Huge
The first thing that is clear is something radical has changed about the Moz index. I haven’t seen any statistics, but everything we measure and track is bigger than it was before, and not just by a little bit. We are seeing everything from 5X to 100X the size of metrics like root linking domains. After years of Open Site Explorer trailing behind both Ahrefs and Majestic, This thing just feels like a big improvement. Let me give some examples. The first would be our own domain, Hive Digital. Our site has moved several times over the years as we have rebranded, and this has caused our link equity to struggle a bit and the various tools have mixed data about the domain.![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/compare-hive.png)
![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/compare-reddit.png)
Link Lists
This. Is. Huge. Any company that builds, tracks, or removes links will find immediate value in this feature. Much like the “keyword lists” in Moz’s Keyword Explorer, this new feature allows you to create lists of links which will check periodically if a link is present. You can easily add links to the lists directly from Open Site Explorer or the links section of Moz Pro. I immediately came up with 3 different use cases…Link Lists for Broken Link Building
When running a link building campaign, it can be very tedious to watch every prospect to see if a link has been established. This couldn’t be any easier in the new links beta. In this case, I found a 404 page on the American Dental Association that would be good for a dentist doing a broken link building campaign. I pulled up the back links and added them to a link list where they will be monitored in the future.![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/blb-example.png)
![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/blb-example-02.png)
Link Lists for Link Removal
The site below was an unfortunate victim of a parasitic hosting campaign attempting to rank for keywords like “jordan shoes”. While disavow should be sufficient, some brands really don’t want this stuff out there and will go for a more aggressive link removal campaign to clean up their brand and remove the noise from their backlink profile. With link lists, we can now track if those links have changed. Just add the links to a list and, as we do our outreach, we can see the link status change as links are removed.![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/link-removal-example.png)
![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/link-removal-example-02.png)
Link Tracking for Media Placements
Finally, tracking important link placements has always been an important but time consuming process for SEOs. While there are plenty of solutions out there on the market, none of them tie directly into link indexes quite as well as Moz’s new link lists. Here is an example where a site has earned a number of good placements for content and wants to make sure the links and content stays live.![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/media-placements.png)
![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/media-placements-02.png)
![](https://www.hivedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2018/03/media-placements-03.png)
Conclusions
I’m happy to see this improvement as I was starting to rely less on OSE data, but I think this sets them squarely back in the ring as it looks like they have really tried to come out swinging with their links beta. The data is a huge improvement compared to the old Open Site Explorer and the tool suite looks better than ever. There is still a good bit left to be desired in terms of making data easily accessible, finding link opportunities, and certain sorts which I hope come out with the full launch. It is definitely worth giving the new beta a closer look. I hope this type of product growth becomes a new norm for the team at Moz.WEB ANALYTICS | SEARCH OPTIMIZATION | PAID ADVERTISING | COMPANY NEWS
4.7 trillion URLs
432 million root domains
29 trillion links
But who is keeping count? 🙂
Good news that Moz is improving, finally. I’d be really happy in the day any of the tools mentioned, or even a new one, will be a solid and unquestionable reference for us.
Hi Jacob
in fact almost all the tools for the management and monitoring of links present exceptions and inconsistencies, including the search console. I use Majestic for many years and in my opinion it remains the most reliable combined with search console data. Even with an SEO data driven vision, the interpretation of the data is still necessary.
thank you very much, precious and useful article for everyone.
See you soon