Majestic tool alternatives: seven mistakes when you swap
Changing the link tool changes the numbers, and changed numbers start arguments. These are the seven errors we expect, and the fix for each.
ASEOTools editorial team ·
The seven mistakes at a glance
Mistake
What goes wrong
Fix
Comparing scores across tools
DR 54 here and a different figure there look like a drop
Compare rank order, not digits
Swapping mid-report
The trend line breaks
Run both for one full month
Ignoring index age
A fresh link seems missing
Allow for the monthly refresh
Counting rows as value
10,000 links from one site look big
Count referring domains
Trusting one metric
A single score hides spam
Read anchors and top pages too
Pulling everything, every time
Credits burn on duplicate pulls
Pull what changed
No named owner
Nobody knows why a number moved
Assign one person
Mistakes one to three: the metric moved, the site did not
A new tool is a new ruler. The wall did not shrink.
Majestic, Moz and Ahrefs each report their own scores, and ours is one more: round(100 times log(ref_domains+1) divided by log(2 times 10^7)). It works in spirit like Ahrefs DR or Moz DA, a log scale where each new tier takes far more referring domains than the last, but the digits never match.
So run the old and new tools side by side for one month, write both figures in the same sheet, and from then on report the new one only. When someone asks why DR dropped six points on the first of the month, the answer is on the sheet.
A note on trust in any single score
No score is truth. Each is a model of a link graph that its owner built and refreshes on its own schedule.
Keep a short list of ten sites whose strength you know from experience, and see where each tool puts them. If one tool ranks a site you know to be weak above one you know to be strong, treat that tool's output as a rough guide only.
Mistakes four to seven: reading the data wrongly
Volume lies. A hundred links from a single directory is one relationship, not a hundred.
Count referring domains first, and use the anchors and toppages actions to see where the links land and what words they use. Both cost 2 credits per call, up to 1,000 rows, and the bill does not change with the row count.
Credits are cheap. Still, pull only what changed since last month, and add the per page filter whenever the question is about one section of a site. Finally, give the report to one named person, because metrics without an owner become decoration, and after a Google update such as the March 2024 core update, you will want someone who can say what changed in your link profile.
Do not forget to tell clients. A one-line note in the next report, saying the metric changed and why, costs nothing and saves a call.
Hypothetical month of parallel running
Example only: you export 40 client domains from the old tool and call bulk_dr on the same 40 here for 1 credit. If the rank order of the 40 matches closely, you can trust the swap. If it does not, read the outliers by hand before you cancel. Use the setup guide to automate that month, and the stack audit to find what to compare.
Swap questions
Which Majestic tool alternatives do you recommend?
We only know our own. It gives referring domains, backlinks, anchors and DR over a 181 million domain index, billed per call. Test it on a small list beside whatever you use now, and keep the one whose rank order you trust.
Do I need a Moz DA PA checker as well?
Only if clients ask for those names in reports. DA and PA are Moz metrics, ours is a different score. A free check here shows DR and counts, so use it as a sanity layer rather than a replacement for a number someone promised.