Searching for the Best Tool for Backlink Analysis Part 2: Evaluation

After the overview of the backlink tools we tested in the first part, this section examines the most crucial criteria that a tool for backlink analysis should meet. What evaluations are essentially important, and what additional features are available?

Requirements for a Backlink Tool

While some features are a nice addition, the following points are essential for meaningful backlink analysis. The comparison clearly shows that not all tools meet these minimum requirements. For all the tools examined, backlinks of any domain can be analyzed. SEOlytics generally allows the analysis of any domain; however, filtering and specific information are only available for a limited number of registered domains.

The Number of Backlinks – A Quantitative Difference

It can be stated: No tool can deliver a complete listing of all backlinks. Our tests have shown that practically every tool finds links missing in other evaluations. Therefore, the quantitative number of backlinks can only provide a comparative value, an order of magnitude that is particularly helpful in direct comparison with other domains. How much the figures from the individual tools differ is shown in this table:

So what can be concluded from the different figures? For English-language tools, the difference is easy to explain; after all, the focus is not on German domains, from which a German website generally derives the majority of its backlinks. The higher values of the German tools initially indicate a larger data base compared to their competitors. However, a more differentiated view is worthwhile here: The recency of the links is also important. In our comparison, we sometimes found backlinks from the previous year that were obviously not currently checked. Many of them can no longer be found. Here is the question: What does a backlink analysis say that delivers outdated data and therefore incorrect figures?

Data Recency

Some tools like Xovi, Raven Tools, SEOlytics, and MajesticSEO provide a date in their analyses for each link found. Here, at least old and new links can be identified. More helpful at this point would be the indication of when each link was last checked. It becomes problematic especially when these time indications are missing, as is the case with SEOmoz or Searchmetrics Essentials. Users thus receive no clues about the currency of the data. A mere promise that a powerful crawler would currently check data and determine new backlinks is little consolation when outdated backlinks are actually found in the analyses.

Analyze a Domain, Specific Page, or Subdomain

In the default setting, the entire domain is usually analyzed, but sometimes the backlink situation for a subdomain or a single URL should be examined. With the exception of Raven Tools, all analyzed tools allow such filtering.

Backlinks by Domains

A mere listing of numerous backlinks is mostly not very informative. As is well known, 10,000 links from one and the same domain help comparatively little, while the same number of links from different domains, on the other hand, is quite a good result for many domains. All tools offer grouping by domains, but Sitefactor only shows the top domains. Raven Tools does not list the linking domains as a menu item; here, you can only group by domains in the backlink table.

SEOlytics also does not provide an evaluation by domains in the menu; however, backlinks for registered domains can be filtered by domains.

Backlinks by IP Addresses

The number of different domains as a backlink source also shows little significance, that's why it's worth looking at the different IP addresses from which the backlinks originate. Domain networks can be quickly identified this way. Sistrix, Searchmetrics Essentials, and Xovi offer this evaluation, at MajesticSEO the domains can at least be sorted by IP address, but the links are not summarized by the IP addresses. Sitefactor only gives out the top IP addresses, here also only the number of backlinks from the top 5,000 selected links that the tool shows. Evaluation of IP addresses is missing at SEOmoz, SEOlytics, and Raven Tools.

Backlinks by Countries

Anyone who has bought or let buy cheap ru-links should be able to identify this in the backlink analysis. Such practices are quickly uncovered for the competition if the tool used offers this evaluation. Sistrix and Searchmetrics Essentials provide an overview of backlinks by countries, while MajesticSEO, Xovi, Raven Tools, and SEOmoz lack this analysis. SEOlytics shows the respective country for individual backlinks and allows filtering by countries for registered domains, but an explicit evaluation by countries is not available.

Analyze Link Texts

The evaluation of link texts is far more important in SEO work. Is just the brand linked, or are there also keyword-optimized link texts? Sistrix, SEOlytics, SEOmoz, and Searchmetrics Essentials allow the analysis of link texts; at Xovi, this evaluation is only available through extensive export. Sitefactor shows the top link texts. At Raven Tools, you can sort by link texts, but grouping is not possible. Finally, MajesticSEO lacks any evaluation of link texts.

Type of Backlink: nofollow Links and Image Links

Not only the number of backlinks and the source of the link are important, but also the type of link, which is widely known. Accordingly, all analyzed tools provide information on whether the individual backlinks are text links, image links, follow or nofollow links. However, this information is only found in the export table at XOvi. SEOmoz additionally includes redirects in the backlink table. MajesticSEO lists the number of image links, nofollow links, redirects, deleted links, and frames in the overview. Sistrix goes a step further in the export and also shows Canonical and Meta-Refresh in addition to redirects, image, and nofollow links.

Placement of the Backlink

An indication that is certainly difficult to implement in practice and is therefore not provided by any of the analyzed tools is the evaluation of link placement: Is it a footer link, a content link, or is the backlink in the sidebar? This analysis would not only be complex but also error-prone, so this evaluation remains a dream for now.

Identify Most Linked Pages

Another standard evaluation is the analysis of linked pages. How often is the main page linked, and which subpages have the most backlinks? With the exception of Raven Tools, all tools evaluate the linked pages. Sitefactor at least shows the top pages.

Further Comparison Criteria

Besides the points listed above, which should be a minimum requirement for a professional backlink tool (mind you, all the solutions examined cost money!), there are some points that would be desirable and based on which the various tools were additionally examined.

Analysis of Historical Data

Although one generally wants to check the current state of backlinks, retrieving historical data can also provide insight into which backlinks may have been lost and how the number of backlinks has generally developed. Out of the selection of backlink tools, only MajesticSEO and Sistrix show historical backlink data. According to their statements, the data goes back several years and thus provides a comprehensive picture, the completeness of which, of course, cannot be guaranteed any more than is the case with current figures. SEOlytics at least allows analyzing the last three months.

Scope of the Data Base

As stated above, the sheer number of domains and URLs in the database is not a quality criterion, but it stands to reason that a larger data base potentially delivers more meaningful and comprehensive results. The comparison between the individual tools is hardly satisfactory here, because not all providers even give insight into their data base. Looking at the sheer number of URLs and domains in the index, SEOmoz is clearly ahead; however, as shown in the comparison above, this says very little about the number of backlinks found for a German domain: SEOmoz finds significantly fewer backlinks for spiegel.de than all the German competitors examined. Searchmetrics Essentials surprises with an impressive data base among the German tools, but a comparable number from other tools is missing, so no evaluation can be made here.

Sources of the Backlinks

Since Yahoo! Site Explorer ceased its service, the sources the various tools use for their data have gained special significance. Here too, however, the comparability is missing, as the sources are not always apparent without contacting support. Sistrix, Searchmetrics, SEOmoz, and Majestic use their own crawlers, while Raven Tools claims to rely on data from MajesticSEO. The significant differences between the backlinks found by Raven Tools and MajesticSEO are quite incomprehensible in light of this statement.

Export Options: XLS, CSV and PDF

Analyzing backlinks online and filtering by various criteria is a good and helpful thing. However, for the evaluation and processing of a large number of backlinks, it is absolutely necessary to be able to export the results of the analysis. The standard here is the CSV format. This is useful in itself, unfortunately, however, the exports of many tools are so buggy that the exported tables cannot be processed flawlessly. Certain characters like quotation marks and commas cause problems and also lead to the tables not being converted into analyzable rows and columns without errors. This was the case, for example, with SEOmoz, RavenTools, and Sitefactor. Some tools like SEOlytics offer formats beyond CSV, such as XLS, PDF, or HTML. At Xovi, the export is limited to 5000 data records, SEOlytics outputs a maximum of 2000 data records in the download.

Searchmetrics Essentials does not allow a tabular export of backlinks in the free beta version; here, only a short overview can be downloaded as a PDF. The Sistrix file is saved as a gz file, which must first be unpacked. In the case of a domain with a large number of backlinks, the created unpacked CSV file can briefly bring even a powerful computer to its knees. Nevertheless, the exported file shows the backlinks in correct columns.

Compare Backlinks of Different Domains

The direct comparison of several domains via the pure backlink exports is quite uncomfortable. Some tools therefore offer the possibility to compare domains directly. At Sitefactor and SEOmoz, up to 5 domains can be compared. MajesticSEO also offers the Clique Hunter, which allows finding domains that link to several of the analyzed domains.

SPS, OVI, ACRank, Majestic Million and PageAuthority?

It seems almost the norm with SEO tools: (Almost) every tool comes with its own values, obscured through mysterious abbreviations. If you’re lucky, the meaning of these in-house values is at least explained; sometimes there is even an explanation indicating how the displayed figures are derived. At MajesticSEO you read about the MajesticMillion, at Sistrix a visibility index is calculated for each domain (but this is not found in the backlink module), Searchmetrics invents the SPS or Searchmetrics Page Strength, Xovi has the OVI, Raven Tools offers the ACRank, SEOlytics the SEOlytics Visibility Rank (SVR), SEOmoz the MozRank and MozTrust.

With this variety of values (of which only a small selection has been listed here as examples) even the professional can hardly keep track, and may quickly become skeptical about the opaque algorithms leading to these values. In most cases, these values do not come with a reference range; whether a value of, for example, 0.5 or 6,666 is good or bad can only be guessed at best in direct comparison with a meaningful control group. So do these values offer a real added value? That may be doubted in many cases. If the user cannot evaluate these values and cannot understand the factors leading to a particular value, he cannot do much more than marvel at the unusual evaluations that the professionals have devised. Decisions should rather not be made on this basis.

Cost and Additional Features

The costs of the individual tools were already mentioned in the first part. It should be noted here that the tools differ so much in their scope and modules that a comparison is difficult. While SEOmoz charges $99 for all modules and tools and the smallest package, you only get one of the extensive modules from Sistrix for €100. A direct comparison cannot take place here: cheaper tools generally offer less scope. In general, it can be said: unused features of a more expensive tool are just as much wasted money as a cheap tool that does not deliver meaningful data.

The individual tools offer a variety of additional features that go beyond the general requirements. Here are some functions to be presented as examples:

• MajesticSEO and SEOlytics show the number of links from educational and government domains, an indication found in no other tool, but the usefulness of which can also be debated.

  • Searchmetrics Essentials groups by news, forum, blog, directory, shop, and general and clusters the industries from which the links come. How meaningful this is and whether all links can be correctly assigned is questionable. According to their statement, the assignment is made based on the rankings. How appropriate this is depends on whether the respective keywords can be correctly assigned and whether the linking domains rank in their market segment.

  • Xovi, Sitefactor, and Searchmetrics show the page titles of the linking page for the found backlinks.

  • Searchmetrics and SEOmoz also provide the number of social media links (Facebook Likes and Shares, Tweets, and Google +1), an interesting size in 2012.

  • An additional plus that must be highlighted and can significantly facilitate evaluation: Especially Sistrix, SEOlytics, and SEOmoz offer extensive filtering options for the found backlinks.

Alternatives? Analyze Backlinks for Free!

Obviously, since each of the tools presented has its strengths and weaknesses, the question arises as to more affordable alternatives. For private use and one’s own domains, the backlink analysis in the Google Webmaster Tools offers a selection of backlinks. For a quick overview of the most important link sources, linked pages, and link texts, this free evaluation is often sufficient. In addition, there are a variety of free backlink tools, often financed by excessive advertising and usually with comparatively limited data bases. However, for a one-time analysis without a claim to completeness, many of these tools can provide an approach.

Conclusion: Bugs, Features, Confusion, and Disappointments. What all the analyzed backlink tools are perfectly suited for is support in link building: The backlinks found for competitors can provide valuable inspiration for building the links of one's own domain. It’s important to be aware that only a snippet is shown, not a complete result.

The actual purpose of a backlink tool – to obtain evaluation options for one’s own backlinks, identify broken links, and gain an overview of linked pages and link texts – is fulfilled by the tools presented to varying degrees. The fact remains: The perfect tool that meets all desires and requirements and makes the search engine optimizer happy in their analysis does not exist yet. So whether you’re willing to spend a certain amount monthly for a tool that provides unsatisfactory backlink results or whether the free evaluations in the Google Webmaster Tools are sufficient for many purposes is debatable.

The fact is, although there is advertising with big numbers, high-performance databases, and adventurous comparative values, the weaknesses are not addressed. It is annoying especially when professional analysis tools provide the basis for serious economic decisions, in the firm belief of the meaningfulness of various internal agency algorithms and values. Here, a little more focus on the essential functions and data instead of always new ominous own values would be desirable.