High total links, but very few root domains?

[thegildedteapot]

Hi Moz community!I've just joined and am getting to grips with SEO basics. Right now, I'm looking at the Competitive Link Metrics in Moz Pro, and I'm curious about the following-

Of the three competitors that we're following, I'm trying to figure out some differences between two of them - we'll call them A and B. 'A' has 3.6k external followed and total links, with 5 total linking root domains. 'B' (a more prestigious and established company with a much higher DA) has 2.2k total external links, with 180 root domains.

So my question is, how can A have nearly 1,000 more links, but only from 5 domains? Any feedback much appreciated! Thanks!

[becole]

Welcome to the Moz community, theguildedteapot! Happy that you're here.

When it comes to links, you should look at the number of root domains, and not links from each domain. For example, we typically really only "count" one or two links from each domain. Even though you have 1,000 links from one site, you really need to look at it as if it's one link.

Personally, I'd rather have 10 links from 10 domains than 100 links from 3 domains.

[thegildedteapot]

Fantastic, thanks Bernadette!

[Chris_Hickman]

I always like pointing out the linking C blocks when comparing the competition. If you're not familiar with linking C blocks, these are essentially IPs from servers of domains that are pointing to your site. You may have 10k backlinks, but they are coming from 2 C blocks. Ideally you would want to have a large variation of links, coming from an assortment of C blocks. In a nutshell you want to have links coming from all over, but make sure they are diverse, relevant, and high quality. It does take time.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Adficient.com

[ThompsonPaul]

One of the typical ways a site ends up with a huge number of links, but from a small number of domains, is if they end up with a link in a footer or sidebar - something that appears sitewide/on every page. Or from social media sites. In these cases, the huge number of links probably aren't adding a lot of ranking influence.

That's not to say multiple links from one domain don't have value though. There are plenty of situations where an influential site could be linking to you in different contexts. These, I definitely believe, still pas ranking authority. And remember, the only purpose of links isn't ranking. If they're good links, they'll also be sending actual traffic and eyeballs!

Hope that helps?

Paul