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Curious About Your Backlinks?

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Nov 12, 2008

I was reading a post on the Linkers Blog titled Danny, How Many Backlinks Do I Have, and decided it was time to check my own blog just to see how many links I had.

I decided to go through the same steps he did, which means I started at Google, which is always the most imprecise. Google thinks I only have 31 backlinks, so it’s already discounted. Next, I decided to go to Yahoo. Just so you know, you type into its search engine link:http://www.domain.com, replacing “domain” with your domain. Yahoo said I had 8,696 backlinks; whew! I had to think about that one for a bit, wondering if I’ve really written that many comments, and now that I think about it, probably not, but I’m probably close to it. Because I have many other places I’ve left my link, such as forums and social networking sites. But it’s mainly through blogging and blog comments, so it shows that I’ve been active in my 11 months with this blog. As I looked down the list of the first 100 I remembered each of the blog titles on all those blogs, so I probably wrote some kind of comment on them; and here I am calling Sire mouthy! :-D

I finally decided to try out the tool Danny recommends, Link Checker v2.0 Beta, a free link checking tool that allows you to get even more information from the same search. It found the same number of backlinks at Yahoo, and I decided to have it check the page rank of where my link was and the number of links. It gave me the page rank of the homepage, as well as the page rank of the page I left my comment on. It also gave me a number of links on each page, but I have to say that number is suspect.

I decided to check one of them out, where I commented on the blog Small Business Trends on the topic Ten Reasons I Won’t Use Social Media Sites. Link Checker said there were 228 links on this page, but the page only got 62 comments, and to get to that 228 it has to count its own comment links, which are created with each comment that’s posted along with a link to the person’s homepage, if they left one, and since it’s counting those then it’s skewing the stats just a little bit, as there are a lot of other links on the page, but they don’t total up to the 228. Of course, on this blog, since I have CommentLuv, basically every person that leaves a comment, that has a blog and leaves their address link, is two links, so I guess it counts. Anyway, the point is that you’re supposedly getting more link credit on posts that have fewer links that lots of links. I’m thinking that, if you get too caught up on that one, you could end up freaking your mind out. With this tool, you can also check whether the links are nofollow, as well as what the anchor text was on those posts.

Interesting stats, I must say. I guess I’ve had a lot to say, and not only on this blog. I guess I’ve really promoted this blog better than my business blog, which I’ve had for over 4 years but “only” have 4,191 backlinks. But I don’t mind; the purpose of the other blog is much different than this one.

How are you doing with your backlinks? Do you care?



Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Mitch Mitchell

25 Comments »

rummuser:

Mitch, I never bothered to learn what back link means and unless some really good Guru can teach it to me in simple language that I can understand, despite my handicapped brain, I do not intend to. You are right – I really do not care! Lucky me, what??

rummuser´s last blog post..The Refugee Problem In India – II

Mitch Reply:
November 13th, 2008 at 9:47 AM

Hi Rummuser. Backlinks are when other websites link to yours. Sometimes it’s because they did it on purpose; sometimes it’s because you left a comment on someone’s blog and it links back to yours, like above, because you put in your website and CommentLuv added your latest post, so you earned 2 backlinks to your site.

November 13th, 2008 | 9:06 AM
rummuser:

So, what do such links do? What are the advantages of having such links?

rummuser´s last blog post..Being Informal? Or Is It Rudeness?

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:19 AM

Rummuser, Google ranks pages based on links, both internet and external. Backlinks, in essence, means people linking to you that aren’t necessarily having you link back. Supposedly, if the industries are at least related in some way, it brings more prominence to your site. Even if they’re not, if they’re deemed legitimate by Google, it can only help you.

Dennis Edell Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 5:02 PM

Actually Google stresses relevancy.

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 5:22 PM

I kind of said that, Dennis, but based on all the reading I’ve been done (and man, I’ve read probably 200 sources in the last 2 weeks at least), there’s many who believe that any links from reputable sources are better than no links at all.

Dennis Edell Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 6:51 PM

That’s true, and sure I’ve left plenty of comments on non-relevant blogs.

However, I would never ask for an exchange or do a review or similar, with a totally non relevant site. :)

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 7:18 PM

I don’t know that I’d say I’d never do one, especially since I have so many interests, and, as you can see from my blog, I touch on many different types of things. I don’t think I’d want to eliminate anyone from anything they might want to do “site” unseen.

Dennis Edell Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 7:46 PM

It seems we have two somewhat different scenarios going here. I inferred I would never ask for an exchange or do a review or similar, with a totally non relevant site.

Example: exchanging links with a real estate blogger would be foolish for me on many levels.

You on he other hand do have a little more leeway as you pointed out, you discuss all kinds of different things.

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:08 PM

Actually, you didn’t infer; you definitely said you wouldn’t do it. I didn’t see any wiggle in your initial statement. Having said that, though I would never rule anything out, I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t have someone with a real estate blog never write here because that person might make a lot of money with their blog, in which case their expertise would fit one of my topics of conversation, whereas someone with a real estate blog might want to ask me to write a post about the importance of blogging for their readers, something I like to think I know a lot about. So, in those cases, one could see where even seemingly incompatible topics would have some sort of relationship.

My wife says to never say never; sometimes, she’s right (yeah, I know, they’re “always” right).

Dennis Edell Reply:
November 15th, 2008 at 3:50 PM

Infer was the wrong word. I knew itthen, but forgot to change it when I was done. LOL

Yes, you may have resons to stay in touch, and you gave good reasons also. However, as far as Google would be concerned (which is what this is about in the first place, yes?) that would be a completely irrelevant link…

At least for me; I dunno, maybe you have written a lot on real estate before?

Btw – watch those quotes or that’s what her hands will look like going up one side of your head and down the other. LOL

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

November 14th, 2008 | 3:16 AM
Dennis Edell:

Rummuser – incoming links are extremely important…basically, they are the backbone of Googles algorithm for testing the popularity of ones site.

Mitch – I’m almost afraid to check mine. LOL

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..10 Effective Joint Venture Ideas To Get You Started

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:18 AM

I’m thinking your backlinks would be phenomenal, Dennis, because you comment on a lot of blogs. Often I show up to one for the first time to see you’ve been there already. lol

Dennis Edell Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 4:58 PM

Hmm, sounds like some kinda contest maybe sorta ;)

Dennis Edell´s last blog post..We Will Stay Do-Follow, But…

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 5:23 PM

Nah; I’m figuring you probably have a big jump on me in this regard.

November 14th, 2008 | 8:28 AM
rummuser:

How do I find out the number of back links in my blog and what would be a respectable number say on a per month basis?

Mitch Reply:
November 14th, 2008 at 9:29 AM

I gave you the information in the article above. One way, go to Yahoo and put in what I mentioned. The other way, click on the link and go to the other website.

November 14th, 2008 | 9:24 AM
rummuser:

Thank you. I was zapped!

Coincidentally, I came across this blog this morning which you may find interesting :http://www.jozsoft.com/blog/?p=19

rummuser´s last blog post..Health Check.

Mitch Reply:
November 15th, 2008 at 1:33 AM

I see you’ve been doing research!

November 15th, 2008 | 1:27 AM
Mitch:

Not quite, Dennis, but I did write a book review for Rich Dad Poor Dad on someone else’s website on business issues, and I linked it to this site rather than my business site. Overall, the two would seem to be unrelated, but in a way, I also write reviews of stuff I’ve purchased here and there, so it worked out for me.

November 15th, 2008 | 5:07 PM
Nicky Jameson:

Reading this post and the comments I thought your readers might be interested in this post by a fellow blogger. It’s the simplest explanation of backlinks I’ve read.
http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/11/07/understanding-backlinks/

Nicky Jameson´s last blog post..13 Ways To Build Trust and Community With Social Media

Mitch Reply:
November 16th, 2008 at 1:25 AM

Thanks Nicky. I highlighted this site in another post on another topic, so I’m not surprised by the quality of this post either. It all helps. :-)

November 16th, 2008 | 1:15 AM
Rodney@Blogging with WordPress:

Not bad going at all, Mitch. I tend not to pay too much attention to the number of backlinks I have – rather I focus on the main indicators like PR, Alexa, Technorati, etc. But when I do want to check backlinks, I tend to use the tool at http://www.online-utility.org/webmaster/backlink_domain_analyzer.jsp. But the one you mentioned is nice in that it gives you the PR and anchor text of the link.

Rodney@Blogging with WordPress´s last blog post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent

Mitch Reply:
November 18th, 2008 at 12:24 PM

I just ran your program, Rodney, and it gives me way fewer backlinks than the other program does. But that’s only for my main page, which I understand, and that’s what I asked for, so it’s probably very accurate. Two different ways to see information; nothing wrong with that. Thanks for sharing that link.

Rodney@Blogging with WordPress Reply:
November 18th, 2008 at 1:25 PM

Yeah, I noticed the difference too. I guess the thing is to stick with whichever tool suits you, and keep track of the trend rather than the specific number of links reported.

Rodney@Blogging with WordPress´s last blog post..How I increased my Alexa Rank by 2k percent

November 18th, 2008 | 11:49 AM