shows me the first URL on the first page. I have no idea why the URL that was ranking well does not appear on the first page with Firefox, and why it appears on the first page with Chrome, or why the URL that was ranking bad -meaning page 4, appears on Firefox but does not appear on Chrome. Can someone give me some advice?
Competitive Research | Dec 8, 2011, 8:22 AM | Netlogiq0