Open Site Explorer

[mattsaw]

Since Yahoo Site Explorer is likely to get pulled in the near future, and Google's public link data is patchy at best webmasters SEOMoz have launched Open Site Explorer - http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ which seems to be a vast improvement on YSE functionality.

[tomsk]

Thanks for link - I noticed the is a column marked domain authority, whilst I understand the relevance just wondered how the have been able to quantify it and what are the maximum and minimum parameters.

For example a competitors website has domain authority of 69 - is that out of hundred, or thousand etc?

[seedstotal]

its down at the mo, prob will be better at a later date

[mattsaw]

More about the site metrics here - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/one-giant-leap-for-link-data-announcing-open-site-explorer

[Andy Walpole]

I signed up for their pro package sometime last year for a while and I was pretty impressed with their backlinks data and how they presented it.

As Yahoo Site Explorer is going to kick the bucket any day now it's good to have some sort of alternative

[fisicx]

Not very accurate though.

Just run a check and it's missing a whole bunch of links to a number of the sites in its index.

[Andy Walpole]

It's quite slow in indexing pages and is usually a few months behind

[fisicx]

So much like the YSE, it's not really that good a tool. There are much better applications you can use, some free and some paid for. No need to pour more money into the Randfish coffers.

[Andy Walpole]

Yeah but the point is the YSE will disappear any day soon as Yahoo is closing it down. MSN / Live and Google don't offer a decent alternative and so the space is clear for another company to provide a complete backlinks alternative.

Majestic SEO off quite a comprehensive free backlinks service but I've never been overly impressed with it

[mattsaw]

So much like the YSE, it's not really that good a tool.That's the point - YSE is due to disappear any day now leaving webmasters with nowhere to get link data from.

[fisicx]

There are loads of link checking tools available, linkdiagnosis being my personal fave at the moment. The reports are better than YSE ever was.

[mattsaw]

There are loads of link checking tools available, linkdiagnosis being my personal fave at the moment. The reports are better than YSE ever was.

I've looked it before, I don't think there'e anywhere close to the amount of data available compared to things like Linkscape and Madjestic.

I guess it depends what you're using it for though, it's fine for just a quick look at link sources.

[fisicx]

Fair enough but the first half-dozen metrics and filters are exactly the same as linkdiagnosis and other tools. Agree linkscape does a side by side but all that seomozrank guff is well..guff.

[mattsaw]

seomozrank guff is well..guff.
I find the extra layer of data quite useful, How did you come to that conclusion?

[Andy Walpole]

There's an article here about Open Site Explorer that people may be interested in:

SEOmoz Launch a Brand New Toy: Open Site Explorer (http://seogadget.co.uk/seomoz-launch-a-brand-new-toy-open-site-explorer/)

[fisicx]

I find the extra layer of data quite useful, How did you come to that conclusion?
How do you use it? For example it gives you the anchor text, you don't need a tool to do that.

I'm not against the tool itself, just the added value of such tools against the many free tools already available.

[mattsaw]

How do you use it? For example it gives you the anchor text, you don't need a tool to do that.I mostly use Linscape which more of a premium version of the tool. It's fantastic for doing competive analysis, link target aquisition plans, checking for dubious looking redirects, link value evaluation - the more data you have the better as far as I'm concened.

I'm not against the tool itself, just the added value of such tools against the many free tools already available. You do know that most of these tools, including linkdiagnosis as far as I know are based on the free data made available by Yahoo? Once that data is pulled I'm not sure if they'll have made any alternative arrangements to source link data from anywhere.