Why does OSE show different link equity for homepage with and without trailing slash?
-
Hi all,
I am working with a developer who believes OSE (Open Site Explorer) is flawed. His reasoning is that OSE shows completely different link equity and domain authority for these two URLs [company name is purposely withheld]:
and
NOTE: http://www.mydomain.com/us has been properly 301-redirecting to http://www.mydomain.com/us/ for years.
The developer's argument is that the URL that is being 301-redirected shouldn't have any link equity at all, therefore OSE is flawed.
Here is the response I would like to give him. Please feel free to poke holes, provide feedback or flat out correct me if I am wrong:
Dear inquisitive developer,
Any URL that is being linked to by another site that has link equity will get link equity passed to it. This is true even if the URL is a page that doesn't exist. What it can't do (if it doesn't exist) is then pass that link equity on to another page. Moz's OSE is showing separate link equity for the two versions of this URL because other sites have linked to both versions. The fact that one 301-redirects to the other is good and ensures that link equity from one is passing to the preferred URL. The 301-redirect does not, however, remove link equity from the first URL, but rather passes the existing link equity from one to the other.
Consequently, Moz's OSE is not flawed, but rather is displaying the link equity of one URL that is benefiting the other via a 301-redirect.
Sincerely,
Dana
-
Hi Dana!
This is perfectly accurate
-
You've explained this beautifully, the last 3 sentences specifically.
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
-
Link tracking list not finding my links
I am using the Link Tracking List to track new backlinks that I have achieved. However, the report still shows about half of them as not found... even some that have been there for several weeks. I thoroughly tested a couple of them to make sure the links were coded in html, there were no nofollow/noindex rules, the bot was not blocked etc, but still found nothing. What can I do now?
Link Explorer | | Zambezikid0 -
MozBar is showing incorrect country
The hosting server country is the UK but MozBar is showing 'Russian Federation', this is the same for all website hosted on the very same server. Why country value is 'Russian Federation'? How can that value be changed to something more accurate. Thanks.
Link Explorer | | gr8rizwan1 -
OSE 'request CSV' for links blank
After doing the link check on a domain, got 40 or so links. Clicked Request CSV The file that is downloaded contains no links. The column headings are there but no content Did this twice and got same blank file. OSE is showing the 40 links
Link Explorer | | cbpayne0 -
Open Site Explorer Showing Blank Screen
Hi Moz Community, When I go to search for backlinks for any site, I am getting a blank screen after starting the search. This is happening to every search I perform for any URL or root domain. It's been happening for about a week now and I am not able to find any solutions. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Ryan
Link Explorer | | RyanRhodesGW0 -
Inbound Links - How accurate or up-to-date is Open Site Explorer?
When I type my domain into OSE I get a list of linking domains. Most of them I have seen before and I know were active last year. However, when I click through, many of these links have been removed (which is what I wanted/requested) and some of the pages return 404. Google (via link:www.mydomain.com) doesn't show these links as active either. My question is why does OSE show them? Thanks
Link Explorer | | neilmac0 -
Do other sites linking to my page with a low domain authority affect my rankings?
Hello, my page authority 30, I see other page with an authority of 21 for example linking to us. Is this good or bad, does this affect our ranking? A lot of these don't have anchor text, I'm guessing we should reach out to these webmaster to include anchor text with the keywords we want to drive traffic to this page or make as descriptive as possible? Thanks! Laura
Link Explorer | | lauramrobinson320 -
What is the difference between - This page v this subdomain v this root domain in OSE
What is the difference between - This page v this subdomain v this root domain in OSE, while checking website backlinks See inbound links to the page, subdomain, or root domain you've entered and analyze the linking pages.
Link Explorer | | Green.landon0 -
Just Discovered Links not appearing in main index
Hi Around October, November (and ongoing since then) we had some links appear in the "just discovered" index of OSE, and yet they've never made it into the main list of domains linking to the website. We have amassed quite a few links from various domains that seem to get picked up in "Just Discovered", but not by the standard list of links to our site Is there any reason for this?
Link Explorer | | Lexica0