How accurate is Open Site Explorer?
-
I noticed for one of my sites, a large number of links do not show up in Open Site Explorer, including some of my stronger links. That being the case, how much weight can I put on using these tools to compare sites?
I'm not trying to bash here, I really like the tools but if my PA is 29 and my competition is 34, how much weight can I put on these numbers? Or if it says my site has 50 links from 25 domains and my competition has 60 links from 30 domains, these numbers obviously aren't very accurate? So how much weight can I put on these comparisons? Are there better tools?
-
I agree with Ryan completely. I would only add that the ultimate metric is your ranking for keywords, and as you are the only one who knows what is happening to your site and link profile, you need to track and measure everything to see what effect your changes have.
Link scape is a great tool, and certainly one of the best on the planet. But it, like any of the tools need to be assessed with an understanding of the task they undertake, their methodology in doing so, and a clear understanding that it, and all tools , are guides, mere hints if you will, as to what is happening in the hallowed halls of Google search.
-
OSE is dependent upon the Linkscape index. The Linkscape database is refreshed about once per month and contains the top 25% of web pages. For SEO, that's mostly what matters. The index was last updated July 25th.
It can take 60+ days for you to have visibility to a link in OSE. It depends upon when the link was created and when Linkscape began crawling the internet.
It's a great tool to use if you understand it's limitations.
-
That's what I figured. I'm just surprised that it seems as if the majority of my sites stronger links aren't showing up. Actually, after I asked this question I began setting up an account with Majestic SEO.
What do you find seomoz most helpful for then, if you don't mind me asking?
-
I can't speak to how thorough OSE is. I know they don't find every link, but in my experience, they seemed to find most of the strong links. I can suggest Majestic SEO for a very thorough, but not free, backlink profile.
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
-
How to make Seo Tools Site serves ?
hello i want to add seo tools at my site for users i want my visitors able to use pagerank checker , link tracker , backlinks checker , etc - and keyword tools , domain tools , Analytics and Reporting. something like http://smallseotools.com/ what scripts i need ? can i do this all with wordpress ? Thanks 🙂
Moz Pro | | Wagdys0 -
Why doesn't OSE show results from sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, etc.?
I know OSE used to provide link data from these domains. But I have been doing link profile lookups on sites that I know have links from these domains - and they don't show up in my results. Just to make sure, they don't even show up when I sort the sites by domain authority.
Moz Pro | | ProspectMX0 -
Is ther any wordpress pluggin to ad a foro question like this blog or like yahoo answers to my site
Is ther any wordpress pluggin to ad a foro question like this blog or like yahoo answers to my site
Moz Pro | | maestrosonrisas0 -
How do I retrieve crawl and ranking data about a site from the past?
Hey. One of my main clients has asked to see the crawl data and rankings data for the past eight months. He wants to have tangible evidence of the effects of Penguin. I would like that info too. Is it possible to retrieve that information on a weekly crawl and ranking basis through SEO Moz and if so, how do you do it? I simply want to show a graph, timeline and brief explanation across several main keywords... Help me as you guys always do - You rock Best Ben
Moz Pro | | creativeguy0 -
Link buying: finding sites based on criteria
Hi. I'm looking to get links to my site from blogs/sites/pages that fit this criteria: niche: IT, electronics, product reviews Minimum PR: 2 Maximum 20 external links Is there an automated tool that can help me discover these site?
Moz Pro | | seo_marker0 -
Open Site Explorer: Facebook Likes Accuracy
I show in open site explorer that I have 8 Facebook likes for my domain but I actually have 1500+ Facebook likes. Am I missing something?
Moz Pro | | fibers1 -
Why is my site showing a redirect that doesn't exist?
I have two sites. www.plasticandfoampackaging.com www.flyfitters.com Previously I had flyfitters 301 redirecting to plasticandfoampackaging. I stopped that about a month ago. I moved the nameservers and stopped the redirect. I am a novice but it seems to be working perfectly. However, SEOMOZ is showing that the redirect still exists. Does the site need to be recrawled or do I need to update the info somewhere? Please advise. Thanks Patrick
Moz Pro | | PlasticandFoamPackaging0 -
My Campaign just picked up the .com.au site and is showing data
I've got a campaign set up here in SEOmoz and it appears that it just started picking up data for a site that is not mine. Our site is examplesite.com and i noticed that SEOmoz has begun including examplesite.com.au and is showing 20,000 302's from this site. The .com.au site is in no way related to our business and should not be tracked in our campaign. Has this happened to anyone else?
Moz Pro | | WP_SEO0