Webmaster tools not showing links but Moz OSE is showing links. Why can't I see them in the Google Search Console

[jessew]

Hi,

Please see attached photos.  I have a website that shows external follow links when performing a search on open site explorer.  However, they are not recognised or visible in search console.  This is the case for both internal and external links.

The internal links are 'no follow' which I am getting developer to rectify.

Any ideas why I cant see the 'follow' external links?

Thanks in advance to those who help me out.

Jesse

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[JustinMurray]

Make sure you have a version of Webmaster Tools setup for the http://www.yourdomain.com and http://yourdomain.com, as well as any https://www.yourdomain.com etc.  Make sure these Webmaster Tools also do not show the links. I have seen Webmaster Tools missing follow links before for some of my clients, I wouldn't worry about it, as long as you know they are there and the link is correct.  Maybe verify with another backlink crawler, but in reality, you're looking at different indexes by different data sources, so you'll see some variation in results (different numbers and links for different backlink reports)

[KristinaKledzik]

Did this help, Jesse?

[Eric_Rohrback]

So all tools (including Search Console) have different link indexes they're going to show you. That's one reason why you're seeing a difference between tools. The other reason is that Search Console will only show a **sample of your links, not all of them. **To really find all internal links, you should use a crawling tool like Screaming Frog or Xenu then check inlinks and outlinks on your site. I wouldn't rely on Search Console to give as much insight on your internal linking.

To get a better understanding about your backlink profile my recommendation is to use a couple of tools (OSE, aHrefs, Majestic, etc) in addition to the data provided in Search Console. Export the backlink data from all sources into Excel, de-dedupe the data (so you're not looking at duplicate links), and that will help you understand your profile a little better. Using multiple tools will be a little on the expensive side, but will give you a much better understanding what's out there.

Like Justin said, make sure you have the correct version of your site verified in Search Console. Google will recognize multiple variations as different sites (HTTP/HTTPS/WWW/Non-WWW). You'll also want to set a preferred domain (www vs non-www) to help Google consolidate data.