how accurate is ahrefs' backlinks checker?

monere · Sep 13, 2020

Hi,

2 weeks ago I have added an expired domain that I've purchased 2 years ago but did nothing with it to my GSC, and few days later GSC had discovered 598 backlinks.

Now, a minute ago I just put this domain name into ahrefs' backlink checker and hit "check backlinks" and ahrefs says that this domain's DR score is 11 and its UR score is 9, but the thing that puzzles me is that ahrefs only knows about 13 referring domains with a total number of 35 backlinks, while GSC shows 196 referring domains with 598 total backlinks.

As you can see I am pretty confused about these stats, especially since ahrefs' backlinks checker tool shows me backlinks from sites that GSC has no clue about.

So, can someone please enlighten me on which one I should trust more? Probably GSC, but then what's the point in using ahrefs' tool anymore? And why does it detects backlinks from sites that GSC doesn't know about?

I really don't know what to make of this....

Mr Positive · Sep 13, 2020

Yea I have seen this happened with ahrefs before normally they’re accurate but at times GSC is more accurat, also did you check those links manuall?

bartosimpsonio · Sep 13, 2020

Ahrefs is pretty accurate.

GSC doesn't show all links. It has a ton of filters. Ahrefs shows all.

Also keep in mind webmasters may cloak links in/out or block the ahrefs crawler. It's not hard to show a nonexistent link on any link checker.

monere · Sep 13, 2020

Mr Positive said:
Yea I have seen this happened with ahrefs before normally they’re accurate but at times GSC is more accurat, also did you check those links manuall?

Clicked on 2 backlinks from ahrefs (and they're there), also randomly checked several from GSC and they are there, too

bartosimpsonio said:
Ahrefs shows all

on the contrary: ahrefs doesn't show all. If anything GSC shows all... well, more of them anyway

alonelywriter · Sep 13, 2020

Its slow but its trusted Since it almost grabs everything that a website has in its backlink.

monere · Sep 13, 2020

alonelywriter said:
Its slow but its trusted Since it almost grabs everything that a website has in its backlink.

you talking about ahrefs? And by "it's slow" do you mean that if I check again later it will discover more backlinks?

alonelywriter · Sep 13, 2020

monere said:
you talking about ahrefs? And by "it's slow" do you mean that if I check again later it will discover more backlinks?

Yes i am talking about ahrefs, its slow. Also I think many websites block these backlink tools to discover them. If it is your website that you want to check backlinks for .. then use google search console don't use outside tools but if you want to check competitors then use outside tools.

monere · Sep 13, 2020

alonelywriter said:
Yes i am talking about ahrefs, its slow. Also I think many websites block these backlink tools to discover them. If it is your website that you want to check backlinks for .. then use google search console don't use outside tools but if you want to check competitors then use outside tools.

that's what I thought, too... Thanks!

TheDankChocolate · Sep 13, 2020

Ahref is more accurate than its counterparts imo.
About showing all the links, I doubt

monere · Sep 13, 2020

dank_chocolate said:
Ahref is more accurate than its counterparts imo.
About showing all the links, I doubt

I hear that a lot, but what I needed to know (maybe I phrased my question poorly) is whether ahrefs is more accurate, or GSC. If you were in my position which one would you trust more?

TheDankChocolate · Sep 13, 2020

monere said:
I hear that a lot, but what I needed to know (maybe I phrased my question poorly) is whether ahrefs is more accurate, or GSC. If you were in my position which one would you trust more?

GSC, with a pinch of salt though and one other reason to trust GSC is Ahref is a third-party tool.

monere · Sep 13, 2020

dank_chocolate said:
GSC, with a pinch of salt though and one other reason to trust GSC is Ahref is a third-party tool.

Thanks!

crossline · Sep 13, 2020

monere said:
Now, a minute ago I just put this domain name into ahrefs' backlink checker and hit "check backlinks" and ahrefs says that this domain's DR score is 11 and its UR score is 9, but the thing that puzzles me is that ahrefs only knows about 13 referring domains with a total number of 35 backlinks, while GSC shows 196 referring domains with 598 total backlinks.

since ahrefs are third party, i think GSC is more accurate
but, ahrefs has a lot of features to analyze the backlinks more deeper in a different perspective

monere · Sep 13, 2020

KEEN-G said:
since ahrefs are third party, i think GSC is more accurate
but, ahrefs has a lot of features to analyze the backlinks more deeper in a different perspective

yeah, man, but the difference is huge. I mean, 13 referring domains is only 6% of what google knows about, and if I were to base my future purchases on ahrefs' backlinks checker I would probably be screwed big time

Anyway, thanks for your input. I already had a feeling that GSC might be better for assessing your domain's backlinking profile before I created this thread, I just needed some confirmations... and I got them. Cheers!

HenryObi · Sep 13, 2020

monere said:
Hi,

2 weeks ago I have added an expired domain that I've purchased 2 years ago but did nothing with it to my GSC, and few days later GSC had discovered 598 backlinks.

Now, a minute ago I just put this domain name into ahrefs' backlink checker and hit "check backlinks" and ahrefs says that this domain's DR score is 11 and its UR score is 9, but the thing that puzzles me is that ahrefs only knows about 13 referring domains with a total number of 35 backlinks, while GSC shows 196 referring domains with 598 total backlinks.

As you can see I am pretty confused about these stats, especially since ahrefs' backlinks checker tool shows me backlinks from sites that GSC has no clue about.

So, can someone please enlighten me on which one I should trust more? Probably GSC, but then what's the point in using ahrefs' tool anymore? And why does it detects backlinks from sites that GSC doesn't know about?

I really don't know what to make of this....

This happens with all tools, I believe with time ahrefs will crawl more of your links and have most of them shown.

From my personal experience even GSC doesn't list some of the links despite being indexed on Google(they show on the cache of the pages they're placed).

I don't think this should matter much to you unless your sole aim of getting the domain was to sell links, if it's for SEO and ranking purposes, doesn't matter what the tools show, long as you're ranking and of course banking, you're good.

Seorankers · Sep 13, 2020

Ahrefs is pretty reliable while GSC doesn’t show some links.

monere · Sep 13, 2020

HenryObi said:
This happens with all tools, I believe with time ahrefs will crawl more of your links and have most of them shown.

From my personal experience even GSC doesn't list some of the links despite being indexed on Google(they show on the cache of the pages they're placed).

I don't think this should matter much to you unless your sole aim of getting the domain was to sell links, if it's for SEO and ranking purposes, doesn't matter what the tools show, long as you're ranking and of course banking, you're good.

to rank it is why I've purchased the domain, and I thought that backlinks (especially how many, and how qualitative, ie. non-spammy they are) are the main reason you would purchase such a domain in the first place. So the backlinks pointing to my domain are pretty important, no?

Also, can I get a rough estimate of the percentage of backlinks GSC usually shows for a domain? Is it over 90%, between 70% and 90%, around 50%, between 30% and 50%, less than 30%, etc?

And I'll check with ahrefs backlinking checker again in a few days cause now I'm curious to see if it discovers more

Seorankers said:
Ahrefs is pretty reliable while GSC doesn’t show some links.

no, man! With all due respect but I refuse to believe - for now - that a SEO tool that only knows about 6% of the backlinks that google knows about is reliable. Thanks for the input, though. I appreciate it

HustleTong · Sep 13, 2020

Much accurate compared to GSC

Petta · Sep 13, 2020

In my, experience GSC shows fewer backlinks compared to ahref.

monere · Sep 13, 2020

itsprabhucbe said:
In my, experience GSC shows fewer backlinks compared to ahref.

ok

how accurate is ahrefs' backlinks checker?

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