SEO Toolkit Spotlight: Majestic SEO
Posted on Monday, July 8th, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Here at TSEG, we take pride in our agility; we’re quick to execute client requests and responsive to Google algorithm updates, all while managing our daily tasks. As a player in the tech and web game, having an edge up on our competition is always important. And we would not be able to maintain our competitive edge without a variety of tools at our disposal, day in and day out.
As the SEO Strategist, the tool I use most when I’m working is Majestic SEO. Majestic offers a myriad of tools to really take a deep look at a given website. Similar to many other online services (including search engines), Majestic SEO compiles what I personally believe to be the largest and most complete data set available. While they are not the only service to provide this kind of reporting, based on my experience, the metrics that Majestic SEO uses are the most beneficial and accurate on the market. From the Majestic page “About Us“,
Majestic SEO surveys and maps the Internet and has created the largest commercial Link Intelligence database in the world. This Internet map is used by SEOs, New Media Specialists, Affiliate Managers and online Marketing experts for a variety of uses surrounding online prominence including Link Building, Reputation Management, Website Traffic development, Competitor analysis and News Monitoring. As link data is also a component of search engine ranking, understanding the link profile of your own, as well as competitor websites can empower rational study of Search Engine positioning. Majestic SEO is constantly revisiting web pages and sees around a billion URLs a day.
Majestic SEO is Loaded with Features
The most frequently used Majestic tool would definitely be the Site Explorer. Its easy-to-navigate interface allows large data sets to be parsed and summarized to make sure you see all of the most valuable information about a site all on one page. Simply enter in the URL you wish to investigate, click explore, and voila!
Once you’ve entered in your URL, you’re whisked away to find the Explorer Summary. This page displays all kinds of valuable information, like:
- External Backlink Count
- Referring Domain Count
- Referring IPs
- Referring Class C Subnets
- Page Title
- Anchor Text Distribution
- 5 Most Valuable Links
- Back-link Discovery Graphs
While this page displays only a summary, being able to visualize the important pieces of each section lays the foundation for professional site analysis. There are clickable tabs that allow you to delve deeper into each section, as you’ll notice below:
Using Majestic SEO to Recover from Penguin 2.0
On May 22nd, Matt Cutts announced that Google had begun rolling out an algorithm update known as Penguin 2.0. Webmasters were quick to notice that many of the sites that lost ranking on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) had something in common – over optimized anchor text. What had once been a viable strategy was now being frowned upon. Without a tool like Majestic SEO Explorer, noticing these trends would have been much, much harder.
Packages and Pricing
Another thing to love about Majestic SEO is the multi-tiered pricing structure. For starters, if you are interested in exploring a site that you own, there is free access by going through a quick validation process. This free access extends only to exploring your own site, but for the average website owner or in-house marketing guy, this is a perfect taste of what is to come with the monthly pricing.
The first paid package is the Silver tier at $49.99 a month. Compared to Majestic’s two major competitors, this entry level tier is easily the most affordable. This package offers everything that an individual or small business would need, including 60 detailed reports a month, and a maximum of 5 million analyzable back links.
The second paid tier is the Gold tier, at $149.99 a month. Compared to Majestic’s competitors, this mid-level package is still the most affordable. The major differences in the Silver and Gold packages are the increased number of detailed reports allowed monthly (300 a month) and an increase in the maximum number of analyzable back links (25 million). This tier will offer plenty of functionality and has plenty of allocated resources for even a large, enterprise-level corporation.
The final, largest tier is Platinum. At a whopping $399.99 monthly, you are offered the ability to run a staggering 950 reports per month and analyze up to 100 million back links. The big difference in the Gold and Platinum tiers is the ability to access the Majestic API, giving developers easy access to parse the database and extract information to build their own reports.
The Final Verdict
At TSEG, we have subscribed to and used Majestic SEO on a daily basis for over three years. We would not be able to handle the high volume of client reporting and data analysis we examine without the tools provided by Majestic SEO, and recommend it to anyone looking for a comprehensive way to do website analysis. With continued updates and support, the team behind Majestic continues to impress us, and we’re looking forward to maintaining our relationship with the company for years to come.
July 8th, 2013 – Posted by Bradley Lewis to Search Engine Optimization.
To contact the author, emails can be sent to: blewis@thesearchengineguys.com
