MajesticSEO, OSE, AHrefs or ???

[giggity]

I was wondering which link exploration tool people are using here?

The top three competing services are MajesticSEO, OSE and Ahrefs but does a single one of these stand out to you as being above the rest? Or is there a service that is of similar quality but not given the attention it deserves?

[tstolber]

I use OSE, and have only briefly used the others. I don't know that there is a big stand out difference but SEO Moz & OSE is definitely my preference.

[DixonJones]

Hi Giggity,
For the record, I am not impartial here. I will always recommend MajesticSEO (check the Bio). I think there are significant differences - in the way the data is collected and the way it is imparted. Majestic is Fast, Vast and the lowest price of the three you mention. The support is significant (I'm here on a Saturday, but using the Support button is awesome too) and Majestic will carry on developing. Try out the paid version for a month - you can always switch if it's not for you.
Dixom.

[giggity]

Hi Giggity,
For the record, I am not impartial here. I will always recommend MajesticSEO (check the Bio). I think there are significant differences - in the way the data is collected and the way it is imparted. Majestic is Fast, Vast and the lowest price of the three you mention. The support is significant (I'm here on a Saturday, but using the Support button is awesome too) and Majestic will carry on developing. Try out the paid version for a month - you can always switch if it's not for you.
Dixom.

I have used it, a lot actually. I just wanted to find other people's opinions on it. Unfortunately I can't quite afford £36/month at this point in time.

[ahrefs]

I am not impartial as Dixon. So just numbers:

Pages Crawled/day: Ahrefs 3.2 billion, MajesticSEO 1.2 billion, OSE 0.7 billion.
Ahrefs has the fastest crawler.

Index size: Ahrefs 66.5 billion, MajesticSEO 37.7 billion, OSE ~20 billion (according to a histogram at January Mozscape Index is Live! | SEOmoz )
Ahrefs has the biggest index. I know about Majestic Historic index but it is very special and has a low percentage of the existing links.

Price: MajesticSEO 50, Ahrefs 79, OSE 99.
MajesticSEO is the cheapest.

[tstolber]

I think this thread is getting a little out of hand. All due credit to those that identified themselves as not impartial.

While there are some comparisons the numbers of the individual services you get (API access, backlinks crawled, requests per day etc) are all different therefore comparing the services on price is not entirely accurate.

A good review of all three products would be very interesting though.

[dzine]

If anywhere, this is THE place for a showdown

As long as people keep things civilised and all that...

[Ann Smarty]

I really prefer Majestic. I reviewed them back in 2008, so it's the oldest one, so I'd say they really get it.

[Dr.Marie]

I've used OSE a lot and ahrefs a lot. I have only dabbled with Majestic. I find I like ahrefs the best. Ahrefs tends to find way more links than OSE.

Lately, the majority of my time is being spent on unnatural links cleanup and I find that ahrefs is very handy for this. I like the way that the data exports and find it intuitive to use. I pay the $80 per month quite happily. I have to admit that I am a bit confused about ahrefs rank. So, if I'm trying to figure out the relative authority of a site I'll usually check the mozrank on OSE.

I haven't paid for Majestic though...so it's hard to be impartial.

I think it depends on what you are using it for. They're all free for some small uses so I would say use each of them for a while and see which one feels best. All three are pretty amazing and I don't think you'll go wrong with whichever one you choose.

[PathwayIns]

Ahrefs seems to bring back more discernible backlinks.

[forexoon]

I still miss site explorer from Yahoo!

Today, I like Ahrefs best, because it is quick and indexes links fast. They also start listing no-follow links like wikipedia that are very important. I am disappointed with majestic and ose.

[Test-ok]

I think their all free to try, check em out and see what which one suits your fancy...either they work or they done.
Don't they pretty much all work the same?

[Dr.Marie]

One other thing...I'm not sure if Majestic and OSE do this, but I really like how ahrefs shows you new and lost backlinks. Sometimes the results are a bit wonky, but it's cool to see where you've picked up new links.

[Test-ok]

LinkAssistant does that Marie

[DixonJones]

Majestic also does this - updating every day. It record the date first seen (in that index) the date last seen and - if the link is broken, the date lost. OSE doesn't yet, as they update monthly at the moment.