Backlink Database: Qualitative Analysis
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 5:50 am
We then examined the qualitative characteristics of each backlink database.
Backlink coverage
While larger sites with huge monthly traffic volumes may be in a better position to analyze their backlink profiles, smaller sites with relatively low traffic levels often struggle to access relevant data, despite actually having at least one backlink.
Semrush found at least one referring domain hong kong phone number for whatsapp for 99.5% of all URLs analyzed, more than any other tool. Since we were comparing the same set of domains between tools, this means that Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic show less data than Semrush in their backlink analysis.
Let's take a look at what this means for the quality of backlink information in the marketplace.
If Moz showed the most referring domains, does that mean it is the best backlink analytics provider?
As we showed at the beginning of the study, Moz found the highest total number of referring domains, but there’s more to this data than just absolute numbers.
Semrush keeps its backlink database up to date by removing backlinks that haven't been seen for six months. Moz doesn't show the last time a backlink was seen, so we used Moz's API to find out this information.
We took a random sample of 100 smaller domains (with a total of 3,500 reported backlinks) from the initial set to take a closer look at Moz from a backlink refresh perspective.
img-semblog
The result was that almost half of these backlinks were older than the last six months.
We noticed that Moz was reporting backlinks from outdated websites, so we decided to dig deeper and found, for example, that the tool was still showing backlinks from domains like plus.google.com, which no longer exist, so the total number of legitimate inbound links was clearly skewed.
In some cases, the links reported by Moz could not actually be reached.
This may explain why Moz shows such high numbers for referring domains: old referring domains appear to remain in the database.
An outdated backlink database can potentially hinder any off-page efforts and lead to false impressions about your SEO performance, which, of course, can lead to poor decisions.
Backlink coverage
While larger sites with huge monthly traffic volumes may be in a better position to analyze their backlink profiles, smaller sites with relatively low traffic levels often struggle to access relevant data, despite actually having at least one backlink.
Semrush found at least one referring domain hong kong phone number for whatsapp for 99.5% of all URLs analyzed, more than any other tool. Since we were comparing the same set of domains between tools, this means that Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic show less data than Semrush in their backlink analysis.
Let's take a look at what this means for the quality of backlink information in the marketplace.
If Moz showed the most referring domains, does that mean it is the best backlink analytics provider?
As we showed at the beginning of the study, Moz found the highest total number of referring domains, but there’s more to this data than just absolute numbers.
Semrush keeps its backlink database up to date by removing backlinks that haven't been seen for six months. Moz doesn't show the last time a backlink was seen, so we used Moz's API to find out this information.
We took a random sample of 100 smaller domains (with a total of 3,500 reported backlinks) from the initial set to take a closer look at Moz from a backlink refresh perspective.
img-semblog
The result was that almost half of these backlinks were older than the last six months.
We noticed that Moz was reporting backlinks from outdated websites, so we decided to dig deeper and found, for example, that the tool was still showing backlinks from domains like plus.google.com, which no longer exist, so the total number of legitimate inbound links was clearly skewed.
In some cases, the links reported by Moz could not actually be reached.
This may explain why Moz shows such high numbers for referring domains: old referring domains appear to remain in the database.
An outdated backlink database can potentially hinder any off-page efforts and lead to false impressions about your SEO performance, which, of course, can lead to poor decisions.