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SEO SpyGlass vs Other Backlink Checkers: the Story of One Test

January 15th, 2013 | Link-Assistant.Com | Posted in category Link Building Search Engine Optimization SEO Tools

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Dear SEO SpyGlass users,

I am writing this as an answer to many questions that arose after Matthew Woodward published the results of his experiment where he compared the performance of the industry’s several top backlink checkers:

  • SEO SpyGlass
  • Majestic SEO
  • Ahrefs
  • Open Site Explorer (SEOmoz)
  • Raven Tools

The experiment involved 3 websites and the average number of backlinks found on the three websites was as follows:

backlink checkers comparison chart

Needless to say I was surprised at these results. As you know, we run tests in-house on a regular basis, to make sure that SEO SpyGlass stands to its status of the most data-rich backlink checker. So it was quite surprising, why on the three sites tested by Matthew, SEO SpyGlass was observed as the poorest performer.

And I wasn’t the only one to get surprised. Some SEO SpyGlass users commented that they would have expected more from SEO SpyGlass:

backlink checkers review

backlink checkers comparison

Unfortunately, the analyzed sites weren't revealed

Some commenters in fact asked Matthew to reveal the websites he analyzed, but unfortunately he cannot provide the info. Therefore, we didn't get a chance to test the same sites in-house, to see with our own eyes, what SEO SpyGlass and other tools actually show and what might be wrong about SEO SpyGlass (if anything at all was wrong).

Therefore, I decided to do my own little study on other URLs, to see how results compare in different tools.

What made the results so different?

After just a few minutes, I realized the reason for such big difference in the number of backlinks is most likely the methodology used by the blogger.

Certain nuances of how the analyzed backlink checkers store, organize and present data were not taken into account.  And these nuances are of extreme importance. So, what I discovered in the course of my experiment will be revealed below.

(NB: In this post, I will use the results I got for the website http://www.musicinst.org)

What "backlink data" other checkers showed

1. Open Site Explorer's "Total Links" value includes INTERNAL links

open site explorer links

Quite obviously, if Matthew used the total number of links reported by Open Site Explorer, it's no surprise it was bigger than the number of backlinks reported by other SEO tools, as OSE actually mixes your internal links (that is, links from different pages of your own site) with links from external sources.

2. Raven Tools and Ahrefs display the number of backlinks, NOT backlink pages

If there are two links to a site from the same page, Raven and Ahrefs display them both. Which doesn't make much sense because the common assumption among SEOs is that only the first link from a page matters for search engines (if there're two links with the same target URL).

So, in the majority of SEO cases, you would need to know backlink pages. And this is what we really mean when we say "The software finds bakclinks": it finds pages with backlinks.

This is like at elections - you can cast only one vote. Google doesn't care whether there are 1 or 10 links pointing to a site from one and the same page (well, 10 links may even look spammy).

My point is, both Raven Tools and Ahrefs display the number of backlinks, not backlink pages in their reports:

backlink checkers comparison - raven tools and ahrefs

A backlink report in Raven Tools

Ahrefs does give two separate numbers, though: one is for the number total of backlinks and the other one is for number total of referring pages. In my little study, the latter number by Ahrefs was smaller by almost 1000.

As far as Majestic SEO is concerned, it also appears to display backlinks, not linking pages, but I was unable to confirm that with the trial version. In any case, in my particular case, Majestic reported slightly fewer backlinks to the site I analyzed than SEO SpyGlass.

3. SEO SpyGlass takes only unique backlink pages into account

In its turn, SEO SpyGlass reports a specific backlink page only once (even if there are several backlinks coming from it), allowing an SEO to accurately estimate how many unique webpages are pointing to their website:

backlink checkers comparison - seo spyglass

The number of unique webpages pointing to a site in SEO SpyGlass

4. SEO SpyGlass is the only tool that shows whether the links are live

None of the other tools explicitly shows whether the links they show are existent at the moment. A large percentage of links are history. Ahrefs and Majestic say that they are cleaning up their indices at certain times. However, numerous "dead" links still show up on the report.

 So who's who?

In short, the results of my study are as follows:

Backlink Checker Statistics
SEO SpyGlass 2 146 backlink pages
Ahrefs 2 424 referring pages
Open Site Explorer 1 588 backlinks (including internal links)
Majestic SEO 1 513 backlinks
Raven Tools 3 084 backlinks (including links from duplicate pages)

 

Note: this data only goes to show that different backlink checkers organize and present stats in different ways – I do not intend to proclaim any backlink checker the best one based on such scarce data.

And, to add some more value to this research, here is how much each of the above mentioned backlink checkers would cost:

  • SEO SpyGlass Pro - $99.75 one-time fee (+ algo updates starting at $3.05/mo after 6 months)
  • Majestic SEO Gold - £99.99/mo
  • Ahrefs  Pro - $79/mo
  • Open Site Explorer (SEOmoz) - $99/mo
  • Raven Tools - $99/mo

 

Besides, it should be noted that, unlike many other backlink checkers, SEO SpyGlass places no cap on the number of backlinks you can analyze with it.

At this point, I wouldn't be shy - I do believe that SEO SpyGlass clearly wins. Considering the amount of links you get at any moment, for an unlimited number of sites, as many times a day as you need - SEO SpyGlass is absolutely the best value for your dollar.

 

UPD: We just got a reply from Matthew where he confirms that this was only an initial, not very clean experiment where he didn't look at the actual origin of links, or whether the links are live. Matthew is going to run a few more tests getting into the nitty-gritty, so I do believe SEO SpyGlass will show itself as a leader once the new tests are done.

- Viktar Khamianok, CEO, Link-Assistant.Com

 

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  • http://twitter.com/MattWoodwardUK Matthew Woodward

    And that is a superb demonstration of how to handle negative feedback - this post should be a reference point for any business looking to deal with such situations!

    Props to Viktar, the CEO himself addressing the issues directly - that tells you a lot about the company as a whole :) I'll be updating my post with this response!

    Moving onto the issues at play the area that my test did not look at is data freshness

    As Viktar highlighted above I did not take into account the 'freshness' of the data. Just because a tool reports a link, doesn't actually mean the link is still live or there. This issue is present across all web based services as they only update data indexes on a certain schedule where as SEO Spyglass will fetch the data as it is right now.
    It is also difficult to really determine the total number of backlinks available to find - this is why I used 3 sites I own in my tests because I had access to webmaster tools to provide a benchmark number that the services should be finding.

    My general feeling of all of these tools though, is that they should be reporting more. Even if one is better than the other, there is huge room for improvement all round in terms of index size which I appreciate is much easier said than done :)

    Props again to Viktar for getting down and dirty with us!

    Viktar Khamianok January 16th, 2013 at 12:05 pmLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Hi Matthew,

    Thanks for leaving such a material comment. You are right about Google Webmaster Tools and the backlink checkers. We providers are trying to do our best.

    By the way, SEO SpyGlass supports import of backlinks from Google Webmaster Tools via CSV. So, if one needs to analyze their own link profile, they can do it with SEO SpyGlass.

    As far as data freshness is concerned, I totally support the idea that it’s important to
    take into account. Also as we both know there are many other important factors that also need to be accounted for. Some of them I did cover in the post, but this is not an exhaustive list by any means.

    As you've seen, SEO SpyGlass analyzes 40+ backlink factors that pertain to either the
    linking source or the backlink itself (and this is still not everything).

    With this amount of possible research subjects, we might run lots of comparisons for
    backlink checkers, depending what our questions are. Who finds more links, who
    analyzes links according to which metrics, etc; how fresh the data is, and most importantly – what’s in it for the SEO professional.

  • http://heymalc.com Malcolm Simmonds

    I look forward to Matthew's further researches in the light of Viktar's comments.

    We mere mortals ( ;-) ) just have to take you guys' words as to which software/services give the most accurate numbers! We are too busy - and have insufficient skills (speaking for myself) - trying to make a living to weigh up these different tools against each other. My head hurts already!

    But kudos to both of you for having a "grown up" discussion. This benefits me - and the whole community. Thanks a bunch!
    :-)

    Viktar Khamianok January 16th, 2013 at 12:01 pmLike or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 0

    Hi Malcolm,

    Thanks for the kind words!

  • Affy

    Great to read into all this comparison stuff and thumbs up for the people who are willing to take the time to test for the community. One big aspect I've missed in both is the actual time it takes to get reports.

    No offense Viktar but for those not familair with proxies, human emolution, Captchas etc. etc. your desktop software is almost impossible to work with.

    Setting it so it works for you can be a real headache on itself. And once you have gone trough all the options it is likely that during the query loads of tasks will be cancelled or abandoned. To create a simple report make sure you got time on your side as it might take hours.

    Affy

    Viktar Khamianok January 16th, 2013 at 12:01 pmLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Hi Affy,

    Thanks for the comment. Well, SEO PowerSuite is very feature-rich (just recently we had
    the “666 features” project for Halloween), and some advanced features do require effort to set up, as you pointed out.

    We are aware of that and have an extensive and well-trained Customer Support service that is here to help you via Live Chat or email pretty much around the clock. Besides, there is remote assistance for those who need someone to take them through the set-up process in real time.

    Affy January 19th, 2013 at 1:00 amLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Hi Viktar,

    After your comment I've decided to ask your support team to access the software via teamviewer. It took a serious while (shows how complicated it can be to get the settings right) but Vitaly (your agent) managed to get the job done.

    It would be great if the video turorials would go more indepth on what settings work best for which circumstances. Step by step settings with explanations "what triggers what" for all 4 tools.

    Altough it needed a lot of emails (and serious frustration) I'm glad I'm able to test it more indepth now.

    Last but not least I have to mention the professionality of your staff. My emails weren't always the most polite ones but they were always answered professional.

    Affy

    Viktar Khamianok January 21st, 2013 at 11:39 amLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Affy,

    Thank you for the feedback and the suggestions! In fact, we do have a number of video
    tutorials for SEO PowerSuite tools already, and they are available on this page
    - http://www.link-assistant.com/video.html

    But more tutorials are definitely to come. If you’d like to suggest a particular topic for a
    training video, please do. Also if one day you wish to record a video to share your own SEO PowerSuite usage tips, we'll also welcome that.

    Regards,

    Viktar

  • Viktar Khamianok

    Hi Andrew,

    You are right. However, as I said in the post

    >>Raven Tools and Ahrefs display the number of backlinks, NOT backlink pages

    and

    >>Ahrefs does give two separate numbers, though: one is for the number total of backlinks and the other one is for number total of referring pages. In my little study, the latter number by Ahrefs was smaller by almost 1000.

    So, musicinst.org has 3413 backlinks according to Ahrefs, and 2 424 referring pages according to the said tool.

  • http://twitter.com/TheSEOPub Mike Friedman

    I think one major thing that sets SpyGlass apart from the competition is the ability to import links from the other providers. When I am analyzing a site, I will import the links from Ahrefs, Majestic, and OpenSite Explorer in addition to the links that SpyGlass provides. This gives a more detailed analysis than any of the tools can provide on their own.

    I routinely check links on a lot of sites, and from experience I can tell you that the number of links each provider reports can vary, sometimes pretty widely. Matthew's test on just 3 sites is pretty inconclusive. I could find 3 sites where SpyGlass comes out clearly on top. I could find 3 sites where Majestic appears to be the winner. And so on.

    From my experience, Ahrefs probably provides the largest number of links fairly consistently, but not by much over SpyGlass. I have not really been tracking this on a regular basis to give conclusive numbers. Like as been noted though, Ahrefs is not telling me which links are live and which are just leftover in their database from another time.

    Viktar Khamianok January 31st, 2013 at 10:23 amLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Hi Mike,

    Thanks for taking the time to comment. My view on this is rather similar to yours. I also believe that, if we want to see what each backlink checker is worth, we need to approach them from multiple angles and perform bigger scale tests.

    Though I appreciate Matthew's willingness to conduct such tests and bring value to the community.

  • Chris Farnworth

    We bought Spyglass during Christmas special offer last year but were sorely disappointed. We used VPS and let it run for hours/days to collect backlinks details data. However not once it successfully finished the process. It crashed every time and the worst thing was that it didn't save any data that was already downloaded, which means it has to start all over again.

    In the end we asked for refund and parted ways.

    By the way you should also add cost of solving captchas. Also it will be good idea to let users chose what captcha service they want to use rather than forcing them to your own which is much dearer than the rest.

    Link-Assistant.Com February 27th, 2013 at 1:31 pmLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Hi Chris,

    Sorry to hear SEO SpyGlass didn’t work for you and glad you executed every user’s right for unconditional refund.

    RE crashes and operation times. SEO SpyGlass reports on loads of backlink factors, addressing multiple data centers, so we generally recommend using search safety settings to speed up the software and avoid crashes. Official tips: http://www.link-assistant.com/seo-spyglass/configuring-seo-spyglass.html#conf-search, tips from Mike Friedman who also commented here: http://theseopub.com/tip-for-speeding-up-seo-spyglass-analysis/.

    Speaking of CAPTCHAs, we might be adding more providers in future, yet now we have only the in-house option from our official partner.

  • An enterprise User

    I find that SEO Spyglass finds no where near Ahrefs or Site Explorer unless you import webmaster links. The amount of backlinks however is not my issue with Spyglass the issue is it crashes all the time both on Mac and Windows version when trying to import big webmaster links or updating more than say 500 links at once which renders it basically useless for big clients. This has been said many times in the forums with responses such as check 1000 at a time or reduce the amount of threads, this is not a fix, the program needs these performance issues fixing to be a contender.

    Link-Assistant.Com May 6th, 2013 at 10:11 amLike or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 0

    Hi there, thank you for using SEO SpyGlass and for expressing your concerns here. Your comment could hardly be more timely, as updating SEO SpyGlass performance is currently our top priority here at Link-Assistant.Com. We're addressing two aspects: 1) the link count 2) the opportunity to update bigger amounts of link data. We have already developed the technology to tackle both, and we're currently implementing it for SEO SpyGlass. The changes shall be rolled out in full by September 2013.