DataForSEO Brain

Moz (competitor data source)

3 min read

Moz (competitor data source)

The DA/PA brand: Link Explorer index and a machine-learning Domain Authority model, smaller and cheaper than the leaders. Sits under DataForSEO Brain → Entities.

Overview

Moz is a long-established SEO suite evaluated here as a programmatic data source competing with ent-dataforseo. It centers on Link Explorer and its proprietary Domain Authority (DA) / Page Authority (PA) model. Its draw is brand familiarity of DA/PA scoring and a cheaper entry point, not raw index depth or breadth.

Reported scale (secondary, aggregator-sourced)

  • Link Explorer index cited at ~40-45 trillion links, with an active URL index around ~4.7 trillion URLs over ~1 billion domains; newly discovered links surface within ~3 days.
  • Flag the 40T vs 4.7T gap as “total links processed” vs “active indexed URLs.”
  • Moz.com itself was not directly fetchable; treat these figures as secondary.

DA/PA methodology

  • Domain Authority is a machine-learning model predicting ranking potential from linking root domains and link quality - it is a Moz metric, not a Google metric.
  • Keyword volume uses clickstream-adjusted ranges rather than precise integers.

API & pricing model

  • API tiers are bundled with Moz Pro and are rows-based: 1 row = 1 data point (e.g. DA for 100 URLs = 100 rows).
  • Tiers run from ~10,000/40M rows; Moz Pro from 299/mo. No true standalone pay-as-you-go.

When to use / how it fits

Gotchas / limits

  • Smallest practical index and coverage among the four compared data sources.
  • DA/PA are predictive model outputs, not ground-truth Google signals - do not treat them as ranking guarantees.
  • No genuine standalone PAYG; programmatic access is coupled to Moz Pro tiers.

DA/PA in practice

  • DA scores a whole domain’s ranking potential; PA scores a single page; both are 0-100 logarithmic predictions, harder to move at the top of the scale.
  • Scores are recalibrated when Moz updates its model, so absolute values can shift without any change to a site’s links.
  • DA/PA are comparative tools: use them to rank prospects against each other, not as an absolute ranking forecast.

As a data source vs DataForSEO

  • Moz returns an opinionated authority metric; DataForSEO returns raw backlink and rank data you score yourself (cap-backlinks-api).
  • For programmatic pipelines that need many raw link rows cheaply, DataForSEO’s PAYG model usually wins; for a quick familiar authority read, Moz is simpler.

Coverage caveats

  • SERP coverage is a limited sample, and AI-search tracking is minimal relative to the leaders.
  • Treat the cited index figures (40-45T processed / ~4.7T active) as secondary, aggregator-sourced numbers.
  • Newly discovered links surface in Link Explorer within roughly three days.

Where it fits in this brain

  • Moz is a reference benchmark, not a data source the flows depend on; DataForSEO supplies the raw link and rank rows the workflows consume.
  • Compare DA/PA against raw rank fields when validating a backlink deliverable.

Sources

Graph View

Backlinks