How to get backlinks with the API

[silvacarl]

in other words, does someone have an example of the API parameters for the backlink API call?

[DavidLee]

Hey Carl!

We do provide examples in the documentation. They can be filtered in many ways.

Here is a very basic call that will return the first 25 links to all pages going to moz.com which will provide the linking page and the page being link to

http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/links/moz.com?AccessID=member-xxxxxxxx&Expires=xxxxxxxx&Signature=xxxxxxxx&Scope=page_to_domain&Filter=external&Sort=page_authority&SourceCols=4&TargetCols=4&LinkCols=4&Limit=25

The first result will look like this:

[0] => Array
(
[lrid] => 460538186303
[lsrc] => 131443324666
[lt] => "Google Algorithm Change History"
[ltgt] => 68767261786
[luuu] => moz.com/google-algorithm-change
[uu] => en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Panda

Hope this helps!

[silvacarl]

THIS IS AWESOME!  If i am checking a subdomain, like 10.billing.callmydoc.com, do I need to do something different?

As usual, I will repost my findings once completed.  8-)

[DavidLee]

You would only need to adjust the scope to be &Scope=page_to_subdomain

as the above example would only give you results to any page at callmydoc.com

[DavidLee]

Also to test your results, you can cross-reference by filtering page/sub-domain/root-domain directly on OSE https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=10.billing.callmydoc.com&filter=&source=external&target=domain&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=

[silvacarl]

all i did was change that one parameter but now i am getting:

{
"status" : "403",
"error_message" : "Permission denied: blepcoehcjeidmfpcleoaigbaahfafhgbo"
}

[DavidLee]

Can you paste the full URL call your app generated minus credentials so I can take a look?

[silvacarl]

this is for my wife's practice: http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/links/solimancare.schedulemypatient.com?AccessID=mozscape-xx&Expires=xx&Signature=xx%3D&Scope=&Scope=page_to_subdomain&Filter=external&Sort=page_authority&SourceCols=4&TargetCols=4&LinkCols=4&Limit=50&Offset=0

returns:

{
"status" : "403",
"error_message" : "Permission denied: naieofimocidphjeoaifmdkkmllomolnnf"
}

[DavidLee]

Hi Carl

The call is malformed with an additional scope parameter: http://www.screencast.com/t/zTqfBb0NuAO

If you remove the extra &Scope=

The call should work

[silvacarl]

jeez.  8-(  Ok, got it.  wow, sorry.  fixed.  Now: http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/links/solimancare.schedulemypatient.com?AccessID=mozscape-xx&Expires=xx&Signature=xx%3D&Scope=page_to_subdomain&Filter=external&Sort=page_authority&SourceCols=4&TargetCols=4&LinkCols=4&Limit=50&Offset=0

does not return anything, just [].  It should show at least one of cal.callmydoc.com, solimancare.com, shantiquesparoom.com

should I tune up the parameters to be more specific?

[silvacarl]

so I would take the json returned from the http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/links call and feed it back into this to cross reference, corect?

[DavidLee]

You would only need to enter the domain in the search field on OSE to return metrics you can compare against API results.

OSE is our web app which calls our API.

[DavidLee]

This will mean we have not discovered links from external sites to pages at those domains

https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=shantiquesparoom.com&filter=&source=external&target=domain&group=0&page=1&sort=page_authority&anchor_id=&anchor_type=&anchor_text=&from_site=

[silvacarl]

so the call would be like: url="https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/links?site=$searchurl?AccessID=${access_id}&Expires=${timeend}&Signature=${signature}"?

[DavidLee]

That URL is not an API call as it is a direct link to our online web app via web browser.

[silvacarl]

got it!  really really appreciate your help!

[silvacarl]

see below curl bash examples for Moz API:

#!/bin/bash

Usage: ./moz-test.sh callmydoc.com or ./moz-test.sh solimancare.schedulemypatient.com

Note: backlinks for subdomains does not return results yet.

access_id="mozscape-xx"
secret_key="xx"

searchurl=$1
echo "Checking backlinks for ["$searchurl"]"
endpoint="lsapi.seomoz.com"

timenow=$(date +%s)
timeend=$(( ${timenow} + (606024) ))
stringToSign=${access_id}$'\n'${timeend}
signature=$(echo -n "${stringToSign}" | openssl dgst -sha1 -hmac "${secret_key}" -binary | base64)
signature=$(echo ${signature} | sed 's/+/%2B/g;s/=/%3D/g')

start=0
end=300
echo "Checking for practices from $start to $end"
rm found_urls.txt
touch found_urls.txt
for (( i=$start; i<$end; i++ )); do
numberofdots=$(echo $searchurl | grep -o "." | wc -l)
echo "number of dots ["$numberofdots"]"
if [ "$numberofdots" == "1" ]; then
url="http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/links/$searchurl?AccessID=${access_id}&Expires=${timeend}&Signature=${signature}&Scope=page_to_domain&Filter=external&Sort=page_authority&SourceCols=4&TargetCols=4&LinkCols=4&Limit=25"

url2="http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/url-metrics/$searchurl?Cols=4&AccessID=${access_id}&Expires=${timeend}&Signature=${signature}"
echo "Calling Moz url-metrics API with ["$url2"]"
curl $url
echo
read -n 1 -p "Press any key to continue . . ."
echo
else
url="http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/links/$searchurl?AccessID=${access_id}&Expires=${timeend}&Signature=${signature}&Scope=page_to_subdomain&Filter=external&Sort=page_authority&SourceCols=4&TargetCols=4&LinkCols=4&Limit=25"
fi
echo "Calling Moz API with ["$url"]"
curl $url > backlink-results.json
echo
jq -r '.[].uu' < backlink-results.json >> found_urls.txt
read -n 1 -p "Press any key to continue . . ."
echo

sleep a random amount between 1 and 30 seconds to not crush moz API

sleep $[ ( $RANDOM % 50 ) + 1 ]s
(( i + 50 ))
done

[DavidLee]

Anytime!

[silvacarl]

Can you think of any other method for doing the subdomain backlink search?  I posted the code above if you want to play with it.

Or for that matter anyone can try it out.

[DavidLee]

I'm afraid not for bash curls. We do share example code for calling our API using other languages at https://github.com/seomoz/SEOmozAPISamples