SpyGlass is the competition analysis part of SEO Powersuite. It covers all the basics that other SaaS (software as a subscription) and comes with a 30-Day Guarantee. The backlink intersects and comparisons are very similar to Moz’s and make me wonder if they are using their APIs.
Backlink Profile Research
This section of the software you enter in the competitor’s URL and it will output the backlink information that it has. At first glance, you see how many backlinks, how many different domains, DoFollow or NoFollow, c-blocks, etc. that you would expect right away. But what surprised me was that it shows the HISTORY of these backlinks! If you see a very large spike in backlink numbers in a short period of time it triggers Google that this is suspicious and will hurt your rankings. So seeing the history here is a nice glance on whether your competitor’s backlinks are organic or purchased.
Not sure where it gets its data from but it is nice to see the history as soon as I type in a domain. Another nice thing to have the historic data is that this report provides you a list of backlinks that it used to have but do not have anymore. These could be good prospects to look into and get backlinks from. Maybe they took your competitor’s link off of their website because they had a bad experience with them and you could step in!
It also shows you what you would want to find in a competition analysis software. Where the links came from, when, what TLD, what anchor text was used to point to the website, etc.
There is data here that is not provided for by other SaaS services though. I wrote a custom script to determine the frequency of anchor text and put it in a tag cloud for me. Fortunately, this software does this for you already which is nice. Also, the stats are displayed better than other SaaS’s that I have used. With easy to look over graphs and detailed numeric values for every possible scenario.
Your Backlink Profile
Of course, you can enter your own domain to see your backlink profile. I discovered that I can hook up Google Analytics and Google Search Console along with the software to get more accurate results of backlinks. I have not seen that elsewhere yet.
Referral Traffic From Competitors in SpyGlass
This surprised me, I haven’t seen this one yet in Moz, SpyFu, etc. yet. This software keeps track of how much traffic you get from backlinks that you have. You don’t have to write a custom Google Analytics report for that one! After monitoring something like this you can get a better idea of where to grab more backlinks from and what type of mentions bring in the most traffic to your website.
Backlink Comparison Research
This looked suspiciously close to what Moz has. So I looked it up in Moz and although they looked the same the numbers were way different. I wonder if having the ability to hook up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to the backlink results is making the numbers off by the thousands. The total links Moz says has 12,000 more but the total linking domains Moz says it has 43 more domains. Perhaps it was only counting links to the home page? I double-checked and it was not.
This will give a good test for other tools as well.
Linking Domains:
- DIIB: Awaiting Results
- Linkody: 6
- Neil Patel: 28
- SEO Powersuite (Tool only): 33
- Google Analytics: 42 (shows visits only)
- Google Search Console: 63
- Small SEO Tools: 81
- ahrefs: 100
- The Hoth: 100 (powered by ahrefs)
- SEO Powersuite: 108
- Monitor Backlinks: 140
- Moz: 151
- SEMRush: 290
- Sitechecker: 330
Total Backlinks:
- Google Analytics: unknown
- Linkody: 8
- Monitor Backlinks: 45
- Sitechecker: 81
- SEO Powersuite (Tool only): 83
- Neil Patel: 84
- SEMRush: 85
- Google Search Console: 298
- Small SEO Tools: 332
- SEO Powersuite: 455
- ahrefs: 624
- The Hoth: 624 (powered by ahrefs)
- DIIB: 4,508
- Moz: 12,224
Using the tool only has much smaller results. It looks like Moz’s total backlinks are set far apart from the rest with DIIB being the second. I just exported a .csv file of the largest one, Moz’s, and I am going to do a little testing and checking.
It appears that the reason Moz is so high is that it has multiple mentions in forums online so this may be the accurate one. I did not see any broken links doing testing here and there.
So you will have to make your own judgment on the accuracy of the backlinks using the SEO Spyglass.
Domain Strength Research
The domain strength screen is the same as the other portions of the website.
Under this section, the software goes over the current status of your website that includes its own grade of your domain, traffic, backlinks, no-follow or follows, how many pages are indexed, social media popularity, and more.
Reports Generated from SpyGlass
The reports that can be generated below also can be set up to compare to previous time periods. These reports can be shared with other members of the team and your customers.
These reports include:
- Backlink Summary
- Backlink Details
- Domain Comparison
- Domain Strength
This is a nice addition that not all services have. I do not believe Mangools has this but Moz does. Moz allows you to custom create the reports to send out while SEO Powersuite you cannot custom create the reports but send them out as they are.
I can customize the report by picking and choosing what to display in the report so that I can customize it to each individual customer that only wants these details or those details.
Conclusion of SEO SpyGlass
SEO Powersuit’s SEO Spyglass seems to be mostly focused on collecting information about the competitor’s backlinks. SpyFu seems to be the only one that also gives you pay per click campaign information.
For my testing in competition analysis and reviewing the SEO Spyglass, the only thing that was missing was pay-per-click data and when compared to the other SaaS services out there, excluding SpyFu, it rates a little better than the others because of its addition of being able to look up the history on all of the backlink data.
I review it a solid 9 out of 10. If it would have data on pay-per-click campaigns of the competitors it would have ranked a 10.
Don’t forget to see my other reviews on SEO Powersuite:
- SEO Powersuite
- SEO Powersuite Website Auditor
- SEO Powersuite Spyglass
- SEO Powersuite Rank Tracker
- SEO Powersuite LinkAssistant
Interested? Follow the links below.
SEO PowerSuite is available in Free, Professional and Enterprise versions. Six months of search algorithm updates are included in the Professional and Enterprise versions. After the six months expire, search algorithm updates are provided on a paid basis. Depending on the license type and the number of months you pay in advance, the fee can run as low as $8.89/mo.
The maintenance price will probably increase depending upon how much you use it as well, but the total price from what I can find online looks like it is still cheaper than the monthly SaaS (software as a service) out there.
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