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    5. Is Moz's backlink checker.... just... not good?

    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.

    Is Moz's backlink checker.... just... not good?

    Link Explorer
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    • TaylorRHawkins
      TaylorRHawkins last edited by

      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!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • tawnycase
        tawnycase last edited by

        Hey there! Tawny from Moz's Help Team here. I think I can help explain why you're seeing fewer links with our tools than with others.

        Open Site Explorer and the Link Analysis page of Moz Pro Campaigns are both tied to our Mozscape index, which tends to update roughly once a month.

        Just a few points on how we compile our index:

        • We grab the most recent index.
        • We take the top 10 billion URLs with the highest MozRank (with a fixed limit on some of the larger domains).
        • We start crawling from the top down until we've crawled ~130 billion URLs

        The idea here is that we're focusing on the highest-quality links we can find, coming from the most prominent pages of authoritative sites. So, while you may not see every link for a site within our index, we're aiming to report the most valuable ones available!

        Most new sites and links will be indexed by our spiders and available in Mozscape and Open Site Explorer within 60 days, but some take even longer for many reasons - including the crawl-ability of sites, the number of inbound links to them, and the depth of pages in subdirectories. This tends to bias our index in favor of newer links. Linking data is only stored in the index for around 180 days. After that point, unless the crawler has a compelling reason to return to your site and the sites linking to yours, recrawl and reindex them, those links to your site can fall back out of our index again. That doesn't mean they're not out there on the web affecting your SEO, just that our tools don't see them anymore.

        You can see our most recently updated schedule here as well as some more technical metrics on our Mozscape API Updates page. You can also see when the last and next updates happened on the Open Site Explorer (OSE) homepage at any time.

        Since Moz focuses on quality of links over quantity, we are always focused on the most relevant links to display to our users. It's possible that Moz's index will leave out some of the lower-quality (non-link juice providing) links out of our index because of this. So, that might explain why you may see some discrepancies with what other tools may be showing.

        You can read more about how we build our index in our guide here.

        I know this is a ton of information, so if you have any questions or if I didn't make anything clear enough, please don't hesitate to ask! You can always drop us a line at help@moz.com and we'll do our best to clear up any questions you might have. 🙂

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • TaylorRHawkins
          TaylorRHawkins last edited by

          Bump.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • TaylorRHawkins
            TaylorRHawkins last edited by

            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.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • CopyChrisSEO
              CopyChrisSEO @TaylorRHawkins last edited by

              You are most welcome. And thank you for the followup.

              You are right. More results are better. The point I meant to establish was that OSE is not bad even though it could be better. It, like the other tools, provides an accurate slice of a site's back links. The size of that slice depends on the tool's resources.

              Equipped to Act Having back link profiles from these tools leaves us equipped to act. I said this in my answer as a blanket statement for link building, disavowing*, content development, and outreach. Here are some quick examples:

              Link building — If OSE (or any tool) returns 4 domains for you and 150 for your competition, It's time to get some links. Plug in some competitors to see if there are any gaps you can target, hit up Fresh Web Mentions to focus your outreach, and explore content opportunities.

              Disavow* — If your tool returns 4 root domains, 15 total links and one of those is complete spam level 10, I'd probably want to disavow* it and audit my site for more spammy links using GSC. I'd know from the slice of back links Moz provided that my site was likely to have more.

              Footnote on Disavowing* Penguin 4.0 has presented some changes for us as to the when and what to disavow. I have not had a recent and significant enough experience with spammy back links to formulate my response yet. If you find yourself the victim of bad back links, do some research before you throw the SEO book at the issue. It might save time.

              Cultivate those links,
              CopyChrisSEO and the Vizergy Team

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • TaylorRHawkins
                TaylorRHawkins @CopyChrisSEO last edited by

                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?

                CopyChrisSEO 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • CopyChrisSEO
                  CopyChrisSEO last edited by

                  Hello TaylorRHawkins and fellow Mozers,

                  I have had the pleasure of using all sorts of backlink tools, including OSE and RavenTools. In doing so, I've run into this issue. Clients notice this difference too and frequently bring it to my attention. Here's what I say: These are different tools with different limitations. They give different results because of these limitations, which always come down to resources. Whether it's the software, indexing process, or bots, all of these tools are limited by their resources.

                  Tools with larger resources typically return more results. However, even more well-funded tools, including Ahref's beefy bot and index, won't get them all. You can see this in action by comparing your site's links—as reported per your chosen tool—to Google Search Console, which Google has pinky-promised us is the full list. You'll see the difference right away.

                  So is this a bad thing? No, not at all.

                  The tools I've used (OSE, RavenTools, Ahrefs, SEM Rush, and Brightedge) all do a pretty great job of delivering an accurate slice of my competitor's backlinks across the internet. Take this data and extrapolate the backlink profile using other metrics like domain authority. You'll get a good picture of what they have—and be equipped to act on it—even if you can only see 1/20th of their backlink pie.

                  Keep crawling,
                  CopyChrisSEO and the Vizergy Team

                  TaylorRHawkins 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
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