- by Judd Lyon
- Jun 22, 2008
- Filed in: Search engine marketing
Links are the currency of the web, and the number of inbound links (links from other sites that point to yours) is the single most important factor in search engine rankings. Here's how to find out who's linking to your site.
Enter the link operator followed by a colon prior the the URL you are checking. Do not include a space after the colon before your URL.
link:example.com
This will return a sampling of the sites linking to your pages, not a comprehensive list. Nonetheless, it gives you a decent glimpse of your links.
Yahoo!
Yahoo provides the most definitive look at inbound links with their Site Explorer Tool.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Be sure to select “Except from this Domain” in the dropdown. Otherwise you'll see links from your own pages included. The Site Explorer tool also includes other useful info, feel free to poke around.
Other
Microsoft and Ask.com currently don't allow users to check backlinks.
How to use this information
Not only can you check the links to your site, you can check who's linking to your competitors and other relevant sites. Then determine whether or not some of these places are worth asking to link to your site. Typically there are a few you didn't think of that are worth investigating. Good luck!
About the author
Judd Lyon is the Principal of TRIF3CTA, a web design and Internet marketing company in Austin, Texas.
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