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 does "Number of Linking Root Domains" in Open Site Explorer actually mean?
-
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!
-
Thanks Gaston, this makes so much sense! Appreciate your added insight!
-
YES! I totally get it now. Thank you so much Tawny!!
-
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.
-
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: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. -
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?
-
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!
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
-
Unsolved How to Disavow links with Google Console
I have a list of links I want to disavow, but I can't because I have a domain property so google console does not let me submit anything. What do I do?
Link Explorer | Jan 11, 2024, 5:10 AM | Ryka12340 -
Unsolved how do I check the outbound links?
Hello everyone,
Link Explorer | Mar 6, 2024, 6:57 PM | ZeonAley
I have a question about the links explorer: how do I check the outbound links? I have a website that I want to know its outbound links. Do I have to buy the Moz Pro method for that?0 -
Unsolved Links to my website are wrong
Hi, I have launch a new website, lorraine on october of 2021 and I have added it to a bunch a local and national directories to improme it local rankings. But when I get the domain authority and link data from MOZ it has only ten links and no one of them is from local/national directories. I have three questions: Do you know if it is normal that after 9 months DA is 1? Is there any problem with local/national directory links? I dont like buy links like others do but it seems the only way to improve domain authority and rankings.
Link Explorer | Jul 22, 2022, 1:36 PM | Lorraine.es1 -
Ranking keywords are not showing for my site
Hi, I have started my website 6 months ago and many of my site's keywords are ranking but when I explore my site Get YoWhatsApp in Moz site explorer, it doesn't show ranking keywords there, I'm a little bit confused about this, when my site's keywords will be shown there? Atqd4Bf
Link Explorer | Aug 6, 2020, 2:23 PM | GetYoWhatsApp0 -
My backlinks are not indexing , Added in the link tracking list too
I have waited for three days to index my backlinks on moz but still they are not indexed in moz backlink index 😞 How to index backlinks in moz so that I can track all are ok ?
Link Explorer | Jul 11, 2021, 1:09 PM | esdda81111 -
REACT site and sitemap.xml
I have a REACT site www.nettheory.com. MOZ seems to only index the homepage but not all the internally linked pages, even the sitemap.xml is there. The reason I say that is the crawl result only shows the http and https version of the homepage, no other pages mentioned. I also noticed MOZ crawl results point out my content is very thin (<50 words). As a matter of fact, it has a lot more words if the JS runs correctly. Do we know if MOZ crawls REACT or JS based sites correctly?
Link Explorer | May 25, 2018, 4:41 PM | NetTheory-Analysts0 -
Moz's new Link Explorer, including our revamped index and DA/PA scores is now open to everyone!
Hey Moz Community, Link Explorer is now open to the public! Everyone can access it via a subscription or a free Moz ‘Community’ account. As you may know by now, the brand-new Link Explorer tool is primed to replace Open Site Explorer as Moz’s link building and analysis tool. The Link Explorer project is the result of an incredible amount of perseverance and hard work by the team, and we’re proud to be able to finally share it with you — we know it’s going to revolutionize how you approach link building and make your job easier. You can read more about the tool here in Sarah Bird’s announcement post. Because Link Explorer improves on almost every aspect of Open Site Explorer, the metrics have improved, too. That means you’re likely going to see some Domain Authority and Page Authority discrepancies between OSE’s index and Link Explorer’s index. We definitely suggest you use the new DA/PA from Link Explorer, as they’re more accurate and refresh daily rather than monthly, as was the case with OSE’s index. However, we also realize that many of you use these metrics to report to your clients and colleagues, and a sudden change or fluctuation could potentially make your job harder. Which DA is the real DA? The new DA is based on a much larger index that has many improvements, several of which are designed to make the index more like Google’s than ever before. You should consider moving towards the new DA (and the old DA won’t be updated after April 26th 2018, so the sooner the better). While there will be fluctuations as we improve the model and add features to the index, we expect it to remain largely stable and to be a far more accurate picture of a site’s authority according to how it’s seen by Google. Why is Link Explorer’s DA/PA considered better than OSE’s, and which should I trust? The larger link index with improved crawl selection allows us to produce a stronger model that includes a much larger proportion of the web. That being said, DA and PA should always be considered in the context of your competitors. A drop in PA or DA relative to the old OSE is of little concern if your competitors saw similar movement. Is Domain Authority/Page Authority an absolute score or a relative one? Both DA and PA are relative to the Internet as a whole. If Facebook acquired a billion new links, everyone’s PA and DA would drop relative to Facebook. Because of this, it’s always best to look at PA and DA in comparison to your competitors. What does a drop/raise in DA mean in Link Explorer vs OSE? How can I explain this to my clients when I’m reporting it? DA and PA should always be considered in the context of your competitors. A drop or raise in PA or DA relative to the old OSE is of little concern if your competitors saw similar movement. Reporting that your site has moved from a DA of 45 to a DA of 42 doesn’t tell the whole story, but reporting that your site has a DA of 42 while your main competitor moved from a 43 to a 37 shows that, relative to the sites you’re competing against in the SERPs, your site has significantly more authority and ranking power. What’s happening to MozTrust and MozRank and why, and what should I replace those with? The improvements to our DA/PA and Spam Score metrics now now account for more important nuances in helping you determine one site’s ability to rank higher than another. Because they no longer correlate with Google’s ranking model as well as they used to, MozRank and MozTrust are being deprecated for better metrics. Users should rely on Page Authority, Domain Authority, and Spam Score to determine the importance and quality of pages, domains, and links. I have historical data I use to help my clients benchmark their progress. What do I do now that DA is calculated differently? You should annotate any KPI changes referencing the change in DA and PA. However, most importantly, you should compare those changes to your competitors, as this will best show how strong your site’s authority is relative to the sites you’re competing against in the SERPs. We take updating our metrics very seriously, and our last major update to the model was 7 years ago. Users of Domain Authority and Page Authority can expect us to continue to produce steady, reliable metrics for the long haul, and only make changes to these metrics when we believe the benefits dramatically outweigh the stability of the metric. Do you have any questions about the new metrics? Anticipating a tough time reporting changes to clients or bosses? Metrics, features or functionality missing that you would want to see? Let us know in the thread, and we’ll work to find a good answer for you. Hope you enjoy the new Link Explorer product and the amazing new link index powering it. We are very excited to provide this valuable data to our community and customers.
Link Explorer | Nov 16, 2018, 6:40 AM | IanWatson9 -
Why doesn't my site show up in Moz Site Explorer
I started this website about 2 months ago, www.guyetteroofing.com. I know it still needs a lot of work, but I can't find any information on it on the site explorer tool.
Link Explorer | Sep 2, 2014, 6:21 PM | billyguyette1