undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. Moz Tools
  3. Moz Pro
  4. Link Explorer
  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
3
7
4.1k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • TaylorRHawkins
    TaylorRHawkins last edited by Jun 14, 2017, 4:53 PM

    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 Sep 8, 2017, 3:16 PM Sep 8, 2017, 3:16 PM

      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
      • topic:timeago_earlier,15 days
      • TaylorRHawkins
        TaylorRHawkins last edited by Aug 24, 2017, 2:39 PM Aug 24, 2017, 2:39 PM

        Bump.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • topic:timeago_earlier,16 days
        • TaylorRHawkins
          TaylorRHawkins last edited by Aug 8, 2017, 6:12 PM Aug 8, 2017, 6:12 PM

          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
          • topic:timeago_earlier,2 months
          • CopyChrisSEO
            CopyChrisSEO @TaylorRHawkins last edited by Jun 19, 2017, 4:22 PM Jun 19, 2017, 4:19 PM

            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 Jun 19, 2017, 1:46 PM Jun 19, 2017, 1:46 PM

              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 Jun 19, 2017, 4:19 PM Reply Quote 2
              • CopyChrisSEO
                CopyChrisSEO last edited by Jun 14, 2017, 7:13 PM Jun 14, 2017, 7:08 PM

                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 Jun 19, 2017, 1:46 PM Reply Quote 3
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • yenu

                  How to submit backlinks?

                  Hello  guys! Recently I have embedded the bachtuoc  site link on one of other people's more popular sites. But after I checked with Moz, it turns out that there are no backlinks from the site? May I know is there any option to forcefully moz bot to crawl my all site specially. Thanks!

                  Link Explorer | Jan 19, 2023, 2:53 PM | yenu
                  0
                • Dahboss

                  My website spam score just increased all of a sudden from 1% to 67%

                  As at last week, my spam score was 1% but today I checked and it was 67% how come? I haven't built any backlinks for months now,  so I don't understand why it increased...some one please help....so it could reduce back to 1% or even 0% spam score....

                  Link Explorer | Dec 14, 2020, 11:27 AM | Dahboss
                  2
                • esdda8111

                  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 | esdda8111
                  1
                • namibiagonzo

                  Why moz and ahrefs reported a remove link that is exist?

                  Hi in last few days I checked my website in moz link explorer and ahrefs and it showed lots of my backlink as removed! But when I checked this on the browser its OK is there any problem with these tools? Anyone has this problem? Thanks

                  Link Explorer | Aug 19, 2019, 10:07 PM | namibiagonzo
                  0
                • GrandRapids

                  Moz tool to estimate a website's organic traffic?

                  Moz has tons of great tools, so I was quite suprised there is nothing similar to Alexa's siteinfo tool, or SimilarWeb's site comparison tool. Am I missing something? Or does such a tool exists at Moz? Or is there a different way of estimating my competitor's traffic? It would be great if Moz would have something like that.

                  Link Explorer | Jul 10, 2018, 6:22 PM | GrandRapids
                  0
                • AFARiva

                  How do you check for .gov and .edu backlinks using the new link explorer?

                  I'm trying to do an audit but I can't seem to figure out how to find .edu and .gov backlinks from the new link explorer. Can someone please help? I'm trying to learn how as open site explorer will be replaced by the link explorer. Thank you!

                  Link Explorer | Jun 11, 2018, 11:54 AM | AFARiva
                  1
                • NHARRIS1

                  Fastest way to get new backlinks recognised by Moz?

                  Hi all, I have seen a few discussions / advice pieces around this, but wondered what the current view is on the fastest way to get new backlinks recognised by Moz? I have seen people say that the content needs to be shared (e.g. on Twitter), and advice around creating Bitly links.  I am not convinced that these techniques are working. On a related note, my website is very large.  I have around 2.5m pages.  Most of these pages are 3-4 clicks from the home page, but I have a small amount of important content much higher up in the site (1-2 clicks from the home page).  Does Moz crawl pages nearer the home page more frequently, or does it make a pass of all pages on the site before it starts at the beginning again?  If it makes a complete pass of all pages, then presumably making my site smaller will help to get Moz to see new content more quickly?  Is there any other value to be gained in making a large site smaller? Many thanks in advance, Neil.

                  Link Explorer | Apr 11, 2017, 10:20 AM | NHARRIS1
                  0
                • tybi-seochat

                  Backlinks to pdf files

                  hi.. im looking for solution how to get all backlinks to .pdf files on my site. 
                  to get list of .pdf files with backlinks. and for them list of backlinking urls. thanks a lot

                  Link Explorer | Jul 6, 2016, 1:53 PM | tybi-seochat
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.