Likelihood to Recommend It is helpful if you are trying to understand where a site stands in terms of the links coming to it from different websites. It is less helpful in terms of providing specific actions or steps to take to get more links. However, it is a part of a larger Moz package so other areas provide information that can help there.
Read full review If you have a business with more than 20 locally serving locations you know how important local searches are. RIO SEO will help syndicate your information and their robust toolkit will help those types of businesses be successful online. Their all in one dashboard lets the user control every location without having to log in to multiple dashboards to make a change in Google, then Bing, then Yelp, etc.
Read full review Pros Moz Link Explorer has a straightforward and easy to use interface. It’s very simple to navigate and understand the data. The anchor text tool gives you an idea of the most widely used anchor texts other websites use when linking to your site. It can raise a red flag when too many sites are linking to you using exact match keyword anchor texts. Read full review Their software is really amazing and does the job well and in a routine manner. Their support staff is beyond amazing, hands down the best support I've gotten from any company in any industry. The proactively find issues and bring them to our attention so we can work with our clients on getting results. The renewal process is painless and they help us with reporting to build a case for renewal and retaining the client. Read full review Cons You need to subscribe to Moz Pro to get all features, which is pricey if you aren’t using the tool regularly. I’ve found that competitor tools give larger lists of inbound links. You’ll need some understanding of how SEO works to maximize the tool. Would non-SEO specialists understand the difference between domain authority and page authority, or the difference between follow back, and non-follow backlinks? Moz offers lots of training resources, but it takes time to learn what you need. Read full review The dashboard could be a bit more user-friendly. It takes some training to get used to. Keys/legends in the sidebar and in exports to help explain what different sections are for the "laymen" that aren't in this industry 24/7. Having a "suggested changes" like what Moz.com/local has in their backend for photos/additional categories. Something that can help the user be more proactive rather than "here's where you're at" a "here's what you can do to improve" would help. Read full review Likelihood to Renew No renewal is necessary with the free version!
Read full review Support Rating I put a middling score here because of the difference in support between the free and premium uses. The Free tool was a great service, but there wasn't much support. It was tool that was intended to have a skilled SEO utilize it and save time. The Premium version has great support, but also offered more information so that skilled SEOs and novices alike could benefit from the tool.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Ahrefs is much more comprehensive than Open Site Explorer. If you are in need of a deep backlink analysis there are better options out there for your money. If you need a quick look at the state of a client's backlink profile than OSE is for you. It will give you the top metrics you are looking for and then some. I find OSE to be more user-friendly than competitors
Read full review RIO SEO is heads, shoulders, the entire body, ahead of Local Market Launch. We used Local Market Launch before RIO and it was one of the worst years of my life. The support was non-existent, their syndication was lackluster and they messed up our contracts enough times to frustrate us and the clients. I cannot express in enough words my disdain for that service and how much of a refreshing change it was to work with a company like RIO that cared as much about our client success as we did.
Read full review Return on Investment This has allowed me to bring more traffic to our website. This has increased our clients. This has increased our Domain Authority over 10. Read full review They have helped us retain several big clients over the years which in turn has helped bring in several other clients. Their tools allow us, a small boutique agency, to operate like a big agency. Our local listing clients have been much happier with our switch to RIO which has allowed us to focus on other areas for them instead of just the syndication. Read full review ScreenShots