Ahrefs is more accurate than Moz. It can be considered as an industry standard SEO tool. However; I recommend you to use Ahrefs to analyze backlinks, because I personally use it.
If you are new to this tool then follow the steps that I use while analyzing backlinks.
We all want to create backlinks on the right websites, but how will you consider either the right or wrong websites?
You will need to analyze carefully!
Analyzing backlinks is one of the most crucial parts of SEO to rank higher in the search results.
Before starting creating backlinks, you will need to analyze your website's current backlinks profile and your competitors' backlinks profile.
We use different tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and a couple of more to analyze backlinks. Ahrefs can be considered as an industry-standard tool.
I use ahrefs, so let's see how I analyze backlinks using the ahrefs tool.
Generally, I put my client's website or competitors' link on the "site explorer" of ahrefs and press enter. It shows an overview of the website.
You can see some options there, such as Backlinks and Referring Domains. The backlinks section shows the number of overall mix backlinks created, and the referring domains sections show that overall websites refer to the site.
Let's see how each of them works!
Referring Domains:
When I click on "referring domains," it will open a list of all root domains that are referring to the website. You can see two options above the list; Link type and TLDs.
Link-type helps me to understand what type of websites are referring to the website. When I click on link type, a drop-down opens that shows a list of dofollow, nofollow, and a few more types.
Dofollow links are the most powerful links, but I build a mix of both no-follow, do-follow, UGC, educational and governmental backlinks to look natural.
I never try to build sponsored links because it has no value at all from an SEO point of view.
Though, if you only build a do-follow link, there is no harm to your site. When you build high-quality dofollow contextual backlinks, tire2 no-follow backlinks will be automatically built by others.
The other option you will find beside the "Link type," which is TLDs abbreviated as Top Level Domains. It will help you if you want to rank on any specific region most of your keywords.
For example: If you want to rank your website in the USA, you should build most of your backlinks on the sites with (.us) extensions.
In the left panel, there are also two options available for referring domains. From there, I can find the newly referring websites and the websites that are no longer referring to the site.
This is the process of how I analyze referring domains of a website. You can implement this analyzing method on your site as well as on your competitors' websites.
Now let's see how I analyze backlinks!
Backlinks:
When I click on backlinks, it shows a list of backlinks along with a bunch of different options.
Sometimes I create multiple backlinks on a single domain, so if I want to filter out one backlink per domain, then I choose it from above the list.
There are three options available regarding this. Such as "group similar," "one link per domain," and "All."
"Group similar" are the links that are filtered out from the duplicate links. When we create a link on a website, it would be copied multiple times on the multiple pages of the website because of the site's structure.
For example: If I create a backlink on a post of a website, this post will appear on its website's internal searches, which means the post link will also be copied on the search page. Similarly, on the pagination pages and other unnecessary pages.
These backlinks have no value in SEO. So, "Group Similar" will filter out those links.
There are a couple of more features available on the same row. You will find features like Link type, platform, language, Traffic, include words, etc.
I have already discussed the "Link type," and now let's see how other features work.
Based on my client's website niche, I build a strategy to create high-quality backlinks. If it is required to build eCommerce backlinks, then there is a feature inside the platform tab. It will filter out all the eCommerce backlinks of my competitors. Similarly, I can filter out blogs, WordPress or CMS, wikis, message boards, etc.
However, I can also filter out other language sites if I need them.
The traffic of a site matters a lot for backlinks, so I filter a traffic range of at least 3k visitors per month. I also include niche-related words so that I can build contextual niche-based backlinks.
After finalizing the list, I export it as an excel sheet and keep it to follow in the future.
However, this is the process of analyzing backlinks; you can follow the steps!
< edited - removed self promotion >