Competitive .edu Research via Open Site Explorer
-
I was using open site explorer and trying to figure out how my competitors are getting so many .edu links. Now I won't mention any names here but I am trying to figure out why almost all their links point to downloads of documents. Here are a few of the examples of sites I keep finding...
faculty.unlv.edu/jensen/CEE_468/GISTutorialWorkbook/tutorial11/LandUsePgh.lpk?arrow=nws&read=24922
<colgroup><col width="3111"></colgroup>
-
I like the opensiteexplorer method. The difficulty is what to do once you create the list of .edu's. We're using some of the other blogs on the subject on seomoz.
-
Hey John,We have made some updates to our crawling so it will go deeper into sites, and this is the first launch including the new metrics. We've discovered a bug, however, in the updated crawler. The first issue is the crawler is counting a binary file as a link, but the larger issue, is that the crawler doesn’t really know how to handle these types of files. This bug is causing some links to be improperly associated with certain domains. This is probably why you’re seeing your competitor have these .edu links - they're probably incorrectly associated with their site.
There are two steps to addressing this issue: changing how the crawler sees these file types and then fixing how the crawler handles these file types. We have made improvements to our algorithm so that we will be able to handle the majority of these files correctly, however, this update will need about a month to propagate. The fix for this issue probably won’t be seen for two more updates, meaning late September. Our improvements should catch most of the issues, but there still could be a few cases we haven't addressed. If this happens, don't hesitate to let us know; we love feedback since it helps us improve and make our index even better!The next step is to fix how our crawlers handle binary file links and prevent them from being improperly associated with certain domains. We are in the process of working through that issue right now. We’re doing everything we can to resolve this bug as we know it is alarming to see these “questionable” links associated to either your site or your competitors sites.
I hope this helps answer your questions around these .edu links, but let me know if you have any more questions!
Thanks,
Carin -
Hi John,
I think you might be seeing a known bug in OSE about links coming from documents. I'm going to ask one of the Linkscape people to come in and comment, but these might not be real links.
-
hi,
It seems the competition is just syndicating documents via education facilities to acquire links. to be honest links on low end tutorial sections where documents can be syndicated are not that great, they will hold some value yet it will not be that strong. I have seen this with competitors it is the same as paying off students to make blogs on edu blogs about your brand their are soo many un ethical things in the market which I wouldn't advise people to do ever.
You can be smart about it and acquire far better links for example if you do free work for a uni or you sponsor a university event, you just need to brain storm quality ways to achieve links on edu sites.
Regards
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 Can I Solve a Spam Score Of 33% On A Site
Goof Day pls Am having S Spam Score Of 33% On my Blog Naijazeal.Com And I Check In my Google webmaster and i analyze all the link i see and i see little with high spam Score But Checking My Spam Score on Moz, It showi Extermal link below but most of the link showing below is not in my Seach console Pls help
Moz Pro | | DAMIDEZ0 -
Is it possible to block Moz from crawling sites?
Hi, is it possible to stop Moz from crawling a site at the server level? Not that I am looking to do this or anything, but here's why I'm asking. I have been crawling a site that is managed (currently by 2 parties), and I noticed that this week pages crawled went from 80 (last week) to 1 page!! I know, what? See my image attached... and the issues all went to zero "0"....! So is it possible that someone can't prevent Moz from crawling the site at the server level? I checked the robots.txt file on the site, but nothing there. I'm curious. dYNUwjd.jpg
Moz Pro | | co.mc0 -
I need an interlinking report for my site, is there a report in Moz or another application that tell me how all of my pages are linked to other pages on my site?
I am in the process of doing a redesign for one of my sites. I need an interlinking report for my site. Is there a report in Moz or another application that tell me how all of my pages are linked to other pages on my site?
Moz Pro | | seoflorida0 -
Where do I post this list of hacked sites?
Hey guys, Fairly new to SEOmoz but loving it so far. I was working on a new clients site a noticed some spammy links added right before the tag. Used Open site explorer to list the domains linking to the url and found nearly 300 unsuspecting domains. Some like heartresearch.com.au which just drives me craaazy, I have already emailed them. Below is the list. http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links.html?group=0&page=3&site=www.rhcie.com Short of emailing every single person can anyone suggest a forum or such that would be helpful for posting this information ? I know it's just a few links but it is frustrating to me and If I can do something about it I would like to. Thanks in advance. Jason
Moz Pro | | RedshiftWebDesign0 -
I am trying to find inbound links for one of my site urls. My question is does SEOMoz able to track all internal links as the Open Site Explorer shows 0 internal links?
It shows 0 internal links when I am pretty sure we have multiple internal links.Should we use absolute urls or relative urls for internal links?
Moz Pro | | SulekhaUSLLC0 -
Open Site explorer
I checked some of the results with OSE that ranked top on Goolge SERPS that have high Domain Authority,Page Authority 1 and content on the website's particular page is thin. How come they rank high when PA is very low?
Moz Pro | | Frost0 -
HTTPS In Open Site Explorer
Hey All I was hoping a friendly mozzer might help me out, heard they're hard to track down though 🙂 I see OSE automatically has the http:// for the URL you enter. Anyway to tell if an https:// version of a page has backlinks coming into it with OSE? Thanks! -Dan
Moz Pro | | evolvingSEO0 -
Competitive Domain Analysis: Domain Metrics value 1
Hi, I am writing this article to know the possible causes of the value of 1 domain authority, and all values of the "Competitive Analysis Domain" equal to 0. The domain was registered on February 14.
Moz Pro | | ndrrr
Is there anything I can do to solve this problem?
For example my site has some backlinks but are not displayed, the same goes for internal links. (On webmaster tools, I can see the backlinks) Thanks in advance for the answer Andrea0