Is There Life after Yahoo! Site Explorer? The Impact, the Damage and the Alternatives
As we all know, Yahoo! Site Explorer is gone and is gone for good. Strangely enough, most SEO’s have taken it for granted for so long that now many of them don’t really know what to do (desperate hand splash). SEO blogs and forums are abuzz with questions like “How do I see competitors’ backlinks?”, “Where do I get backlink data from?”, “Is there another free backlink checker like Y!SE?” and similar.
Some typical recommendations include (1) using Google Webmaster Tools for backlink statistics (these only show you backlinks to YOUR site, and are useless for competition analysis) and (2) using another super-duper SEO tool that will appear wearing Y!SE’s superhero coat and take its place.
The Impact
Ok, let’s face it – there is none like Yahoo! Site Explorer. No other online service at this point of time is able to provide you with such a huge amount of backlink data for FREE. Hence, the days of free backlink stats are gone. Yes, we have enjoyed Y!SE’s free services for quite a while, and we are grateful for the huge amount of time and money it has saved us. However, it is now time to move on.
The Damage
The damage from Yahoo! Site Explorer’s shutdown cannot be overestimated. Not only did SEO’s and SEO companies get affected, by also a whole number of SEO tools that used to rely on the service for backlink data.
The Alternatives
Well, having gone over the impact and the damage, let us move on to a more pressing question: what are the alternatives?
As I have said earlier, there is no backlink checker at the moment that is JUST like Y!SE. However, there are a number of well-established SEO tools with an extensive backlink database that could be used for backlink research (including competition research).
Open Site Explorer ($99/mo)
Open Site Explorer is SEOmoz’s cloud-based backlink checker that relies on the company’s own database of backlinks called Linkscape. It has a really impressive index to which some major improvements were recently introduced. The new SEOmoz’s bot goes deeper into a website’s link structure, filtering out lower-quality webpages, and thus delivering better-quality backlink data.
SEO tool’s pros:
- it offers an extensive database of backlinks
- it’s cloud-based
- it provides social media metrics for each linking page (new feature).
SEO tool’s cons:
- the index is not that frequently updated (once in 2-4 weeks)
- one has to wait several hours for SEO reports to arrive.
Site Explorer ($47.06/mo)
Site Explorer is a backlink checker by Majestic SEO that is geared by one of the oldest backlink databases in the industry. Majestic SEO offers a fresh (updated on a daily basis) and a historic index of backlinks. All in all, Majestic SEO is one time-tested database that could probably be called the most extensive one available.
SEO tool’s pros:
- it is one of the oldest indices in the industry (dates back to 2006)
- the index is updated on a daily basis (however, it’s being mentioned the data may be up to a month old)
- the app is cloud-based.
SEO tool’s cons:
- it is missing the Web 2.0 metrics like linking page’s social media popularity, etc.
- it provides a relatively small number of purely SEO metrics (10+).
SEO SpyGlass ($99.75 license fee, $3.05/mo after 6 months)
SEO SpyGlass by Link-Assistant.Com is powered by 2 pools of backlink data. The 1st pool is backlink checker’s own multi-million database. The 2nd pool is 412 search engines’ databases the app uses for backlink data. Such mixed approach allows one to discover a great number of backlinks pointing to a page, as well as to see what backlinks are actually indexed by SEs like Google, Exalead, etc.
SEO tool’s pros:
- it’s a synergy of an in-house index and 400+ third-party SE sources
- it provides lots of backlink metrics (60+), including social media stats
- own index is updated on a daily basis
SEO tool’s cons:
- it’s a desktop application
- the database is relatively “young” and, therefore, is not that extensive
It should be mentioned as well that each of the above-analyzed SEO tools has a FREE version available. However, there are certain limitations. For example, with a free version you get information on:
1. Open Site Explorer: up to 10,000 backlinks
2. Majestic SEO: up to 5 backlinks
3. SEO SpyGlass: up to 1,100 backlinks
As you see, each of the three backlink checkers has its pros and cons, so, the choice of the SEO tool would probably depend on a particular SEO’s needs.
( Original post by Alesia via site-reference.com )
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