HUGE UPDATE! I ran 1 million domains through Ahrefs, SEMRush, Moz, Majestic & SEO Spyglass to find out who really is the best backlink checker.
Back in 2013, I conducted an experiment to see which is the best link checker.
Long story short, Ahrefs won…
This really upset the Majestic team at the time and sparked a lot of controversy, but they did make some valid points-
And they were right!
So then re-conducted the experiment on an altogether BIGGER scale (1 million domains vs. the original 3). Ahrefs won again.
Now it’s many years later.
So I thought it would make sense to re-run the numbers this year for all 1 million domains AND compare the functionality of the tools.
But…
I’m also going to reveal how Majestic essential cheat on backlink counts (you won’t believe this one!)
What Will I Learn?
Before we get to the experiment, let me talk about my data source.
For those that don’t know, the Majestic team publish what is called the Majestic Million.
The Majestic Million is a list of the top 1 million website in the world, based on the number of referring IP’s found for that domain in their Fresh index.
So with this, Majestic SEO are outright telling us these are the sites they know the most about in terms of backlinks.
You can download a copy for yourself free of charge and it will tell you the total number of linking subnets (RefSubNets) and the total number of linking IPs (RefIPs) for each domain in the top million.
To compare Majestic SEO with Ahrefs, I’m going to look up the total number of linking subnets and IP’s for all of the domains in the Majestic Million.
To give you an example with this blog-
So in that specific instance, Majestic wins the test.
But:
Now imagine doing the same – but for 1 million sites.
That is the test I have done based on what Majestic say are the top 1 million sites in the world in terms of links.
This is what the CSV data looks like in its raw form-
And you can download a copy of the data that is used in this test.
Before I get to the results, I need to mention that both Majestic and Ahrefs maintain multiple indexes.
Majestic have two indexes: Fresh and Historic indexes.
Ahrefs have three: Live, Recent, and Historical.
You can learn more about these indexes here.
But for the sake of this article, I’ll be comparing the following indexes:
Let’s start with a comparison of the Fresh vs. Recent index.
With such a huge amount of data, I decided to split the results into 10 groups of 100,000 URLs (by Majestic GlobalRank) and then compare those groups.
This is what the group numbers look like (refer to by_groups.csv in the data pack)–
| GlobalRank | Ahrefs Wins (IP) | Majestic Wins (IP) | Ahrefs Wins (Subnet) | Majestic Wins (Subnet) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-100,000 | 85,228 | 14,762 | 86,095 | 13,896 |
| 100,001-200,000 | 69,953 | 30,029 | 72,114 | 27,860 |
| 200,001-300,000 | 74,074 | 25,902 | 77,035 | 22,928 |
| 300,001-400,000 | 78,264 | 21,709 | 82,075 | 17,904 |
| 400,001-500,000 | 74,708 | 25,264 | 79,389 | 20,582 |
| 500,001-600,000 | 66,252 | 33,710 | 71,124 | 28,846 |
| 600,001-700,000 | 75,530 | 24,427 | 81,426 | 18,512 |
| 700,001-800,000 | 76,733 | 23,221 | 81,346 | 18,583 |
| 800,001-900,000 | 79,243 | 20,705 | 85,624 | 14,279 |
| 900,001-1,000,000 | 79,261 | 20,687 | 85,696 | 14,187 |
Just looks like a bunch of meaningless numbers right?
What about now-
Pretty brutal to look at if you are a current Majestic SEO customer right?
Now might be the right time to switch to Ahrefs.
But before you do let’s look at the totals-
It’s worth noting that Ahrefs has actually pulled even further ahead of Majestic (by ~7% for IP wins, and ~11% for subnet wins) since 2013. Which is when I first ran this experiment.
So those are the results of the Majestic Fresh vs. Ahrefs Recent index comparison, but what about Majestic’s Historic vs. Ahrefs’ Historical?
This test is particulary interesting because-
Well:
It presents an altogether different story.
| GlobalRank | Ahrefs Wins (IP) | Majestic Wins (IP) | Ahrefs Wins (Subnet) | Majestic Wins (Subnet) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-100,000 | 15,424 | 84,555 | 14,789 | 85,187 |
| 100,001-200,000 | 20,320 | 79,606 | 19,873 | 80,047 |
| 200,001-300,000 | 18,081 | 81,855 | 17,613 | 82,309 |
| 300,001-400,000 | 13,645 | 86,317 | 13,177 | 86,770 |
| 400,001-500,000 | 11,990 | 87,976 | 11,675 | 88,275 |
| 500,001-600,000 | 9,186 | 90,778 | 8,973 | 90,976 |
| 600,001-700,000 | 11,219 | 88,674 | 11,003 | 88,870 |
| 700,001-800,000 | 11,167 | 88,627 | 9,120 | 90,819 |
| 800,001-900,000 | 10,515 | 89,433 | 9,857 | 90,036 |
| 900,001-1,000,000 | 10,796 | 89,139 | 10,346 | 89,580 |
I think the results become super clear when displayed in graph format:
Based on this data, Majestic absolutely crush Ahrefs when it comes to the historical index test.
This is even more apparent if we look at the totals-
So, Majestic clearly wins the historic index comparison.
But what does this really mean?
Well, historic indexes serve as records of the backlinks that have existed in their respective tools index at some point in the past, but aren’t live today.
When you take this into account, it comes as no surprise that Majestic won this test.
They’ve been saving (probably) links to their Historic index since they launched in 2009.
Ahrefs, on the other hand, has only been saving dead links to their Historical index since 2015, so Majestic has a 6 year head start here!
Bottomline: Majestic has a larger index of dead links than Ahrefs.
That’s all I’m going to say about that one.
I’ll let you decide which index is more important to you.
My methodology for this experiment is far from perfect.
So I thought I’d briefly explain what I see as some potential flaws with this data.
The graphs above show the number of “wins” rather than absolute numbers.
Because of this, the difference between the bars on the graphs is not really indicative of index size.
I’ll try to illustrate what I mean with an example:
Let’s say we have two sites:
(Yes, it’s an extreme example, but bare with me!)
Ahrefs “wins” for both of these sites, but it’s clear that there’s a much larger difference between reported numbers from each tool for Site B.
With Site A, Ahrefs only wins because they report one extra Ref.IP.
This means that the “number of wins” doesn’t give any insight into how much bigger one database is than the other.
So what does “number of wins” tell us?
It tells us that Ahrefs finds more links for any given website than Majestic, and that it’s rare for Majestic to show links than Ahrefs (links = IPs/Subnets).
FYI, if you’re wondering why I chose to compare IPs/Subnets over links, check out this article co-authored by Dixon Jones from Majestic.
It’s important to remember that we’re dealing with two totally different indexes here.
Which means that some links that Majestic reports may not exist in Ahrefs’ Index, and vice-versa.
Once again, let me offer an example.
This time we only need one hypothetical site, for which we’ll assume that both Ahrefs and Majestic report the same number of links: 3.
Here are the three hypothetical links reported by each tool:
| Ahrefs | Majestic |
|---|---|
| domain.com/webpage | domain.com/webpage |
| domain.com/webpage2 | domain.com/webpage2 |
| anotherdomain.com/webpage | someotherdomain.com/blog |
Do you see my point?
Just because we have the same number of reported links from each tool doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the same links.
You can see in our hypothetical example that only two of the links are common to both indexes.
This brings me on to an important point:
If you desperately need a full picture of your link profile, you’ll have to pay for both tools and cross-reference data.
BUT!
And this is a BIG BUT!
Even if you do that you need to understand that Majestic’s backlink stats are almost always inflated.
Why?
Because of the absolutely absurd way Majestic count and report backlinks.
I am going to talk about that more in the next section, but seriously – make sure you are sitting down for this one because I am going to show you how Majestic essentially cheats on backlink counts.
Now we’ve talked about backlink data and whatnot, I want to make an important point:
Majestic and Ahrefs are VERY different tools.
Majestic is essentially one tool: a backlink checker.
But Ahrefs is a suite of tools. Alongside Site Explorer (for checking backlink data), they also have:
Another big differentiator is the addition of “Competitive intelligence” in Ahrefs, which is basically search traffic data.
In other words, you can see how much traffic any domain or website receives from Google, and the keywords it ranks for.
See my full Ahrefs review and my Ahrefsbot blog post.
But let’s get back to backlink data for a moment…
It’s important to realise that index size means nothing unless you’re able to extract actionable data and insights from it.
Both Majestic and Ahrefs do have an API for doing this at scale (this is what I used for this study), but most of us don’t pay for access to that.
So, let’s quickly compare the on-site backlink research features that exist in Ahrefs and Majestic.
Let’s start by plugging this same URL (the beginners guide to SEO from Moz) into both tools to see what kind of insights we can get from them.
NOTE. I’m using the “exact URL” setting, because I only want to analyze backlinks pointing directly at that URL.
A few comparable metrics right off the bat:
So Majestic reports more backlinks in total, but Ahrefs reports (a lot) more referring domains.
That’s a win for Majestic, right?
Not so fast.
(This is something I really feel the need to highlight!)
Majestic’s backlink stats are almost always inflated because of the absolutely absurd way they report backlinks.
Let me illustrate by going to the Referring Domains tab in Majestic.
Majestic is reporting 370K+ backlinks from just one referring domain.
That accounts for nearly 60% of all reported backlinks!
Let’s see how many backlinks Ahrefs reports from this domain-
Just 4!
So why does Majestic report 373,004 backlinks from that domain while Ahrefs only reports 4?
This happens because Majestic fail to strip URL parameters from URLs, which results in the same backlink being duplicated hundreds, sometimes even thousands of times.
This also happens when you export the data from Majestic.
Take a look at this backlink export from my blog and you’ll see that digitalphillipines.net is linking to me nearly 700,000 times-
But when we export the data and look at the links, you’ll see they are mostly duplicate links with different UTM parameters on the end-
For example Majestic counts the below as 4 separate backlinks-
But the reality is they are just one backlink – but Majestic is reporting them as 4.
In my opinion, this is total madness.
Especially when the vast majority of the 700,000 links coming from digitalphillipines.net are duplicates.
Ahref’s on the other hand, only counts 17 links-
Why?
Because Ahrefs understands that those additional URL parameters do not make them all unique links so filter them out accordingly.
If you go from the Summary page in Majestic to their Ref.Domains and Backlinks reports, you’ll notice that the total numbers of ref.domains and backlinks that you just saw on that “Summary” page now completely disappear.
That’s because these reports are limited to 30k rows of data – 600 pages, 50 results per page.
This makes every report in Majestic somewhat useless because you can only see a sample of the data!
Sure you can view the first 30,000 rows – but after that, they cut you off.
That is a huge limitation and I feel like it really goes against the grain of Majestic’s core mission.
What’s the point of building a huge database of links if you are going to limit access to it?
It’s the same when you try to export this data too – it defaults to a max of 30K rows.
However you can export more than 30k rows if you request an “advanced report” by clicking the tiny link highlighted in the screenshot below:
But even when you click this, you’re taken to quite a puzzling page where you seemingly have to tick a bunch of boxes in order to do what you want to do.
So bottomline-
In comparison, Ahrefs shows full data in both their Ref.Domains and Backlinks reports.
And exporting FULL DATA is super easy – just hit the “export” button.
Much nicer!
However, one downside of this is that reports sometimes load slower in Ahrefs than Majestic, especially when analysing big sites.
This is because Ahrefs has to work to pull all data, whereas Majestic just has to show a cached sample of 30K pages/ref.domains.
To be honest:
Any further comparison here makes no sense because Majestic’s on-site tools only works with a sample of data whereas Ahrefs lets you work with FULL data.
However, I do want to compare and highlight a few things in these reports.
But first, I want to talk a bit about indexes.
So you may have noticed that Majestic has two different indexes for you to choose from, while Ahrefs has three.
You may have noticed in the screenshots above that Majestic defaults to their Fresh index, whereas Ahrefs defaults to their Live index.
Let me try to explain the deal with all of these indexes.
So Ahrefs Live index is updated every 15 minutes, and I know they put a lot of effort into re-crawling all links in their Live index pretty regularly.
But as Ahrefs recrawls links, they naturally come across some that are no longer there.
Like, sometimes the page will still be live, but the link will be gone. Or maybe the actual linking page can no longer be found.
In this case, Ahrefs removes the link from their Live index, but it remains in their Recent index, where this backlink stays for 90 more days. Quite often the pages disappear because of server downtime, so when Ahrefs next re-crawls the page, they may see that the link is still there.
If this happens, it gets moved back to the Live index.
If Ahrefs don’t see the link going live again within 90 days of it being moved to the Recent Index, it gets moved to the Historical index. This is basically a graveyard for all backlinks that they’ve once seen as live, but the subsequent recrawls confirmed their death.
To summarise (for Ahrefs):
Unlike Ahrefs, they don’t maintain a Live index. They only have their Fresh index, which is kind of the same as Ahrefs’ Recent index as it contains all links that were seen live in the last 90 days, regardless of their status at the present moment.
They also have their Historic Index, which is comparable to Ahrefs Historical index. However, it is vastly bigger than Ahrefs’ Historic index because they started saving deleted links years before Ahrefs did.
To summarise (for Majestic):
Having used both tools on and off for a good few years, I know that Ahrefs only started adding links to their Historic index around mid-2015, whereas I’d say Majestic has been doing that for at least 5 years.
That’s exactly why Majestic’s is bigger right now.
Either way, these tools historic indexes are essentially graveyard of links, so most of the links in both Majestic and Ahrefs Historic indexes are no longer live.
But anyway, now we’ve tackled the technicalities, I can move on to some features.
Before I do that, I want to stress something:
I much prefer Ahrefs over Majestic.
So most of the stuff I discuss below will be reasons why that is the case.
But let’s start with a brief comparison of the summary/overview reports in Ahrefs and Majestic.
To start, I’ll highlight a couple of super useful graphs that I absolutely love on the Overview tab in Ahrefs Site Explorer: Referring Domains and Organic Traffic.
These show how the number of referring domains and amount of organic traffic has changed to a site (or URL) over time.
Here’s the referring domains graph:
Here’s the organic search traffic one:
Unfortunately, Majestic have no such graph for backlink data, and they don’t have any data on search traffic at all.
They do show you two graphs that they call “URL backlink history” and “Referring domains” – but these are entirely different.
In Majestic’s own words, these charts show “the number of Referring Domains [or backlinks] reviewed every day.”
So this graph mostly refers to how fast Majestic crawls the web, rather than showing how fast your target acquired backlinks.
As a result, these graphs don’t tell you anything about how a target’s backlink profile has changed over time, so I don’t really understand why they’re useful.
If anyone does happen to have a good use case, feel free to let me know in the comments!
And it’s also an image, it’s not an interactive graph. So I can’t hover my mouse over a specific date and get the precise number, like I can in Ahrefs.
As for the other numbers that you can see in Ahrefs “Overview” report and in Majestic “Summary” report, they’re more or less comparable.
Pretty standard stuff, no striking differences there.
I’d say the only major difference is the fact that each tool shows their proprietary metrics.
In Majestic’s case, these are TF/CF.
And in Ahrefs these are UR/DR.
Comparing them is a different story, so I’m not even going to attempt that but I do use both sets of metrics to evaluate expired domains/aged doamins.
Let’s move on to the referring domains reports.
Majestic has quite a few data points in their Ref.domains report, so they had to introduce a few different views.
Here’s the one they default to: Links.
For me, the most useful data points here are:
I think it’s really cool how they include the number of ref.domains and backlinks to each ref.domain – that’s something Ahrefs doesn’t do.
I also like their Geo report.
This shows things like the domain language(s), TLD, IP, IP location (cool!), TF/CF.
In fact, a lot of these reports are quite cool – I recommend playing around with them.
But what about filtering and sorting options?
Unfortunately, these don’t really exist (I guess their different reports kind of count of filters?) but they do have “Order by” and “Then” sorting options, which are quite confusing.
I think the biggest letdown here is that many of these reports end up being kind of pointless, simply due to the fact that Majestic only lets you work with sample data.
Sure, you have 30K rows to play with, which admittedly is plenty for most sites. But for some sites it just doesn’t cut it.
Here’s another thing:
Although Majestic have a column with a number showing the number backlinks, they don’t differentiate between dofollow and nofollow links.
This means it’s only possible to sort by the number of backlinks from a ref.domain – you can’t sort by the referring domains with the most dofollow backlinks, for example.
Ahrefs, on the other hand, absolutely shines when it comes to filtering and sorting.
For a start, there’s a column highlighting dofollow/nofollow links, and it’s easy to sort a list of referring domains by that metric.
And once again, Ahrefs will sort the entire list of ref.domains – not just a sample of the data like in Majestic.
Here’s another notable feature Ahrefs has in this report:
You can easily filter referring domains by the backlink type, and can instantly see how many referring domains of each type there is.
So if you want to export dofollow ref.domains only, simply filter and click export. Easy as that.
Back to Majestic, it looks like the domain with the most backlinks to this Moz guide is ryangum.com.
It has almost 378K backlinks. Let’s click on that number and see what they are.
Aaaannnndddd… I see only 10.
Useless.
It’s a completely different story in Ahrefs, as they show everything – it’s even downloadable.
And again, I’ll reiterate the point I touched on earlier – some of the backlink numbers are absolutely crazy in Majestic thanks to the duplicated backlinks with URL parameters.
Case in point:
(I guess Majestic doesn’t care about URL parameters?)
But anyway… let’s move on.
Let’s start with Majestic.
In the Ref.domains report, there was at least some sorting options – here there are none.
All they give you is option to show/hide deleted links and display 1/3/10/all backlinks per domain.
I can see how one backlink per domain is useful, but three and ten… c’mon!
It almost feels like someone was desperate to come up with some kind of useful functionality here, but failed miserably.
Regardless, none of these restrictions matter anyway because this report (like the rest) only shows a sample of 30k rows out of almost 100k. That means Majestic are hiding 70% of the links they know about from you.
Luckily, things are more logical in Ahrefs.
First things first, their Backlinks report doesn’t show sampled data – it’s full data.
You can also choose to show either Similar links, One link per domain, or All links.
This report defaults to Group similar links. This makes sense, as it groups sitewide and duplicated links, but still shows unique links from unique pages of the same domain. Which is pretty cool.
Is this report perfect? No. I’ve seen a few bugs here and there, but the usability and convenience of this filter still beats Majestic’s useless “3/10 links per domain” filter by a wide margin.
You probably already spotted those other filters too – Link type, Platform, and Language.
I recommend playing around with these – they’re really cool!
There are also some sorting options, including:
Combining sorting AND filtering is when you really start to do some cool stuff.
For example, you could filter by dofollow links only, from English sites only, and then sort by DR.
Seriously, play around this this report – you can do TONS.
Here’s one final report I want to briefly highlight (this one is specific to Ahrefs):
Ahrefs is MUCH MORE than just a backlink checking tool. They have world-class search traffic data too.
Yes, there are other tools have one of the two (e.g., Majestic with their backlink data) but Ahrefs does an amazing job of merging backlink and search traffic data together.
I don’t think there’s a better example of this than in their Top Pages report.
This shows the “top pages” on a domain by search traffic.
But this report is super cool because it also shows:
There’s also a keywords dropdown which unveils ALL the keywords each page is ranking for.
Majestic has nothing like this, so there’s nothing to compare here.
I mentioned earlier that Ahrefs is much more than a backlink checking tool.
It’s actually a suite of SEO tools.
Content Explorer is one tool I want to highlight here – this is a database of almost a billion web pages complete with backlinks and traffic data.
Basically, you enter a keyword and it’ll return any content containing (in either the title or body of the article, depending on your selection).
Here are the results for “SEO”:
The highlighted region shows some of the cool data that Content Explorer shows for each and every results – there’s Domain Rating, referring domains, and organic traffic.
I’m not aware of any other tool that can do this and honestly, it’s super-useful! And let’s not forget the “who tweeted” button which is useful for any content marketers out there.
But what about Majestic? Where does that shine?
Well there are some cool things that I like, such as their Trust Flow and Citation Flow metrics.
If you’ve read my guide to finding expired domains, you’ll already know that I look at a ratio of these two metrics to find decent domains.
I’m also a fan of Majestic’s Topical Trust Flow metric, which is super useful for getting a sense of how relevant a backlink profile is.
However, I’ve found that this isn’t always particularly accurate.
You can see in the screenshot above that mythemeshop.com (a website selling premium Wordpress themes including my theme) falls into the ‘Health’ category when looking at Topical Trust Flow.
That doesn’t seem right to me.
So as you can see, the tool that’s most useful for you will depend on the kind of data that you’re trying to access.
I have to be honest though:
For me, Ahrefs is my go-to tool for almost everything these days. I’d say Majestic does maybe 10-20% of what Ahrefs does, and that’s being generous!
Irrespective of opinion, bias and discreditation – the data does not lie.
The data never lies, its why I love working with data so much. Want to settle which design is better? Test it.
Want to see which is the best backlink checker? Test it.
Data does not lie.
Ahrefs is clearly the winner here by a huge margin – a much larger margin than my initial test with just 3 domains highlighted.
In the Wins by IP test, Ahrefs finds 216% more than Majestic SEO. They are winning on ~76% of domains compared to Majestic SEO’s ~24%.
In the Wins by Subnets test, Ahrefs is also the clear winner finding 306% more links than Majestic SEO. They are winning on ~80% of domains compared to Majestic SEO’s ~20%.
So quite clearly, the best backlink checker is Ahrefs. PERIOD.
Even if the source data is Majestic SEO’s very own Majestic Million – Ahrefs still knows more about them than Majestic does.
Unless you only care about who has the biggest database of dead links of course.
And let’s not forget about all of the other awesome tools Ahrefs has – it is so much more than a backlink checker.
In an effort to be unbiased and transparent, I have 2 seperate ways for you to independently verify the data yourself.
All of the data used in this test is available to download here.
This is the easiest way to spot check the data.
You can manually spot check these at random!
What if you want to verify the data for all million domains though?
Well for that you will need a linux server with shell access, an Ahrefs API key and these files.
WARNING: Before you do this be aware that 1,000,000 API credits with Ahrefs costs $10,000.
For full transparency’s sake Ahrefs gave me an API key with 1,000,000 credits so I could run this test.
If any established bloggers want to confirm these results themselves and publish on their blog then please get in touch with me.
Anyway here is how to do it-
Remember folks regardless of all of the controversy the data does not lie.
The simple fact is Ahrefs knows 216% more about Majestic SEO’s Majestic Million than they do (compared to 57% when I first ran this test in April 2013)
And if you haven’t checked out Ahrefs for a while you might be surprised, because it has evolved from a simple backlink checker to a complete SEO tool.
You can sign up for an Ahrefs account here to check it out for yourself.
And, if you’re on a budget and want to get more information about free tools, check out the Ahrefs Webmaster Tools as well as my free seo tools list.
Next time you see this topic in a forum – feel free to use this post to instantly win the argument.
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I liked the first post Matt, and this follow up response was, dare I say, Majestic, you are certainly making a splash here.The way forward is to improve. Anyone can come second in a race, although they may have stronger attributes in other fields.Maj must look at this differently, seize the moment, and aim to be the best, as they claim.
Hi Pete,Well if your going to call bullshit on me, you better be able to back it up – because I will :)Majestic have some fantastic oppertunitys here – as long as they dont let Dixon deal with it all.
Got to love a bit of controversy on a Friday morning!It was a good and interesting read. I do agree with Jon Coopers comment saying about how many of the links are actually live. Maybe a follow up post? As there is nothing worse than seeing a bunch of links then inspecting them and finding out they are dead.I personally use OSE and Majestic. Majestic for its index and OSE for its DA/PA/LR metrics. What does ahrefs offer in terms of metrics like this to show the value of a link? Perhaps we could also have some comparision of these metrics. DA vs Citation Flow vs ahrefs metric.Yes I just want more controversy!
Hi Jamie,I’m sure we are going to see a follow up off the back of this and I have already told Majestic to start investigating that path.To be honest, they are all arguing over who has the biggest shit anyway, both tools suck. One sucks less than the other.
I must add that DA, ACRank are no predictors of SERPs rank as they are heavily built around one Google patent. The benefit of these tools is for an SEO consultant and agencies to sell link building activity. The predictive value for assessing link value and for succeeding in offsite SEO is nonsense.
Hi,Yes I have to agree – there is a need for those metrics beyond practical use.
Going back to the very first post by Ann Smarty.It would have been nice for Ann whom I know does good stuff, to comment on the experiment or even better put up a blog post maybe named “aHrefs versus MajesticSEO: The Proper Real Test” and maybe use 10,000,000 domains! Ann?As for the update from magestic a much better approach – hey were all learning here right?
Hi Nev,Hopefully she will :)The perfect ending to this story will be if Majestic disprove it
this is surely the most tedious post you’ve ever done. and please don’t use words like math and period. i know your readership is mainly american but u are english.
Hi,If by tedious you mean factual and independently verifiable throughout then its deadly tedious :)I just write it how I would say it – I use all sorts of strange words!
Matt don’t you mention multiple data sets in one of your videos?
Done with your usual professionalism and attention to detail Matt. Can’t help but imagine the grin on your face as you put this together!I have a question that has been bugging me about backlinks, hope you can enlighten me.As I see it (correct me if I am wrong please) the main benefit of having backlinks is their boost to your ranking in SERPS.Therefore surely only Google’s tracking of backlinks is relevant?Why worry about what AHREF or Majestic can find?Sure I’m missing something somewhere, put me out of my misery please!
Hi Mitch,No grin, Dixon gave me all of the material I needed to tell a great story and advised me on how to conduct a solid test.He called me out, I answered – could have killed him a lot more than I did in the post but I played nice :)You are right only Googles tracking actually counts but they only give us limited access to the backlink data. If you own the site and have WMT available then you can get a lot of them.But if you want to find out your competitors backlinks you have to use tools like these, which are all shit imo.
Wow a Very Long good read. I bet this post will get more backlinks naturally. :DGreat post as always Matt.P.S. I voted for your post, used a different twitter account though.
Hi Mike,Thanks very much – I believe the post is already in its rightful #1 position for various terms.
I’ve got something in the works that not only will show results it will offer yet another valuable service to your followers. Should be live in around 2 months. I’m sure we’ll be in contact soon. 🙂
Hi Matt, 0/Less than 24hrs already 74 comments !! 37 from the audience !! Awesome !!The numbers speak itself.As an analyst, I salute your well prepared and thorough analysis on the subject. This is how a VERSUS subject should be presented. Data, analysis, fact and verified figure !Now I we know who is the sumo guy !! Be prepared with the counter attack !! best regards, :)Zul
Hi Zul,Nearly 100 now!The reason i wrote the original post was because of how many times I saw this discussed and opinion thrown around – I wanted data to backup my argument.Now we have all the data we need :)I’m sure the Majestic team are preparing something to counter with, they have already made valid points at the end of the post.While I’m going to keep posting the updates here, that will only be the case if both companies remain cute and fluffy and focus on verifiable facts unlike last time.
OMG, Matt, this will cost them greatly! 😀
Hi,I’m hoping they come back with some data of their own that disproves it.
Nice post. The reality is you’d be a fool to rely on one single source if you want to do machine learning led predictive modelling for SEO. So you’re better off using multiple sources even if AHREFS is the leading data source (for now). But then why chase competitor links? There isn’t likely to be much between them if you just want a data set to classify links, depending on what the reason for the difference is – which is worthy of research.
That is a good point – even if one finds more than the other, they both still miss a huge amount of links. The more source data you have on hand, the better!
Also, sorry for the mistakes in my original comment. It read awful 🙂
haha, you just totally handed that dude his ass! most excellent. Been using ahrefs for over a year – love it.
I get a feeling the show isn’t over yet!
Hi,Actually the one problem with all of these web based services, is the data is not live/real time.Links could be dead, anchors changed, PR dropped, deindexed etc etc since it was last crawled by either ahrefs or majestic.That is why I combine the raw backlink data from lots of sources, and then use https://searchlogistics.com/seo/tools/backlink-checkers/ to get the largest most real time look possible.Even then your still missing a lot of the links, even if you have built and logged every single one you have created yourself – there will be links missed using every service.But you’ve got to do the best with what you are given =/
Now this is the kind of thorough research and expertise that made me pick you as a SEO consultant!Nice piece here, Matt.Welldone!
Thank you very much 🙂 Although it wouldn’t be possible without Majestic and Ahrefs!
Finally! Someone who is willing to do the work and prove that some tools are just way worse than others. I used Spyglass and it returned that I was backlinking to my competitor! This software has some serious flaws.I was told by L-A that because my niche is new it can happen, WTF!I even went and posted on warrior forum and the post got deleted, so there lies a big situation.Now I have some ‘real’ and solid information at hand to chose a tool to help me, thanks Matt, I appreciate the work you have done here.Stick to your guns son!
Hi,Credit where it is due without Ahrefs and Majestics data I couldn’t have done the piece!
Wow! That was huge! I reckon I heard Snoop Dogg at least 10 times before I had finished it all. :)Without wanting to be totally argumentative, where would SEO Spyglass have come in this test?If there is such an obvious benchmark for all these tools to match up against, surely it must be a red rag for any aspiring company with tools like this to see how they measure up.Keep up the good work Matthew.Ian
Hi Ian,The original post is here which features the others https://searchlogistics.com/seo/tools/backlink-checkers/But these guys took such a lead and are the most discussed used.
Great report Matt. I was really impressed with the way you handled this, calm, level headed and stuck to the facts with clear transparency.Certainly helped me in making my decision.You fired up some of the ‘big dogs’, way to go!
Hi Jerry,Thanks very much, the truth is in the data 🙂
Wow Matt as usual, detailed, informative, actionable information – what an education and above all for free! Hope the guys at majestic have learnt as much as me and respond with rock solid improvements. As for the title “The Most Controversial Post I Will Write This Year” well i certainly hope that its not, in the world of seo where the stench of bullshit baffles brains this post is a breath of fresh air.Nev
Hi Nev,Feel free to point me in the direction of some bull shit 🙂
The music video ended while I was reading your post so I put this one on. It’s just as fitting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAYL5H46QnQI'm sure that’s what a lot of people will be doing with Majestic now you’ve stirred a bit of controversy. Great article!
Hi Mark,Hahahaha I like it, might even add that to the post!
Holy Sh*t!!! This has to be one of the best post I’ve read during 2013.This is totally going to become a milestone in the SEO community.They were Majesticing you and at the same time trying to Majesticing everyone else…. And today you just Ahrefsed the entire situation!!Hats off for you Matt!! (-insert standing ovation here-)What a way to win an argument!!P.S. What made me REALLY laugh and still have a huge smile on my face while I’m writing this is the fact that you used THEIR million websites data base. I mean… How can they now refute THAT??… haha… GENIUS!!
Hi,Well Dixon called me out publically on the transparency of my test, the small data size and lack of transparency.He was right to do so as well – those points were valid.I didn’t know the results were going to turn out how they did, perhaps thats karma instead of reaching out to me nicely like the others did.The reason I chose the majestic million was to evade any suggestions of bias on Dixons part – this unfortunately, killed them.They’ll be back bigger & stronger!
Lol…. Nice!!! : )
This might be a stupid question, but ss Ahrefs data pretty clean? Because more, of course, isn’t more if most of the links have long-since disappeared.That’s a problem I have not just with OSE data but Majestic too, even with the fresh index.
Hi,That is a fantastic question and something I may go on to test.
Wow, great post Matt. I love it.I’m surprised no one has stirred up any controversy, so I’ll play devil’s advocate (to be clear – I use Ahrefs, not Majestic):1) Dixon argues initially that it’s about the QUALITY of the link analysis, not the quantity of links shown. I can verify this; I can get a list of links from a number of backlink checkers, but the metrics for each is what really sets that apart. That’s why I used OSE for so long; their index size sucks, but Page Authority & Domain Authority are amazing and allow me to make quick decisions on the quality of the link, which is really what it comes down to.2) Majestic used to always have the largest # of links shown, but the biggest issue against them was that a lot of the links were no longer live. Who knows if the same is for Ahrefs? They might have a larger index #, but I think there’s a chance that one of the reasons for this is because they might have the same issue that Majestic has had for a while – because a lot of those links are no longer live. I would love to see you try and crawl the links for maybe a random sampling of 1000 or 10000 of those domains to see how many of those links are actually still live, then compare those two numbers.Again, great post Matt. Glad you kept it respectful while doing your best to find the real story is here. I believe you’re spot on with how Dixon (who’s a great guy, don’t get me wrong; 10x smarter than me) handled the situation versus the guys at SEO Spyglass. Also – funny that OSE isn’t in the test :). Should prove to them that their index, as I said, needs help
Hi Jon,The reason OSE isn’t in the test is because of how the performed in the original test.For the most part the community look to Ahrefs and Majestic as the leaders. Personally I think they all perform poorly and are just arguing over who has the most polished turd for the most part.In regards to point 1, yes it is about the quality of the analysis that is true. That is why I use these services to grab links, then https://searchlogistics.com/seo/tools/backlink-checkers/ to get live real time quality data – not data from the last crawl. Data that I can manipulate in any way I want.I dont trust PA or DA personally, or any of the other systems out there. I’ve got the raw data from lots of sources and a brain, good to go 🙂 Be honest, someone of your calibre can look at a link profile and know precisely what is wrong in seconds without the help of PA or DA!Point 2 is certainly worth testing 🙂 I would need super mega wow wow access to both API’s though – let’s see what happens :)I’m glad he called me out, this is a question that has floated around for years – case closed (for now).
Wow! That’s an incredible comparison. Why didn’t you include the other sevices as well? I don’t think they would have been better than ahref though but it would be nice to see where they stand. Anyway it’s clear that ahref is the best.And why you did not post the dixon meme?! 🙂
Hi,The other services performed poorly in the original test and for the most part Ahrefs and Majestic SEO are sworn by.Dixon is actually a nice guy so I removed the meme, save it for a rainy day or something when I’m bored 🙂
Amazing post. I love all your articles and tutorials. You’re the best SEO source i’ve found so far. I find all your reviews and tutorials to be right on and they have really helped me boost my sites. My hat is off to you sir.
Hi Karl,Thanks very much – feel free to mail me with the results you’ve seen and how you have applied the tutorials, got a stack of these emails now and one day I might do something magic with them :)Thanks
Just over at ahrefs.com now and the data looks amazing!Be great if you could add a video to take us through how to really analyse, interpret and use this data.Here’s hoping :)Si
I just published the data, that speaks for itself.
Boom Boom! You are SEO transparent xD 😀
Matt, I am officially hooked on your content fella!This is a gripping read and really cements you as an individual with not only serious industry knowledge but also technical ability.Looking forward to the next post!Si.
Hi Si,Thank you for the kind feedback – we have always got a lot to learn though!
Another great post Matt, i am not a pro but the analysis that you have done will definitely help me in choosing the right platform.
Feel free to download the data and look through it yourself!
Most enjoyable SEO read in ages!! Sent to few co-workers. Don’t think anyone will pick an online fight with you ; ) Winner of most aggressive and detailed seo post.
Hi,Well 3 people have called me so far, 2 dealt with – 1 half arsed dealt with because I was on holiday but he is next, it was briefly mentioned in my latest income report.Have a read of this for some lulz http://badtoilet.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/one-of-the-best-sales-techniques-i-have-seen-online-in-a-while/
By reading all the previous comparisons and the present, I came to a conclusion that I should choose ahrefs as the best SEO tool in my work. But when i see the personal lives of all these big fishes, i really don’t understand their problem. Why people want to show off in public, and then pamper in personal mails? Surprising! I would actually say that Majestic SEO didnt perform that great to me when I subscribed, even the customer support doesn’t seems to care people that friendly. I have to shift to ahrefs and check how cool they are. Thanks for the awesome info 😀
Thanks for sharing your experience – I’m sure we will see a bigger, better Majestic in no time!
BOOM! Incredibly useful post.I’m so happy you stay away from the dirty world of WSO’s and just release incredibly awesome info for free.I’ve used AHREF for a long time now, I’m not even sure why, I just liked their interface etc more.It’s good to know that coincidentally I was also using the best!
Hi Abdul,Its what I do 🙂
Controversy! Link bait! You’re stirring the pot and earning white hat links.It’s all amusing and fun to read and there’s a hidden link building lesson to be learned in all of this.Bravo!
Dixon gave me all the material, I just published it!
Good stuff Matt! Read most of it, but hey gave you +1. I’m pretty sure you will hit the frontpage very soon. Probably you already have 🙂
Thanks Nick =D
Awesome post Matt! I was reading your older post comparing the various services and this has reassured me Ahrefs is the way to go. I look forward to reading your next post.
Cheers Rich!
I think ahrefs wins! … Complete ownage Matt well done
You think? Hahaha complete domination
Great useful information Matt. I appreciate the time involved, and your transparency in all of this. It’s good to stir the pot a little here and there. Thanks.
I didn’t stir the pot, I was called out – I responded.
Great work Mr W.Are the issues about hrefs showing potentially old data relevant? Did you use Majestic’s fresh index?
Hi,All test details are in the post
Gulp!!Great post Matthew.You have confirmed my gut feeling when I switched 6 months ago.Keep up the good work and dodge the flack!Rich
Hi Rich, Thanks very much, I’m dodging!
What a read Matt, majestic ain’t so majestic after all. Always good to get the facts. Any majestic competitions going on next month?I’m sure u will get a few free subscriptions to give away from your good friend Dixon 🙂
Hi Gerard,Nope no free subscriptions – but if anyone from Ahrefs happens to read this and want to give me some, then sure a competition is good to go! Got a few in the queue at the moment though 😛
Haha, brilliant come back Mr Woodward, striking results if your using these services.
Hi Darryl,There is quite literally, no competition.
Applause for what you have written and revealed to the public. Aside from the Comment of Ann Smarthy about your post , I can say that – TRUTH HURTS. Sometimes even big dogs cry. Keep up the good work Matthew.I can vote your post for Number 1 of all I’ve read from the beginning of this year.Thumbs UP
Hi Kiril,Thanks for the comment!Sometimes the truth does hurt and the truth is in the data. Hopefully though a couple months down the line Majestic are going to smash it with innovation and updates to take the number 1 spot.We need innovation!
Fascinating comparison, be sure to keep us all updated on the fallout from this report!
Hi Peter,Hopefully there won’t be any this time, I didn’t leave room for any.
aww sheeit!making waves over there are u Matt?
Well he called me out publically. In playground terms, he started it! ;(
Ouch, all around. Great post though, highly appreciated! 🙂 Waiting to see the recoil from this. Time to break out the popcorn!
Data does not lie!
I can’t read it now, but you have always published good stuff. I gave you a vote. 1 more to go. :O)Holy smokes this is long. :O)
Make sure you read it with the music, its important.
This is freaking great. Great test and even a greater read.
Hi Mike,Glad you enjoyed it – puts that argument to rest anyway
Good read. I’m just about to go and drop Majestic SEO and sign up to Ahrefs off the back of this. I’ll be interested to see what comeback Majestic can muster up in response to this!
Hi Micsten,Probably a good idea to be honest!Hopefully Dixon takes a leaf out of Link Assistants book.I’d probably play it like thi1) publish the data of how many subscriptions this cost them in the next 2 weeks (keeps people hooked, builds trust/relationships, creates oppertunity)2) then start innovating and post about the upcoming features you have developed in response to the community (more of the above)3) launch it – go all out with the launch, smash ahrefs in with a follow up test – huge PR opportunity (launch affiliate program at same time to spread the word)4) publish the data on how many subscribers they earnt back through hard work 5) publish a final post summing up lessons learnt and how they were overcome, this can transcend the internet marketing audience and end up in places like the NY times.PR opportunity on a plate if you ask me, not many would have the balls to execute though.
It’s good to know you are not afraid of me “dropping kick you through a table” :)I have a lot of hats and I am connected to lots of people through various ways which doesn’t mean I am biased :)Did you know Ahrefs folks are from Kiev where I am from? Did you know link-assistant guys are one of my best friends and I recommend them to most of my clients who need all-in-one SEO tools.Yes, IMN is now partnering with Majestic but I had knowns them long before that. See my “very biased” review of MajesticSEO that dates back to 2008 (long before any partnership): http://www.searchenginejournal.com/majestic-seo-most-advanced-backlink-analysis-tool/7634/So all arguments aside (sorry I only skimmed through the article now), I can totally say I am honest to myself in the first place and I am sorry I have hurt your feelings by that article.
Hi Ann,I would literally be honoured if you drop kicked me through a table! Probably try and snap a picture and grab an autograph on the way down (yeah i’m that guy)!No feelings are hurt my end – I never expected my initial test to spark the controversy it did hence the holes/small sample size. Dixon called me out in a poor manner (very poor – everyone else emailed me nicely asking how to help) and drove me to design a test that could not be discredited by any party and could be independently verified – although I was expecting Majestic to win before actually running the data =/The only reason I highlighted that timeline of events is because he publicly called me out to be biased with nothing to back it up on the spur of the moment. Either way its not for me to judge, the timeline is there for all to form their own opinion. Unluckily you got caught up in that!Personally I’m just happy to have had the opportunity and drive to write the definitive post on the subject once and for all!I’ll look forward to the drop kick!
mad bruh?
i’ve build gud backlinks but i am not getting views for my website is it safe to use ahref tool instead of keyword planer