Despite the numerous changes in the entire World Wide Web and, specifically, the search service, links are still the foundation of most search engine ranking algorithms. No matter how good your web design is, no matter how strong your content is and no matter how many features your site has, if people aren’t well-linked to …
Despite the numerous changes in the entire World Wide Web and, specifically, the search service, links are still the foundation of most search engine ranking algorithms. No matter how good your web design is, no matter how strong your content is and no matter how many features your site has, if people aren’t well-linked to your site, you’re still empty handed. You need links to get visitors and only then will you be noticed. Research on backlinks is the keystone of every successful link building operation.
Why do we need to check the backlinks? There are several reasons why you’d want to. One reason is that you need to check the quality of the incoming links to your site. Alongside the quality, you also check the number. Once you obtain this data, you then check the other competition and weigh yourself against them. Find out if it is practical to try and fight back.
If the cost of trying to outrank the competition is very high, why bother? This is just one of the many tasks of SEO. This task though is very difficult and would require a lot of tools. Here are some which they use:
1. Yahoo! Site Explorer
Before the rise of Google, Yahoo was the most famous search engine out there. Although Yahoo isn’t losing the game, it still has an ace up its sleeve. The Yahoo! Site explorer is the most renowned back link checker to date. Once you specify the domain, it lists all the incoming links there. For Google users, you can use the link: command. Just place your URL after that command. The result is not as accurate and detailed as compared to Yahoo’s though. Yahoo is known to provide more broad results but it does have its downsides. It can only show up to 1000 results for a single domain. If you want to see more, you need to check individual pages to get more results. Lastly, you can’t tell if the links pass the search engines standards or if the links are dofollow.
2. Google Webmaster Tools
If you aren’t satisfied with simply using the link: command when searching with Google, you can check your back links if you have a Google Webmaster Tools account. Just go to your dashboard and then to “your site on the web” and then “links to your site”. A list will be provided shortly. Although it isn’t as comprehensive as the other applications, its still better than the link: command.
3. Backlink Watch
This is another online tool that also makes usw of Yahoo! Site Explorer. The only difference is it has what Yahoo lacks. It shows the anchor text, nofollow flag and the page rank of your inbound link. You can say that it completes Yahoo.