Competitor analysis and broken links
-
I have just been looking at a competitors links and have discovered some of the links they have obtained dont actually exist when clicking through to the directory or blog in question, although still appear in opensiteexplorer.
Is this common? and is it just a sign of bad link building practices?
-
Well open site explorer is your friend! The best way to get a feel for evaluating link profiles is just to dive in and look at the link profiles of lots of sites - sites that rank, sites that don't and sites that should! Remember to take a good look at the sites themselves to get a feel for their layout, relevance and and high level feel for their authority. (humans are pretty good at evaluating this!)
There are tools out there that will help you profile backlinks (such as Link Detective (http://www.linkdetective.com/) (which seems to be down at the moment)
Here's an articles from the SEOmoz blog to get you started::
How to Check Which Links Can Harm Your Site's Rankings
I don't know if you've got the SEO Toolbar installed (http://www.seomoz.org/seo-toolbar), it's a great way to keep an eye on sites as you surt and an easy way to jump into digging into a sites ranking factors.
More than anything else, I would say that the most important thing is to develop an inquisitive nature!
Good luck!
<object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="ff-tab-21"> <param name="counter" value="369"></object>
-
Thanks Doug
I guess I need to do some more homework on evaluating links. Whats the best way of going about this?
-
Open site explorer is a snapshot of the web as seen at a particular moment in time.
You can't count on any links being permanent. The URL of the linking page can change over time (especially true where you have paginated comments and your/your competitors comments drift down over time.)
I don't think you can automatically assume that disappearing links are a sign of bad link building practices, but I suspect it's a reasonable warning sign to dig a little deeper.
If these links are all blogs / directory links then I'd say that can be a good indicator of low value/risky link building.
You need to look at the nature of the links, their authority and value. Do they exist solely to provide a link or is there another reason. Is the site on which the link existed related to the target site and is it reasonable to believe that a link would belong there. Is there a reason why you'd want to remove them if they were your links.
Especially when you've got a competitive niche, it makes sense to keep an eye on your competitors ranking and then look at reasons behind any changes. I've heard of anecdotal stories of site moving from page 2 to the top of page 1 just by tidying up their link profiles.
<object id="plugin0" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" width="0" height="0" type="application/x-dgnria"><param name="tabId" value="ff-tab-1"> <param name="counter" value="16"></object>
-
That particular competitor might have made the link a while back before the recent Google updates and after the update they might have implemented link removal campaigns removing the links that might harm the site's ranking. OS explorer's data is refreshed once a month, and in some cases more than that. So If you click on those link, they might have been removed already by your competitor.
Hope that helps !
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
-
Spam Links
Hi everyone, I've just joined the Moz community and after completing our first site crawl I've discovered that we have approximately 200 links with a spam score of over 50%. Should I just disavow all these links or is their a formula to deciding which links to disavow? Thanks in Advance Steve
Link Building | | StevenWalley0 -
About Link Earning?
I own an e-commerce store and I am get started with my SEO strategy. I know content is extremely important when it comes to link building, however for an e-commerce store what can I do as far as content. So far my only idea is blog posts. It's a furniture store so videos are really hard to do. The blog posts relate to home decor and interior design. My question is if people are going to be linking to my blog, will this help my website rank for product terms? The blog is part of the website, websitename.com/blog.
Link Building | | The_Kiwi_Man0 -
What is the process of link earning to avoid link building?
Hi All, I want process to earning links for new SEO 2014. Can anybody explain? Thanks, Akhilesh
Link Building | | dotlineseo0 -
Link building strategy - my weak link!
Please help me understand link building. I've read the articles on Moz, but they seem vague to me. Specific questions: 1. How do I get my webpage on good quality sites? 2. Guest blogging? Good or not? 3. What about when people pick up one of our blog stories and publish it on their site with a link back? Is that bad now because it is duplicate content??? 4. Forum posts with a link in the signature? Good or not? 5. Directories - I get it that these are no longer good... are they severely negative? Should I take them down. 6. PR - Looks like this is bad... right??? 7. Youtube - any value? 8. Pinterst, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram? Any value to backlinks here? 9. What about sites like redit? 10. Anything else I should consider?
Link Building | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Track the links of your competitors?
What are the best tools to find the links gained on (monthly basis) by your competitors?
Link Building | | wellnesswooz0 -
About link again
I checked all links to my site (not too many at all) http://oasisoftheseasallureoftheseas.com/ and discovered that very important link – from my supplier,
Link Building | | NadiaFL
Royal Caribbean International is not listed at all. Some links with ‘nofollow’ tags show up but not this one. RCI source here http://www.royalcaribbean.com/customersupport/travelagent/processLocate.do?selectedCountry=USA&taname=&city=&state=&zip=34994&.x=22&.y=6 Any ideas?0 -
Total Links vs Ext. Followed Links
Hi I'm fairly new to SEO and SEOMOZ. I've created a campaign for my own site and I've added 3 competitor sites. There are 1,385 total links to my site and a massive 49,450 links to one of my competitor's site. However under "Ext. Followed Links", there are 1,045 to my site and only 911 to the same competitor site. Am I correct that it is the "Ext. Followed Links" which are more important from an SEO point of view as the other links have the "no follow" attribute set? Or have I got this wrong? Thanks James
Link Building | | avecsys0 -
Many competitor's backlinks are in content anchor links. Ho do I get these same links?
Hi I managed to open up OSE. I'm finding that much of the competition's backlinks are in content anchor text links. Am I supposed to get backlinks from these same pages using the same anchor text but linking back to my page or is that allowed? If so, how do I get these in content blog post links? Thanks. Sunil.
Link Building | | sunilmuse0