Majestic SEO Review: Right Choice for Link Building in 2025?

Majestic SEO is a well-established brand specializing in link analysis.

Unlike Semrush, which also began as link analysis software, Majestic hasn’t expanded to offer tools required by the evolution of Google.

If you purchase Majestic, you’ll need to use other SEO software to cover the rest of your SEO needs. And Semrush already includes superior link analysis tools.

Marketing legend Harry Beckwith observed that our expectations are set by best-in-class experiences.

Once you experience the best, anything less seems disappointing.

That’s true of services as well as products, including SEO software.

For this reason, I see no use case for Majestic SEO in 2025 because there are better alternatives.

In this article, I’ll take you inside Majestic. I’ll share my perspective, based on over 10 years of experience using SEO tools.

In the end, you’ll decide which product best suits you, based on your goals.

Why Analyze Backlinks?

For years, a strong backlink profile has been recognized by SEO professionals as essential for achieving optimal rankings.

Statements made by Google staff over the years suggested backlinks were declining in importance.

Then, a couple of years ago, Google analyst Greg Illyess said that backlinks are no longer a top ranking factor.

That makes sense. After all, why would a searcher care that a given page had a good backlink profile?

As Google continually improves its ability to assess quality and originality, backlinks will matter less for ranking.

My take: Backlinks still matter, and are instrumental in many top rankings. However, it’s never been easier to dislodge an incumbent with a quality article that has no backlinks.

Quality trumps backlinks. But on topics where no one is producing anything new and impressive, backlinks will hold their former importance.

Keep in mind, though, that backlinks bring readers and conversions. So it’s not just about rankings.

With that, let’s look inside Majestic SEO. But first, a branding note.

Note: Majestic SEO’s Rebranding

Majestic SEO launched in 2008. In 2014, it rebranded as “Majestic”.

However, in the marketing community, it is still often referred to as “Majestic SEO”.

Majestic SEO’s Key Features

Let’s start with Site Explorer, whose features are included in the $49.99/month Lite plan.

Site Explorer

Paste in a domain, and Majestic’s Site Explorer will provide link analysis.

Summary: The first feature is an overview made up of 3 rows of tiles, followed by a more detailed analysis.

For a URL to analyze, I chose a blog that I occasionally post to.

My first impression was that the layout is clean and there are some eye-catching data visuals.

However, the tiles in the 2nd and 3rd row are not clickable. To get more details on them, you need to go to the vertical menu on the left and click on the corresponding menu item.

This seems counterintuitive and slows down navigation.

Additionally, the name of the tile doesn’t always have a corresponding item in the menu.

Example: for the tile “External Inbound Links,” you click on “Backlinks” to get more details.

Let’s look closer at the first section of the Site Explorer Summary.

The 2 circular scores, “Trust Flow” and “Citation Flow”, are proprietary metrics.

• Trust Flow is similar to domain authority scores and indicates the average quality of inbound links
• Citation Flow is a measure of the quantity of inbound links

Ideally, Trust Flow and Citation Flow should be balanced. High Citation Flow and low Trust Flow may indicate an issue with toxic backlinks.

Topical Trust Flow: This metric is a subject matter category, based on the types of sites that link to yours.

My blog is a marketing blog. But Majestic’s Topical Trust Flow indicated it was about “Society / Religion and Spirituality.”

Do I have links from other sites on “Society / Religion and Spirituality”? And enough of them that Majestic is confused about what my site is about?

I checked the Referring Domains list, and none of the inbound linking domains are listed as about “Society / Religion and Spirituality.”

However, a second Referring Domains check on the same day showed a different set of results. Two sites that link to mine are listed as being about “Society / Religion and Spirituality.”

One site, a French site about transportation and logistics, is incorrectly labeled “Society / Religion and Spirituality.”

The other site, a parked domain for sale, is also incorrectly labeled as being about religion.

The latter site, like a few others, is simply a low-level, spammy linker that should be filtered out of Majestic’s tool.

In fairness, the low level of inbound links in this example may amplify the effects of spurious data.

Majestic didn’t seem to have difficulty categorizing a large site like outdoorresearch.com.

However, there are spurious topic labels in the Pages report.

For instance, this article by Exploding Topics on internet traffic from mobile devices is classified by Majestic as being about “Society / Death”.

After a few weeks, my site was categorized as primarily about Computers / Internet and secondarily about Society / Religion.

I hadn’t altered anything about my site.

Link Graph: I found these graphs to be intriguing but difficult to navigate.

With a MacBook Pro plugged into a 24-inch monitor, this is what my link graph looked like, in full-screen view.

It includes clusters of links to sites linking to your site.

I found much of the data to be irrelevant.

For instance, because there’s a Medium blog post linking to me, there’s a small Medium link cluster in the graph.

And because my site’s code is hosted in a public repository on GitHub, there’s a GitHub cluster in the graph.

Mousing over nodes and the links between nodes, I found the overlays, which flicker on and off, to be tricky to navigate.

Using the zoom feature, I still found this graph difficult to use. Mousing over anything produces various pop-ups.

I was surprised to see the 512KB Club node, located southwest of the GitHub node. Because my personal blog links to the 512kb Club and to my marketing blog, Majestic turned the 512kb link into a node here.

Takeaway: I don’t see a practical use case for the link graph.

Majestic’s Keyword Research Features

Before moving on to more backlinks analysis, let’s take a look at the keyword features in Majestic.

Are they enough to prevent you from purchasing robust keyword research tools like Semrush?

Under "Keywords" in the left-hand menu of Majestic, I chose "Keyword Generator" and entered “Fair trade coffee.”

I was fascinated by the results highlighted below. 

Many of these keywords did not make sense, or seemed unrelated to the site's main topics.

For example, Majestic SEO indicated there were exactly 13 mentions of "w3 seiko" on GroundsForChange.com, a well-known fair trade coffee site.

I wanted to know the source of Majestic's data, so I conducted a site-wide search of GroundsForChange.com for some of these keywords.

I confirmed that there were zero mentions of the ones I checked.

The results from Majestic seemed like a cross between a hallucinating AI and a random text generator.

Let’s move on to Majestic’s other backlinks analysis tools.

Compare

Under the “Compare” menu item, you can view your backlink and referring domains history compared to competitors.

Flow Metrics enables marketers to track changes in Trust Flow and Citation Flow.

However, the Flow Metrics chart is visually cluttered and therefore difficult to decipher.

Clique Hunter: This tool enables you to identify websites that link to your competitors.

To test it, I added the domains:

• outdoorresearch.com
• backcountry.com
• switchbacktravel.com

The idea is to uncover outreach opportunities.

The chart, in its default setting, is impossible to interpret.

If you zoom in, you still can only see a small portion of it.

To navigate the chart, I think you’d need a touchscreen larger than the biggest flat-screen TV. And I don’t see a benefit to interacting with it.

Thankfully, it can be hidden entirely.

That leaves a table-based list, which I’ve pulled an extract from below.

By comparison, I recommend you explore the Semrush Backlink Gap tool. It has none of the annoying minutiae and is easy to use.

Pages Report

The Pages Report in Majestic is a list of your strongest pages as measured by Trust Flow and Citation Flow.

The Link Density Chart is a visual analysis tool that helps you understand where links appear on a webpage and their relative importance.

A tooltip in the Link Density chart explains that the diagram breaks the source (the linking page) into 40 segments.

Each segment represents a section of the page.

The idea is that links in the main content are more valuable than links in the sidebars, header, and footer.

Link Density can therefore help you to understand if links are placed appropriately on the page.

Majestic SEO Pricing

Majestic offers 3 plans:

• Lite for $39.99/month
• Pro for $99.99/month
• API for $399.99/month.

You’ll need the Pro plan if you want access to historic data.

Ready for some alternatives to Majestic?

Alternatives to Majestic SEO

First, consider using the Exploding Topics free tool while you test the others listed below.

Exploding Topics Free Backlink Checker

We offer our own free backlink checker for easy backlink analysis.

This tool will provide a basic backlink profile and a link to get a 14-day free trial to Semrush.

Semrush: Comprehensive SEO Platform

In my experience, Semrush has the most comprehensive set of SEO tools and quality data.

I’ve been using it for years for both SEO and content marketing.

You’ll get 5 backlink analysis tools, including:

• Backlink Gap
• Backlink Analytics
• Backlink Audit

In addition, the keyword research tools are unbeatable, offering more filters, competitive insights, and SERP features than any other tool I know of.

Overall, Semrush makes it easy to create a winning SEO strategy.

Each of these keywords signals buying intent and is easy to rank for.

Ahrefs: Robust Keyword and Backlinks Analysis

Ahrefs is a top name in SEO as well. I’ve covered their top features and use cases based on years of Ahrefs use.

Ahrefs tracks fewer SERP features compared to Semrush, but those features are available as filters in its Content Gap tool.

Try Semrush for free via the 14-day free trial. Then contact Ahrefs and request a free trial.

(You can’t sign up for a free trial of Ahrefs online.)

Link Research Tools: Meticulous Analytics

If you need a dedicated link analysis tool that presents the maximum number of filters and features, choose Link Research Tools.

This Austria-based platform is focused on pristine data that can be manipulated in virtually any conceivable way.

I’ve had the pleasure of using Link Research Tools (LRT) as part of a successful and complex link-building project.

Plans start at $599/month.

You Have Options: Moving Forward with SEO

While Majestic SEO pioneered backlink analysis with metrics like Trust Flow, my testing suggests that it has failed to keep pace with the industry's evolution.

What are the main limitations of Majestic SEO compared to competitors?

• It has an outdated interface
• The tool is focused solely on backlinks
• Reliability issues we encountered further diminish its value proposition, especially when compared to alternatives

If you're serious about SEO success, invest in tools that deliver comprehensive insights.

• Both Semrush and Ahrefs offer superior backlink analysis along with robust keyword research and competitor analysis capabilities, all with user-friendly interfaces
• Link Research Tools is unmatched in its exceptional filtering capabilities

Don't let outdated tools hold your SEO strategy back. Upgrade to Semrush today and position yourself for success in 2025 and beyond.