SE Ranking’s Upgraded Backlink Database: Our Data Has Become More Accurate and Up-to-Date
Every powerful SEO strategy leans on quality datasets, making precise data SE Ranking’s top priority. Backlink data is no exception. After the Helpful Content Update rollout, the SEO landscape has been dominated by authoritative websites with strong backlink profiles. This is why having quality backlink data is essential. You need it to stay competitive and make smarter link building decisions.
We noticed that most backlink tools offer outdated data that can be multiple years old. On the surface, you may get a visually impressive report with hundreds and thousands of detected backlinks. But dig a little deeper and you will discover that many of these backlinks were crawled ages ago and can no longer serve you in your research.
Just like other backlink tools, SE Ranking’s backlink reports used to include not-so-fresh data. Our goal for the first quarter of 2023 was ambitious: to significantly increase the speed of our updates. Today, we are thrilled to present our enhanced backlink database, distinguished for its relevance and lightning-fast dataset updates. With superior data, you can conduct a more comprehensive backlink and SERP analysis and make informed decisions to fuel your SEO strategies.
What enhancements did we make?
After SE Ranking’s recent update, our backlink database stands out for its:
- Data freshness: With 58% of backlinks updated within 90 days, SE Ranking now displays fresher information on the status of backlinks and referring domains (new or lost), and more quickly identifies new links acquired by websites.
- Data relevance. With faster updates, the number of irrelevant backlinks that can hinder your ability to conduct a quality analysis has decreased significantly. Fresher backlink data enables us to refine our Domain Trust and Keyword Difficulty calculation algorithms. We are currently fine-tuning these formulas to make these metrics even more accurate.
- Data completeness: The number of referring domains in our database has increased by a whopping 24%. We also use smarter algorithms when processing backlinks. When there are multiple backlinks on a referring page, we crawl them all but only add one most impactful backlink to the report. This strips the reports of fluff and ensures a more precise backlink analysis.
- Data coverage: Our database now includes a broader range of backlink data, allowing for the upcoming integration of new metrics and features into our backlink reports. This includes an enhanced formula for calculating backlink toxicity score, detecting backlinks from redirects, and more.
To measure the update’s impact, we analyzed approximately 1500 backlink profiles and compared stats from our old and updated datasets. If you believe numbers speak louder than words, the next section of this post is for you.
Datasets comparison research: key findings
We analyzed 1500 domains to gauge how well we improved our backlink status update frequency. Our selection of domains included different aged domains (under a month old, under six months old, more than six months old) and various domain zones (com, net, org, io and some regional domains) to ensure optimum representation.
Here are our key findings:
- 58% increase in links with up-to-date data within a 90-day period.
- 26% of all backlinks are updated monthly, meaning billions of backlinks are crawled monthly.
- 33% more referring domains were detected in the domain age group of 0 to 6-month-old domains.
- 26.66% increase in data on referring domains for the com/org/net/io domain zones, compared to our previous database.
Why this update is so significant
We’ve stripped our database of many outdated, disruptive backlinks and referring domains to create a more accurate analysis of backlink profiles. We keep regularly updating all backlinks at a much faster pace to ensure data freshness. Our up-to-date information on backlinks and referring domains enables you to adapt better to the changing SEO landscape.
While the data in your Backlink Checker reports may look different now (you might notice that the number of backlinks/referring domains has decreased), it’s more precise and reliable. That means no more clutter.
We recalculated our Domain Trust, Page Trust, and Keyword Difficulty metrics with more precise data. We’re also continually fine-tuning these metrics.
Since all three metrics pertain to website authority and SERP competitiveness, you can now more easily grasp how likely your site or page is to reach the top of the SERP.
! Mind that our current algorithms tend to attribute a more optimistic DT score to smaller domains. The system is more stringent with larger sites. When analyzing several domains, it’s better to pick comparable domains, i.e. domains representing the same industry, etc.
With this backlink database upgrade, we are confident that our platform has become an even more appealing choice for anyone seeking a great price-to-quality ratio. SE Ranking is constantly growing. Better yet, for the same cost, you can now receive even more comprehensive and up-to-date information on backlinks.
Our plans for further improvement
We’ve achieved so much already, but we’re keeping the momentum going! The SE Ranking team is committed to continually improving our backlink databases and refining the Backlink Checker’s performance. Here’s a brief rundown of our improvement ambitions:
- We plan to enhance our formula for calculating backlink toxicity by adding new parameters. This will enable us to detect more toxic backlinks so you can further optimize your backlink profile’s quality. This update will be especially helpful given Google’s recent spam policy changes.
- We’re working on expanding our domain database. We plan to get as close as possible to the global maximum of 365 million domains.
- We plan to increase our backlink discovery and update speed. We’re also continuing to improve our database’s relevance.
- We are planning to display backlinks from redirects in our Backlink Checker.
Our main goal, which we always strive for, is to enrich our platform with advanced SEO data that boosts the effectiveness of your website optimization efforts. This backlink database update is just a small part of why our platform is getting better with each day’s passing.
Looking ahead, we’ll be sharing regular updates and research with you to highlight our progress. Stay tuned to our blog for more updates 😉
