10 replies to this topic

[Kris]

Hi all

When I run an inbound link check on one of my sites it also brings back a website that has a similar name bar one letter!

Fore example, show me links that are not from my own domain:

link:www.mysitename.com -site:mysitename.com

This also retrieves links for:

link:www.mysitenames.com

Note the letter s on the end of the domain.

Any idea why Google does this??

Thanks
Kris

[chrishirst]

Because the link: search doesn't work "correctly", never has and never will.

[Kris]

Ah - OK, I guess that answers my question!

I used to use Yahoo Site Explorer to get all inbound links which seemed to be very reliable but this has all moved to Bing webmaster tools. Can you suggest any other online tool that is "fairly" reliable in displaying inbound links to a domain?

Thanks again.

[chrishirst]

Why do you need to know? You will not gain any useful information from it. http://www.modtalk.c.../link-counting/


Check your site logs for links that send real visitors, THOSE LINKS are the useful ones.

[Jill]

For your own site, your analytics will tell you. To check the links of competitors, something like ahrefs.com has a decent tool.

[piskie]

Why do you need to know?

Perhaps kbc1 wants to seek out undesirable inbound links before Google sends a warning shot across the bows.

[Kris]

piskie - you are correct. The owner of a site I developed decided to go elsewhere for off page SEO and he has just recently recieved a notification from Google within his WMT saying they have detected suspicious backlink activity that needs to be addressed.

So my client has contacted me to sort the problem out that was created by someone else who now wants nothing more to do with the situation.

Thanks for all your help advice.

[chrishirst]

Perhaps kbc1 wants to seek out undesirable inbound links before Google sends a warning shot across the bows.

Sure, but using the less than useless "link:" search doesn't mean that you will "see" the ones that Google has flagged or might flag as "suspicious" or "unnatural".
You simply get to see a random selection of document URLs that are pointing at your document URLs, which may, or may not be helping / useful / causing problems. Now is that ANYTHING to be basing a decision on?

[Kris]

Does anyone have any experience in using SEOmoz? I too am interested in sourcing decent tools as at the minute I am using a plethora of different sites to obtain the results I need. Working for a time recovery business I need to try and reduce the time it takes to get the results I need!

There is also [other tools] which offers similar tools to SEOmoz however before taking the plunge of $99 per month for SEOmoz I was wondering if anyone had used it?

Edited by Jill, 11 May 2012 - 07:50 AM.

[piskie]

Can you suggest any other online tool that is "fairly" reliable

Quite a reasonable request for guidance.

Seeking out undesirable links that have been obtained historically that may now cause a problem, is a sensible exercise. Now maybe some of those links are not bringing any inbounds so won't show up in logs. The could possibly be found using an online tool. Clearly none of these online tools is going to produce 100% results bot in completeness or accuracy. But what a good way to start. Far better than waiting for the Google threat and all the timescale related pressure that brings.

So as Kris asked, "Can you suggest any other online tool that is "fairly" reliable"

[Jill]

I suggested one above. There's also seomoz and majestic. Plus your webmaster tools account as well as your referrals in google analytics.