Open Site Explorer backlink results different that MajesticSEO... why?

[conor1005]

When checking the number of external links linking to a site, Open Site Explorer and MajesticSEO give completely different results.

In one case Open Site Explorer is saying the website has: "49 Total Links"

and MajesticSEO is saying the website has: "6,143 External Backlinks (in the last 5 years)" and "497 External Backlinks (in the last 90 days)"

Does anyone know why this is?

[James-Distinction]

Open Site Explorer (OSE) and Majestic have their own indexes, with different URLS in them.

OSE currently has 77 billion URLS in it's index, and Majestic has 438 billion unique URLS in it's Fresh index. There is some overlap, but they are not identical datasets.

Neither will have ALL the backlinks going to your site. If you look at Google Webmaster Tools or Google Analytics, you tend to see some additional URLs linking back to you in there.

If you can afford to use both OSE and Majestic, then do that, otherwise pick one and try to work with that.

Hope that helps,
James