How To Check How Many Backlinks Your Site Has
When starting a link building campaign (or continuing one), you want to be able to check your progress and see if you are indeed building any backlinks to your site. You want to be able to see if any of the links are “nofollow”, what anchor text is being used for the links, and what quality of site the links are on. Since I have gotten into link building, I have been steadily compiling a list of sites that allow you to check your backlinks. You may have heard of searching Google with “link: yourwebsite.com.” While this does work, it discourages many new (and even some experienced) webmasters because Google doesn’t include all of the links they have listed to your site. Sometimes, they don’t show any. Move beyond using this tool, and try out some of the websites below.
Not all of these sites are created equal, and I don’t think any of them can give you a definite 100% list of the amount of links that you have online pointing back to your site. That being said, some are definitely better than others. I am going to give you a summary of each one. Try them all out, and find out which ones work best for your needs, and for your specific sites.
WARNING: Do not use all of the sites listed. This will be a waste of your time that could be used for building links. Instead, find the few that work best for your site, and don’t compare the stats between the sites. Instead, start a spreadsheet and weekly check and log the amount of backlinks listed on each of the resources, and compare the number to the amount listed on the SAME resource a week ago. That will give you a much better idea of your progress.
When you’re done with these, check out more backlink checkers at: How to Check Your Backlinks – Part 2
SEO Pro’s Link Checker – My Recommendation!
http://seopro.com.au/free-seo-tools/link-checker/
This is a very fantastic backlink checking service. Although it takes a little while (not too long) to populate the list of URL’s, this is one of the few tools in this whole list that actually shows the true pagerank of the pages your URL is on. It also tell you how many links are on that page, whether or not the link uses “nofollow”, the anchor text for the link. You also have the ability to check the number of backlinks for all of the pages on your site, or just the top domain. If you are going to just use one backlink checker, then use this one!
SubmitEdge’s PageRank Checker Tool + Alexa Tool + Link Checker Tool http://www.submitedge.com/pr.html
This tool will just give you stats, and that’s about it. No list of links, no link PR breakdown, nothing… just a few basic stats about your website. Great, for a nice quick check and then getting back to content creation or linkbuilding. It will list your PR, your Alexa ranking, whether or not you are listed in DMOZ, and how many backlinks you have listed on Google, Yahoo!, AltaVista and AllTheWeb. (The “backlinks from Google” used the “link: yourwebsite.com” method to search, therefore you’ll get the same wack results I mentioned in the first paragraph.)
RankAlert’s Backlink Watch Tool
http://rankalert.net/backlink-watch.php
This is a pretty nice tool if all you’re interested in is the number of backlinks, what page the links are on, and the pagerank for those pages. This tool will give you the results for the first 1000 links. It will tell you the number of total links (even if it’s above 1000) and it will show you the URL of the pages that the link is on, and the PageRank of that site.
iWebTool’s Backlink Checker
http://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker
This is a pretty basic tool. It just shows you the total number of links, the pages that the links are listed on, and PageRank (note, that the PageRank tool was showing up “zero” for every single page as of this writing. Hopefully they fix it in the future.) The benefit of this site is that it is fast loading. Other tools in this list take a while when they actually list the URLs your page is being linked from, but this is a very fast loading tool.
Smart PageRank’s BackLink PageRank Check
http://www.smartpagerank.com/pagerank-backlinks.php
This is a pretty good site, because it is fairly fast loading, even if you choose the options that they say will make it slower. This site will show you the URL, the PageRank (not, it shows “zero” for sites that have verified page rank), and it can show the anchor text and whether or not it’s a “nofollow” link. You can choose how many URLs are listed on each page, which is a feature I really like.
Backlink Watch’s Backlinks Checker Tool
http://www.backlinkwatch.com/index.php
This is a pretty good tool for checking every 2 months or so. They cache your results, and you’ll get the same results for about the next 2 months or so. I was stuck at “915” backlinks for one of my new niche sites for a long time, until I realized that they use a cached result. All of that aside, it’s a good tool for seeing all of your links, and some information about those links you’ve gotten while link building. The problem is that it is slow. If you have any amount about 200 or so, you will be waiting for a very long time to see all of the results. But, they do breakdown the anchor text of the link, the URL it is found at, and any “flagged” links such as those with “nofollow.”
Professional Link Building’s Free Website Valuation
http://www.professionallinkbuilding.com/websitevaluation.aspx
You need to sign up to their site for free to use this feature now….This is a very quick tool. It gives you your page rank, the number of backlinks you have, and your Alexa ranking. WARNING: The number of backlinks listed for your site from this tool will be way higher than all of your other tools. It is an inflated average of all of the links found in Google, Yahoo, MSN, Live, and others combined. I still use this tool to see how much I’ve grown by comparing it to this tool’s stats from each week, but comparing this number to all of the other tools will only make you feel better artificially. They also have a little “How much is my site worth?” type of algorithm at the end.
WARNING: Do not use this site’s “Free Link Building” on the left hand side of the bar. This will not get you quality links and make google find a lot of 404’s when crawling your site. It is not worth it.
I hope these tools helps you in all of your regular and one way link building campaigns. My welcome post for this blog spoke a lot about setting and reaching goals, and these tools will help you gauge whether or not you’ve met some goals with each link building campaign you embark on.
Tags: backlinks, Link Building, Search Engine Optimization, seo
Nice
But you can add one more here: http://www.linkdiagnosis.com/ which is also a backlink checker tool.
Regards
Selena
Thanks for the great resource!
[...] How To Check How Many Backlinks Your Site Has – Since people are asking me how to do this all the time, I figured I would post this resource here. Thanks RJ! [...]
Thanks for the links.
What do do you think about this free site to check backlink domains?
http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/domain-popularity.html
You can try: http://www.piloun.com/info
Excellent compilation! The only one I had used before was Google and Site Explorer, but these are just way better. I’m doing the SEOPro one as I type
Max Miroff’s last blog post…
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That’s a great tool. thanks!!! I’ve had great success combining this with one other very special free tool…
Dominate The Back Link World’s last blog post..Quality Comment = Quality Back Link
Thanks for the info, I use it about everyday to check if I had got anymore backlinks.
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Hey good tips buddy
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[...] Tools A Big Round Up Of Link Building Tools – An excellent resource. Check your links with these free link checkers. Link Attraction Factors Keyword Tool – Neat tool (and Wordpress Plugin) to see what keywords are [...]
these tools are really useful. thanks
Very useful information. I think most of us use Yahoo Siteexplorer to check for backlinks, and having these options is a good thing.
You’d be surprised how many people I see on the digital point forums who are still using “link:yourURLhere.com”…. and even worse, the people who are still recommending that method!!
I use Yahoo SiteExplorer because it is quick!
I went striaght to the service you recommended and that one works like magic. It feels good knowing who links to you and in what way, or using which text…
Uncle Che’s last blog post..5 Main reasons why most people have not yet upgraded to Wordpress 2.5
Hi, Very nice list. I have put this list on my site as List of webmaster Tools
Thanks alot
Pushkar
Yes, it is a good article. Different sites give different results. I think the best way is to find a one website that works for you and stick to it.
thanks
Nice article, very useful information especially for the newbie like me..
It’s a great help to me and happy to know that there are tools available to check everything we need to know.
Thanks for the links…
ethel lazo’s last blog post..Some ways to prevent Public Tantrums
Hello,
We have a completely new and much more powerful system in place now, which gives
our members much more control over their link building requirements. The previous system was lacking in many areas, but it has taken time to develop an effective replacement.
Super compilation of resources, thank you for your effort! Now that my site has regained its PR5, link building has resumed a greater importance with me.
Off to check them all out now,
Barbara
Barbara LIng’s last blog post..Where to find a great Free One Time Offer Script
thanks for sharing.. I really appreciate it..
very nice article for newbies like me thnx alot
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[...] Complete Link Checking Tool 2. List of Backlink Checker Tools 3. ???????? ????? Web CEO 4. ?????? Webmaster Tools from [...]
I’m using your recommended on as I write this…very cool, thanks!
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..7 Ways To Boost Sales
seopro.com.au is a great tool. I would highly recommend it.
I just tried the seopro.com.au , i must say its really as good as yahoo site explorer tool..I love the fact that it also tells you if its a nofollow or a good link.. Great article..
I just used SEO Pro’s Link Checker.
It is excellent and gives complete links.
I was looking for a back link tool that works the way SEO Pro’s Link Checker tool works.
I was not impressed with Google back link checker tool and Yahoo Site Explorer was okay but SeO Pro’s Link Checker Rocks.
Thanks buddy
Joaquin
Joaquin Kenyons last blog post..Bad Breath Treatment – Causes And Cures
These are good, but I was wondering if anyone knows a tool that tells you about the number of backlinks to internal pages?
Great post, thanks for all the links.
I am going to use the ’submitedge’ one for a quick check, then it’s back to work!
Sarah :: Copywriting, Grammar and Spelling tipss last blog post..Commas Part Three – Using Commas with Introductions
Thx for links.
[...] Complete Link Checking Tool2. List of Backlink Checker Tools3. ???????? ????? Web CEO4. ?????? Webmaster Tools from [...]
great info!
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Thanks for nice info.
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[...] Source : http://linkbuildingbible.com/2008/03/17/how-to-check-how-many-backlinks-your-site-has/ [...]
[...] Breakaway from Link Building Bible has compiled a pretty comprehensive list of link checking sites. [...]
great article..thanks for the list of backlinks checker.
great tools, very useful! What about just typing link: yoursitename.com
Blog Flippings last blog post..What’s It Take To Make $10,000 On A Blog Flip?
Nope…. google’s link: search is garbage… it only shows a tiny amount of all of the links that google sees…. not good for checking your own or your competitors links.
Thank you for the very useful list.
Hey thanks for the link to seopro’s tool, that is the best I have seen yet and somehow I had never heard of it. Until this point I always just use google webmaster tools, siteexplorer, and backlink watch.
Just use your best recommendation “SEO Pro’s Link Checker” and used it. Very Good. Will test the rest of it one by one.
Thanks for the lists.
JohnKhoos last blog post..The Benefits Of Having High PR Websites
very nice article. thanks for the list of backlinks checker. this is usefull.
Hi guys,
good (link).spread the knowledge here!Thanks
Cheers,
Always nice to see how your backlinks are coming. Thanks for the great writeup.
here you can also check your website backlink
try this new tool
Check Backlink
Hope you all enjoy
Tools A Big Round Up Of Link Building Tools – An excellent resource. Check your links with these free link checkers. Link Attraction Factors Keyword Tool – Neat tool (and Wordpress Plugin) to see what keywords are
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wow its a huge list of usefull website to use in my blog.thank you very much for sharing the info.
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from my experience yahoo’s link counter is the most accurate as well as the most up to date
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Great resource of info here. I have been using Yahoo explore but always felt it lacking. I will follow your recommendation as I am just starting a link building campaign.
thanks ………
these list of tools helps me a lot……..