Update to Moz Link Index Comparison Metrics
Here is an update to my post on Moz called “Big, Fast, Strong”. I give the definitions for all these metrics in that post, so I wont repost them here. I started with the only one we aren’t in first place or tied for first place, which is the fastest crawler. That honor still goes to Ahrefs. The rest of the metrics, well, they speak for themselves. Ahrefs Still has the fastest crawler. Moz and Majestic are neck-and-neck on domain index matches, while Ahrefs is a few % behind. Moz is winning Google URL Index Matches Moz is winning Domain Root Linking Domains Moz is winning URL RLDs Moz is winning backlink counts for domains Moz is winning backlinks to URLs Moz is in a dead heat with majestic for domain being present in index ...
In Defense of Domain Authority
With the launch pending for Moz’s much improved Domain Authority metric, the debate has once again been resurrected on whether Google uses Domain Authority and whether it is worthwhile. Let me take a few minutes of your time to unpack this question fully. First, Google has quite unambiguously stated that they do not use Domain Authority in their search algorithms. I take their word on this. Not only do I know Google does not use Moz’s Domain Authority, I do not believe they have a pre-calculated metric that approximates a domain or site authority in general. But what follows from these statements? Does this mean that domain level metrics have no impact on rankings? Does this mean that DA has no value to search engine optimizers? Let’s address...
Measuring Link Index Freshness
Disclosure: I work for Moz. One of the hardest metrics to compare link indexes on is their percentage of “live links”. At first, it seems like a simple endeavor – just download the backlinks and check if they are live. It turns out that the process is far more complicated for a number of reasons. Redirect chains may not include the target domain in the URL, and there is no way to know which outlink begins the redirect chain without following every outlink on that linking page. Links aren’t always links – does the index count form action as a link? iframe? embed src? Linking sites might be temporarily down (do you count that as a missing link or ignore it). How do you know if it is temporary or permanent? Different indexes have...
Keyword Volume Relational Accuracy
First, quick disclosure: I am Russ Jones, Principal Search Scientist at Moz and I work directly on the model that predicts search volume. It is impossible to know the exact search volume for a keyword in Google. The methodologies available to us (Google Adwords Keyword Planner, Traffic Estimator, and Google Trends) are all problematic in one way or another. But this doesn’t mean we are hopelessly lost regarding our predictions of search volume. One thing we can analyze is the relationship between keywords rather than their exact volume. For example, Google Trends doesn’t provide us the exact search numbers, but it does provide us a comparison of keywords. Theoretically, the relationship between 2 keywords in Google Trends (lets say 3:1 because keyword...
Can I Rank for This Keyword?
One of the most common questions that search engine optimizers, agencies, and webmasters come upon when doing keyword research is “can I rank for this keyword?” It is a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Knowing all of the factors is nearly impossible, and going through one-by-one against the competition can be difficult, especially if you want to check a lot of keywords and simply exclude all those that are out of reach. Well, in this video I walk through a very simple way to find this number in Keyword Explorer by using all your rankings data from Google Search Console to inform you as to what keyword difficulty level you can attain. I walk you through a handful of simple steps… Getting keywords from Google Search Console Filtering...
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes…
It has been more than 10 years since I began working for Virante/Angular. In that time I have made incredible friends, created exciting technologies, and had the privilege to work with brilliant people doing wonderful things for great clients. But all good things come to an end. I honestly cannot look back at the last 10 years and lodge a legitimate complaint. The other executives who have helped lead our company along the way have done nothing but give me the resources, support, and gentle nudges-back-to-reality I have needed to grow my own knowledge and build great things for our clients. From free tools like OpenCaptcha and LinkSleeve which have literally stopped tens of billions of pieces of spam from making their way onto the web, to innovative search...
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