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Best Backlink checker - OSE or Hrefs?
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Hi Guys
I am looking for a new back link tool but i'm not sure which one to go for.
Should I continue using Open Site Explorer or should I go for something else like Ahrefs.com or something else?
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Both are quite different, so it really depends on what you are after. I'm actually a big fan of majestiseo (just to confuse things further). OSE is good for understanding the big picture. However I find that its crawl isn't anywhere deep enough for the stuff I work on - particularly in terms of deep pages on large authority sites. Example: links from the bbc are almost the holy grail for some of the projects that I work on, but OSE often misses them.
Ahrefs is better, and majestic goes deeper still. The down-side of that is that you get a lot more low quality stuff to sort through.
In terms of majestic v ahrefs, ahrefs definitely wins in terms of interface / tools. I'm an excel guy though, so it is all about the data for me - hence majestic being my "weapon of choice".
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