As an SEO Agency, businesses often get entangled on the fence between Moz and Google Search Console, two highly respected platforms in the industry. In the dynamic and competitive landscape of search engine optimization, making the right choices about your toolkit can make a world of difference.
This article is going to deep dive into the Moz vs Google Search Console debate covering critical considerations including their effectiveness in executing link audits, the overall value for money they provide, and how well they suit organizations of varying sizes and resources. After all, the ‘best’ tool is subjective and often depends on specific needs and resources.
In this article will also be covering the possibility of alternative solutions like BacklinkManager.io, which in some situations, could be the very ingredient your SEO strategy is missing. With powerful features like the Link Crawler and Link Building Goal Tracker feature, this tool could help you tick boes that Moz or Google Search Console couldn’t. Let’s begin!
TL;DR:
- Moz and Google Search Console offer robust SEO solutions with key features designed to execute link audits, link building, and broken link building.
- Moz provides comprehensive link audit tools, effective broken link-building features, and an extensive library of resources for link-building strategies.
- Google Search Console offers a straightforward and no-cost solution, providing essential data on backlink profiles and tools for URL inspection and sitemaps.
- BacklinkManager.io is introduced as a potential alternative, offering powerful features such as Link Crawler and Link Building Goal Tracker for more effective link audits.
- Moz and Google Search Console have unique strengths for link audits; however, BacklinkManager.io’s advanced capabilities could be a more efficient solution.
- Regarding link building, Moz offers a range of tools, including Link Explorer and Keyword Research, whereas Google Search Console provides valuable data on top linking sites and anchor texts.
- Moz provides tools to find and replace broken links for broken link building, while Google Search Console helps manage and repair broken links on your website.
- BacklinkManager.io presents a comprehensive solution for broken link building, with continuous link monitoring, link status notifications, and a reliable link crawler.
Moz vs Google Search Console – Similarities and Differences
Both revered SEO tools, Moz and Google Search Console, offer robust solutions for link audit, link building, and broken link building. Despite having similar features, the difference lies in their unique implementations and their pricing plans.
Moz showcases comprehensive link audit and link-building capabilities. The ‘Links’ section looks at inbound links, linking domains, anchor text, top pages, and link spam score. Its ‘Link Research’ and ‘Link Intersect’ features allow users to analyze the link profile and find potential link-building opportunities. The ‘Discovered and Lost Links’ tool tracks broken links perfectly.
Google Search Console, on the other hand, offers an uncluttered view of backlink profiles via the ‘Links’ feature, which details top-linked pages and internal links. The ‘URL Inspection’ tool is instrumental in conducting a link audit, identifying issues, and rectifying broken links. Additionally, the ‘Sitemaps’ function assists in link building by making it easier for Google to discover and index new pages.
Both tools serve a similar purpose but cater to different user needs and budgets. Moz’s sophisticated suite of link-related tools is suited for deep-dive analysis, while Google Search Console offers a no-cost, straightforward solution for businesses on a tight budget. Delving into the specifics of each product will help discern the most effective tool for your requirements.
Let’s look into the details of each.
Moz vs Google Search Console for Link Audit – Differences
In this section of the article, we’re really going to dig into the nitty-gritty of each area of product functionality. That way, we’ll be able to figure out which tool – Moz or Google Search Console – is the best option depending on your use case.
Moz for Link Audit
Continuing our discussion on leveraging Moz for SEO, let’s dive into how to conduct a link audit using Moz’s powerful tools. Regular link audits are essential for maintaining a healthy backlink profile and ensuring your website’s search engine ranking remains strong. Here’s a step-by-step guide that even a beginner SEO can follow:
- Step 1: Log in to your Moz dashboard and navigate to the ‘Link Explorer’ tool, which can be found under the ‘SEO’ tab in the top menu.
- Step 2: Enter your website’s domain in the search bar, then click ‘Analyze Domain.’ This will provide you with an overview of your backlink profile, including Domain Authority (DA), number of backlinks, and referring domains.
- Step 3: Click on the ‘Inbound Links’ tab to view a comprehensive list of all the backlinks pointing to your website.
- Step 4: Analyze your backlinks, paying close attention to the quality and relevance of each link. Use Moz’s Spam Score metric to help identify potentially harmful or low-quality links.
- Step 5: Export your backlink data to a spreadsheet for further analysis and organization. In the spreadsheet, create columns for the website name, URL, DA, Spam Score, and any relevant notes.
- Step 6: Review your spreadsheet and identify any links that need to be removed or disavowed due to low quality, high Spam Score, or irrelevance to your niche. Highlight these links for easy reference.
- Step 7: Reach out to the website owners or editors hosting the harmful links, politely requesting link removal. Keep track of your communications in your spreadsheet.
- Step 8: If link removal is unsuccessful or impossible, create a disavow file using Moz’s Disavow Tool. Upload this file to Google Search Console to inform Google that you do not want these links to impact your website’s ranking.
- Step 9: Regularly monitor your backlink profile using Moz’s ‘Link Explorer’ tool to ensure your link audit efforts are effective and to identify any new links that may require attention.
By following these actionable steps, you can effectively use Moz to perform a link audit and maintain a healthy backlink profile for your website, ultimately improving your search engine ranking.
Google Search Console for Link Audit
In this section, we’ll explore how Google Search Console can be utilized for link audits, a crucial process for evaluating and optimizing your website’s backlink profile. Regular link audits can help you maintain a healthy link profile and enhance your website’s search engine ranking. Here’s an actionable guide for beginner SEOs:
- Step 1: Log in to your Google Search Console account and verify your website if you haven’t done so already.
- Step 2: Navigate to the ‘Links’ section in the left-hand menu to view data about your website’s backlinks and internal links.
- Step 3: Analyze the ‘Top linking sites’ report to evaluate the quality and relevance of websites linking to your content. Look for suspicious or low-quality sites that could negatively impact your search engine ranking.
- Step 4: Review the ‘Top linked pages’ report to assess the distribution of backlinks across your website’s content. Identify any pages that may be over-optimized or under-optimized in terms of backlinks, and adjust your link-building strategy accordingly.
- Step 5: Examine the ‘Top linking text’ report to evaluate the anchor text used by other websites when linking to your content. Ensure the anchor text aligns with your target keywords and accurately represents your content.
- Step 6: Create a spreadsheet to document your link audit findings, including columns for the website name, URL, link quality, anchor text, and necessary actions or notes.
- Step 7: Address any issues identified during the link audit, such as contacting website owners to request changes, updating your content strategy, or using Google’s Disavow Tool to disavow harmful backlinks.
- Step 8: Schedule regular link audits for your ongoing SEO strategy. Consistent audits will help you maintain a healthy backlink profile and ensure your website’s search engine ranking continues to improve.
Following these actionable steps, you can effectively use Google Search Console to conduct thorough link audits, optimize your website’s backlink profile, and enhance your search engine ranking over time.
Moz vs Google Search Console – is There a Better Alternative for Link Audit?
Moz and Google Search Console both offer robust features for SEO operations and choosing between the two often depends on your specific needs. When it comes to link audits, both have their unique strengths.
Moz’s Link Explorer provides a comprehensive overview of backlinks pointing to a particular site, helping you identify potentially harmful or low-quality links. It also provides a Spam Score metric that assists in identifying low-quality links, while the Site Crawl feature uncovers any critical crawler issues.
On the other hand, Google Search Console has a user-friendly interface that provides comprehensive data on website clicks, impressions, average CTR, and position. Moreover, its ‘Links’ feature allows you to inspect top-linked pages and internal links.
However, regarding advanced link audit capabilities, a better alternative might be BacklinkManager.io. Offering features like Link Crawler and Tracker, Link Building CRM for managing link partnerships, and Custom Reports, BacklinkManager.io ensures you have all the data you need to manage and optimize your backlink profile effectively.
Better Alternative for Link Audit – BacklinkManager
While BacklinkManager is not a typical link audit tool like ScreamingFrog, or even Ahrefs and SEMrush, it provides an efficient solution for monitoring and auditing the links that really matter to link-building agencies and clients, rather than *all* links. By monitoring links built in specific campaigns and partnerships (or acquired from specific vendors), and notifying you when a link disappears or the page is 404, it ensures your hard-earned links don’t rot. It can also help you report this to your clients via Custom Reports.
Here are some of BacklinkManager’s link-audit-related features:
- Link Audit: BacklinkManager enables users to ensure their backlinks’ quality with its dedicated Link Audit feature. This feature allows users to maintain control over their link profile’s quality and integrity.
- Custom Reports: With BacklinkManager’s Custom Reports feature, users can generate and share detailed reports on the status of their backlinks. These reports assist in identifying and rectifying any backlink-related issues promptly, ensuring the effectiveness of their SEO strategies.
- Backlink Monitoring: In addition to audit and reporting tools, BacklinkManager provides constant backlink monitoring, which allows users to stay up-to-date with the status of their backlinks at any given time.
As a comprehensive solution for link-building operations, BacklinkManager goes beyond traditional CRM functionalities to offer powerful tools like link monitoring, custom report generation, and goal setting. By providing these resources, BacklinkManager supports SEO professionals and agencies in maintaining the quality of their backlinks and conducting efficient link audits.
Moz vs Google Search Console for Link Building – Similarities and Differences
In this section of the article, we’re really going to dig into the nitty-gritty of each area of product functionality for link building. That way, we’ll be able to figure out which tool – Moz or Google Search Console – is the best option depending on your use case.
Moz for Link Building
Moz offers a range of tools and features to help users effectively implement link-building strategies for their websites. Here are some actionable steps for beginners to use Moz for link building:
- Link Explorer: Utilize Moz’s Link Explorer tool to analyze your website’s backlink profile and discover valuable link opportunities. You can also research your competitors’ backlinks to identify potential link sources.
- Keyword Research: Use the Keyword Explorer to find relevant and high-traffic keywords to help you create valuable content, making it more likely for others to link to your site.
- On-Page Optimization: Take advantage of Moz’s on-page optimization guidelines to improve your content’s quality and relevance, increasing the chances of earning organic backlinks.
- Broken Link Building: Find broken links on relevant websites using Moz’s Broken Link Building guide, and offer your content as a replacement, thereby creating valuable backlinks.
- Link Building Resources: Access Moz’s extensive library of link-building resources to learn more about effective strategies, best practices, and outreach techniques to help you build a strong backlink profile.
Google Search Console for Link Building
In this section, we’ll discuss how Google Search Console can be utilized for link building, a critical aspect of SEO. By leveraging the data provided by Search Console, you can identify valuable link opportunities and enhance your website’s search engine ranking. Here’s an actionable guide for beginner SEOs:
- Step 1: Log in to your Google Search Console account and verify your website if you haven’t done so already.
- Step 2: Navigate to the ‘Links’ section in the left-hand menu to view data about your website’s backlinks and internal links.
- Step 3: Analyze the ‘Top linking sites’ report to identify high-authority websites already linking to your site. Contact these websites for further link-building opportunities like guest posting or content collaborations.
- Step 4: Review the ‘Top linked pages’ report to determine which pages on your site are earning the most backlinks. Use this information to create high-quality, link-worthy content and optimize your existing content for better link acquisition.
- Step 5: Explore the ‘Top linking text’ report to understand the anchor text used by other websites when linking to your content. This can help you identify potential keyword opportunities and tailor your content strategy accordingly.
- Step 6: Create a spreadsheet to track your link-building efforts, including columns for the website name, URL, contact information, outreach status, and relevant notes or communications.
- Step 7: Regularly monitor your backlink profile in Google Search Console to measure your link-building efforts’ success and identify new growth opportunities.
Following these actionable steps, you can effectively use Google Search Console to inform and enhance your link-building strategy, boosting your website’s search engine ranking.
Better Alternative for Link Building: BacklinkManager.
BacklinkManager is a versatile tool designed to cater to all your link-building needs.
- Link Exchanges: Users can set their niches and Domain Rating (DR) expectations to find and connect with like-minded link exchange partners automatically.
- Broken Link Building: With 24/7 link monitoring, BacklinkManager notifies users instantly when a link’s status changes, aiding in efficient broken link building.
- Guest Posting: BacklinkManager enables users to keep track of guest post opportunities and monitor the links obtained from these efforts.
- Link Partnerships: This tool facilitates the management of link partnerships, tracking who has built more links, and maintaining clear communication with partners through live chat and comments.
- Link Audits: With BacklinkManager’s custom reports, users can conduct thorough link audits to ensure the quality of their backlinks.
- Link Building CRM: BacklinkManager serves as a dedicated CRM for link-building operations, managing relationships with clients, freelance link builders, and vendors.
- Link Monitoring: BacklinkManager offers comprehensive link monitoring services, including a reliable link crawler, link status notifications, and management of link-building targets, goals, and target groups.
BacklinkManager is more than a CRM—it’s a complete solution for your link-building operation. With its powerful features and tools, you can monitor links, create reports, set goals, and share interactive dashboards to streamline your SEO efforts.
Try BacklinkManager today and elevate your link-building strategy to new heights!
Moz vs Google Search Console for Broken Link Building – Similarities and Differences
Finally, most SEO agencies considering Moz vs Google Search Console want to look at their functionality for broken link building. Let’s dive into it in more detail.
Moz for Broken Link Building
As we continue to explore Moz’s powerful SEO tools, let’s dive into how to use Moz for broken link building. Broken link building is a valuable SEO strategy that involves finding and replacing broken website links with relevant content. Here’s a step-by-step guide that even a beginner SEO can follow:
- Step 1: Log in to your Moz dashboard and navigate to the “LinkExplorer” tool, which can be found under the ‘SEO’ tab in the top menu.
- Step 2: Enter a competitor’s domain or a website within your niche in the search bar, then click ‘Analyze Domain.’ This will provide you with valuable insights into their backlink profile.
- Step 3: Click the ‘Inbound Links’ tab to view a comprehensive list of all the backlinks pointing to the target website.
- Step 4: Filter the results to show only broken links by selecting ‘404 Not Found’ from the “Status” dropdown menu.
- Step 5: Analyze the list of broken backlinks to find opportunities for your content. Look for links related to your industry or niche that you can replace with high-quality content from your website.
- Step 6: Create a spreadsheet to manage your broken link-building outreach efforts. Include columns for the website name, URL, contact information, outreach status, and relevant notes or communications.
- Step 7: Reach out to the website owners or editors hosting the broken links. Inform them of the issue and offer your content as a suitable replacement. Make sure to keep your outreach email personalized, polite, and professional.
- Step 8: Track your progress and monitor the results of your broken link-building campaign using Moz’s ‘Link Explorer’ tool. Regularly review your backlink profile to measure success and identify new opportunities.
Following these actionable steps, you can effectively use Moz to implement a broken link-building strategy and improve your website’s search engine ranking.
Google Search Console for Broken Link Building
This section will discuss how Google Search Console can help manage broken links on your website. Contrary to tools like Moz, Google Search Console does not directly facilitate the broken link-building technique to generate new backlinks. However, it’s instrumental in identifying and fixing broken links on your website, which is critical to SEO health. Here’s a simple guide:
- Step 1: Log into your Google Search Console account.
- Step 2: Navigate to the ‘Coverage’ report in the left-hand menu to discover any pages on your website that have been excluded from Google’s index due to ‘404 Not Found’ errors.
- Step 3: Once you have identified the broken links on your site, focus on repairing them by either redirecting the broken URLs to relevant live pages or restoring the content if it was removed mistakenly.
- Step 4: Once the changes are made, use the ‘URL Inspection’ tool in the Google Search Console to recheck the repaired URLs and request indexing from Google.
- Step 5: Continually monitor the ‘Coverage’ report for new 404 errors and address them promptly to maintain the SEO health of your website.
By following these actionable steps, you can effectively use Google Search Console to manage and repair broken links on your website, an important factor in maintaining your site’s overall SEO health.
Better Alternative for Broken Link Building – BacklinkManager
BacklinkManager offers an innovative approach to managing broken link-building tasks. It provides users with constant link monitoring and real-time notifications in case of lost or no-followed links, essential for efficient broken link building in SEO.
- Backlink Monitoring: BacklinkManager comes with a reliable link crawler that keeps track of your backlinks’ status (do-follow, no-follow, 404) around the clock.
- Link Crawler & Linkbuilding Goals Tracker: The tool offers consistent monitoring of your clients’ backlinks, promptly notifying you whenever a purchased link is removed.
- Link Status Notifications: Users are immediately informed via in-app notifications or email when a link’s status changes, helping to safeguard your link-building investments.
- Link-building Targets, Goals & Target Groups: BacklinkManager allows you to easily manage your link-building efforts by setting goals for target pages and grouping these pages based on projects, domains, or clients.
- Reliable link crawler: With a two-factor check system, BacklinkManager ensures accurate crawling of your links, providing trustworthy data about your link-building campaigns.
As a comprehensive solution for link-building operations, BacklinkManager provides more than just CRM functionalities. It enables users to monitor links, create insightful reports, set goals, and share interactive dashboards, contributing to more effective and streamlined link-building strategies.
Conclusion – Which Tool is Better for Your SEO Agency, Moz or Google Search Console?
Hopefully, this post helped you decide whether Google Search Console or MOZ is more appropriate for your company. As you can see – both have many upsides and downsides.
Undeniably, BacklinkManager provides a better value for money and is a better choice for mid-market SEO agencies, especially when it comes to link audits and broken link building.
If you’re interested in finding more book a demo with our team here!
