When working with Backlinks API, you may have noticed that sometimes you receive different rank values for the same domain. It may confuse you and make you think our API provides inaccurate data. Let us reassure you — it has nothing to do with the accuracy of our API. The rank metric can display different values for the same domain depending on various factors, which we will be glad to explain in the following paragraphs.
Factor #1: endpoint
Let’s analyze the vc.ru domain using the Summary endpoint.
POST https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/backlinks/summary/live
According to the data provided in the response, the rank value of this domain is 562.
{
"target": "vc.ru",
"first_seen": "2019-01-15 22:56:21 +00:00",
"lost_date": null,
"rank": 562,
"backlinks": 1661854,
"crawled_pages": 539568
}
Now let’s switch to the Referring Domains endpoint and find referring domains for sravni.ru
POST https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/backlinks/referring_domains/live
vc.ru is one of the domains that refer to sravni.ru
{
"type": "backlinks_referring_domain",
"domain": "vc.ru",
"rank": 135,
"backlinks": 83
}
However, this time its rank is only 135.
Such difference can be explained by the fact that the Referring Domains endpoint doesn’t return the rank of the entire backlinks_referring_domain — it returns the rank based on the links that come from the backlinks_referring_domain (in our case, vc.ru) to sravni.ru. Other links of vc.ru aren’t considered when calculating rank.
Factor #2: the backlinks_filters parameter in Summary
The backlinks_filters parameter in the Summary endpoint can be used to filter the initial backlinks that will be included in the dataset for aggregated metrics for your target domain.
If you specify the filter as "backlinks_filters": ["dofollow", "=", false], the rank of the target domain will equal 0 as only no-follow links (which don’t pass any link equity) will be taken into account.
{
"version": "0.1.20210917",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "4.2106 sec.",
"cost": 0.02003,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "11161536-1535-0265-0000-854bb5a5bd7a",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "4.1448 sec.",
"cost": 0.02003,
"result_count": 1,
"path": [
"v3",
"backlinks",
"summary",
"live"
],
"data": {
"api": "backlinks",
"function": "summary",
"target": "vc.ru",
"internal_list_limit": 10,
"include_subdomains": true,
"backlinks_filters": [
"dofollow",
"=",
"false"
],
"backlinks_status_type": "all"
},
"result": [
{
"target": "vc.ru",
"first_seen": "2019-01-15 23:03:12 +00:00",
"lost_date": null,
"rank": 0,
"backlinks": 219737,
"crawled_pages": 632806,
"info": {
"server": null,
"cms": null,
"platform_type": [
"unknown"
],
"ip_address": "185.137.235.88",
"is_ip": false
},
"internal_links_count": 13596697,
"external_links_count": 812584,
"broken_backlinks": 160,
"broken_pages": 4374,
"referring_domains": 11012,
"referring_main_domains": 5282,
"referring_ips": 5264,
"referring_subnets": 3221,
"referring_pages": 187507,
"referring_links_tld": {
"ru": 121316,
"ne.jp": 19668,
"com": 15128,
"org": 10416,
"by": 1590,
"ua": 1389,
"net": 1148,
"jp": 1123,
"tv": 1054,
"me": 1008
},
"referring_links_types": {
"anchor": 187507
},
"referring_links_attributes": {
"nofollow": 187303,
"noopener": 27351,
"noreferrer": 18585,
"external": 3968,
"ugc": 1198,
"sponsored": 49,
"index": 2
},
"referring_links_platform_types": {
"unknown": 169475,
"cms": 14269,
"blogs": 11026,
"wikis": 3051,
"message-boards": 602,
"ecommerce": 283
},
"referring_links_semantic_locations": {
"": 134033,
"article": 20578,
"section": 14165,
"figure": 6218,
"header": 3773,
"footer": 2443,
"main": 2253,
"nav": 2051,
"aside": 1917,
"figcaption": 67
}
}
]
}
]
}
Factor #3: the backlinks_status_type parameter in Summary
The backlinks_status_type indicates what type of backlinks the data will be returned for.
Possible values:
all— all backlinks will be returned and counted;live— backlinks found during the last check will be returned and counted;lost— lost backlinks will be returned and counted.
The rank of the domain will differ depending on the specified backlinks_status_type.
Example of the API response with backlinks_status_type: “lost”:
{
"version": "0.1.20210917",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "1.7778 sec.",
"cost": 0.02003,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "11161542-1535-0265-0000-fdaa979e38e2",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "1.7294 sec.",
"cost": 0.02003,
"result_count": 1,
"path": [
"v3",
"backlinks",
"summary",
"live"
],
"data": {
"api": "backlinks",
"function": "summary",
"target": "vc.ru",
"internal_list_limit": 10,
"include_subdomains": true,
"backlinks_status_type": "lost"
},
"result": [
{
"target": "vc.ru",
"first_seen": "2019-01-15 22:56:27 +00:00",
"lost_date": "2021-11-16 12:58:10 +00:00",
"rank": 509,
"backlinks": 195013,
"crawled_pages": 632840,
"info": {
"server": null,
"cms": null,
"platform_type": [
"unknown"
],
"ip_address": "185.137.235.16",
"is_ip": false
},
"internal_links_count": 13596693,
"external_links_count": 812586,
"broken_backlinks": 599,
"broken_pages": 4374,
"referring_domains": 6391,
"referring_main_domains": 5536,
"referring_ips": 4499,
"referring_subnets": 2925,
"referring_pages": 195013,
"referring_links_tld": {
"ru": 150139,
"ne.jp": 11859,
"com": 7959,
"jp": 7571,
"media": 2802,
"club": 1439,
"legal": 1398,
"org": 1183,
"net": 992,
"kz": 786
},
"referring_links_types": {
"anchor": 194824,
"canonical": 137,
"redirect": 52
},
"referring_links_attributes": null,
"referring_links_platform_types": {
"unknown": 155268,
"cms": 10079,
"blogs": 8794,
"ecommerce": 279,
"wikis": 138,
"message-boards": 41
},
"referring_links_semantic_locations": {
"": 195013
}
}
]
}
]
}
Example of the API response with backlinks_status_type: “live”:
{
"version": "0.1.20210917",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "1.2617 sec.",
"cost": 0.02003,
"tasks_count": 1,
"tasks_error": 0,
"tasks": [
{
"id": "11161543-1535-0265-0000-3d0e24833f5a",
"status_code": 20000,
"status_message": "Ok.",
"time": "1.2091 sec.",
"cost": 0.02003,
"result_count": 1,
"path": [
"v3",
"backlinks",
"summary",
"live"
],
"data": {
"api": "backlinks",
"function": "summary",
"target": "vc.ru",
"internal_list_limit": 10,
"include_subdomains": true,
"backlinks_status_type": "live"
},
"result": [
{
"target": "vc.ru",
"first_seen": "2019-01-15 22:56:21 +00:00",
"lost_date": null,
"rank": 562,
"backlinks": 1710424,
"crawled_pages": 632843,
"info": {
"server": null,
"cms": null,
"platform_type": [
"unknown"
],
"ip_address": "185.137.235.88",
"is_ip": false
},
"internal_links_count": 13596696,
"external_links_count": 812588,
"broken_backlinks": 1868,
"broken_pages": 4374,
"referring_domains": 26631,
"referring_main_domains": 18168,
"referring_ips": 15198,
"referring_subnets": 8060,
"referring_pages": 1239763,
"referring_links_tld": {
"ru": 1091861,
"com": 47222,
"ne.jp": 19729,
"org": 14215,
"net": 4627,
"ua": 3789,
"me": 3591,
"app": 3400,
"by": 3093,
"pro": 2659
},
"referring_links_types": {
"anchor": 1233128,
"redirect": 6532,
"canonical": 103
},
"referring_links_attributes": {
"nofollow": 187303,
"noopener": 53038,
"noreferrer": 32095,
"external": 4338,
"ugc": 1239,
"author": 92,
"sponsored": 61,
"alternate": 10,
"index": 4,
"bookmark": 2
},
"referring_links_platform_types": {
"unknown": 1176675,
"cms": 48568,
"blogs": 44764,
"wikis": 3192,
"ecommerce": 2297,
"message-boards": 2192
},
"referring_links_semantic_locations": {
"": 1055270,
"article": 62920,
"section": 40349,
"header": 37481,
"footer": 16515,
"main": 9549,
"figure": 8817,
"aside": 4834,
"nav": 3843,
"figcaption": 166
}
}
]
}
]
}