Best Link Data to Review

[Brando16]

I'm performing an analysis of some of our competitors and was wondering what is the best link metric to look it?

Page Specific Metrics - Total Links or Linking Root Domains?

Root Domain Metrics - Total Links or Linking Root Domains?

Total links seems like it would be less important since it includes internal links from page to page within the site.

[RobertFisher]

Brandon,

There are a lot of reasons for looking at competitors, so I am going to assume you are not in a high revenue, highly competitive vertical where you are wanting to outrank competitors and need immense granularity. I would look at the LRD's and then how many links from the external sites. What are the qualities of the links versus your site and just as importantly versus other competitors. (remember, it is not you against them - it is them against them and you and them and the other one and then you against the other one....... I think you get it.)

If you are looking just to discover who is outranking and how, remember to look beyond the links. Content, structure, markup, etc.

Best

[Brando16]

Well, I'm going to eventually be breaking down these pieces but I'm looking at much more than SEO for this exercise. I'm also looking at Design, Content, Performance, etc. I'm really just trying to get a high level view of who is doing what right.

I looked over my question after posting and I should have written it out differently. What I'm really wondering is, why does moz count internally linked pages as a "Link". Does it really matter how many internal links a website has or how many times a website links within it's self? It just seems like a useless metric.

[RobertFisher]

Does it really matter how many internal links a website has or how many times a website links within it's self?

Yes it does matter and while there is no rule in terms of how often to do it, there are a lot of good reasons to do so. A link is a link (mostly) when it comes to link juice being passed. A site can try to game rankings by overlinking to itself, etc.

I suggest reading about linking on Moz on the beginners guide to SEO, look at the Moz academy etc.

Good luck,

[Brando16]

If a site over links to itself then they are most likely creating a bad user experience. When it comes to internal links, I would always but more priority on taxonomy and the user experience, the SEO would be a result of that.

Natural, diverse links from highly trusted sources is what comes to mind when I think about link building.