Measuring
Link Popularity
By
Sumantra Roy
"Which
search engines use link popularity as a factor in ranking pages?" Well,
that question has become pretty moot these days. Just about every spider
based search engine uses link popularity as a factor. So, how do you find
out how much link popularity your site has? And how do you know which sites
are actually linking to you? In this article, I'll tell you how you can find
out the link popularity of your site in some of the major search engines.
1. AltaVista
In
order to find out the number of sites linking to the domain mysite.com in AltaVista,
you would type in link:mysite.com in AltaVista's
search box. If you wish to exclude links from pages within the mysite.com
domain, you would type in link:mysite.com -url:mysite.com.
If you
want to find out how many sites are linking to a particular page (say
mypage.html) in the mysite.com domain, you would type in link:mysite.com/mypage.html.
Again, in order to exclude links from pages within the mysite.com domain,
you would type in link:mysite.com/mypage.html -url:mysite.com.
Note
that you should not type in the "www" or the "http://"
prefixes.
2. AOL
AOL
is a directory based engine - it takes its results from the Open Directory.
Hence, the concept of measuring link popularity is not very meaningful in
AOL.
3. Fast
In
order to find out the number of web sites linking to the domain mysite.com
in Fast, click on
the Advanced Search link. In the "Word Filters" section of the
Advanced Search page, select "Must Include" from the first combo
box. In the text box besides the first combo box, type in mysite.com. In the
combo box to the right of the text box, select "in the link name".
If you want to exclude links from pages within the mysite.com domain, type
in mysite.com in the "Exclude" text box in the "Domain
Filters" section. Then, click on the "FAST Search" button.
In
order to find the number of links to mypage.html in the mysite.com domain,
you would type in mysite.com/mypage.html in the text box besides the first
combo box. Again, in order to exclude links from within the mysite.com
domain, type in mysite.com in the "Exclude" text box.
Note
that you should not type in the "www" or the "http://"
prefixes.
4. Google
In
order to find out the number of sites linking to mysite.com in Google,
you would type in link:mysite.com.
If you
want to find out how many sites are linking to the page mypage.html in the
mysite.com domain, you would type in link:mysite.com/mypage.html.
However,
there is no way you can exclude links from pages within the mysite.com
domain from being counted.
Google
considers www.mysite.com to be different from mysite.com. This means that
typing in link:mysite.com will not include the links to www.mysite.com. If
you want to find out the number of links to www.mysite.com, you have to type
in link:www.mysite.com. And typing in link:www.mysite.com will not include
the links to mysite.com either.
This
is in contrast to AltaVista
which includes links to the www.mysite.com domain when you try to find the
number of links to mysite.com.
5. HotBot
There
are two methods of measuring link popularity in HotBot.
In the
first case, in order to find out the number of sites linking to mysite.com,
you can type in linkdomain:mysite.com. In order to exclude links from pages
within the mysite.com domain, you can use linkdomain:mysite.com -domain:mysite.com.
Make
sure that you do not use the "www" or "http://" prefixes
when you use this method.
However,
this method cannot be used to find out the number of links to specific pages
in your site, i.e. you cannot use this method to find out the links to the
page mypage.html in the domain mysite.com.
In
order to find out the number of links to specific pages, choose "links
to this URL" from the "Look for:" drop-down combo box and
then type in the complete URL (i.e. http://www.mysite.com/mypage.html) in
the search box. In order to exclude links from within the mysite.com domain,
type http://www.mysite.com/mypage.html -domain:mysite.com in the search box
after choosing "links to this URL" from the combo box. Note that
for the second method, you need to use the "http://" prefix.
Lastly,
you should note that in the second method, typing http://www.mysite.com will
only find links to the home page of the www.mysite.com domain. If there are
some sites which have linked to some of the internal pages in your site
rather than your home page, this will not be included in the link popularity
count.
6. IWon
The
method of measuring link popularity in IWon
is the same as the first method in HotBot.
However, unlike HotBot,
IWon does not have an
alternative method which can be used to measure the number of links to
specific pages in a domain.
7. Lycos
In
order to measure link popularity in Lycos,
first click on the Advanced Search link to the right of the search box. To
find out the number of sites linking to mysite.com in Lycos,
you would type in ml:mysite.com in the search box. If you wish to exclude
links from pages within the mysite.com domain, you would type in
ml:mysite.com -h:mysite.com.
If you
want to find out how many sites are linking to a particular page (say
mypage.html) in the mysite.com domain, you would type in ml:mysite.com/mypage.html.
Again, in order to exclude links from pages within the mysite.com domain,
you would type in ml:mysite.com/mypage.html -h:mysite.com.
Note
that you should not type in the "www" or the "http://"
prefixes.
8. MSN
The
method of measuring link popularity in MSN
is almost the same as that in HotBot.
The first method is exactly the same. For the second method, click on the
More Options tab, type in the complete URL in the "Search the web
for:" text box and choose "links to URL" from the
"Find:" drop-down combo box. However, unlike HotBot,
you cannot eliminate links from pages within the same domain using the
second method.
Note
that the More Options tab is displayed only after you search for something
in MSN. It is not
displayed in MSN's home
page.
9. Netscape
Netscape
is a directory based engine. It takes its results from the Open
Directory. If no results are found in the Open
Directory, it takes its results from Google.
Since it is a directory based engine, the concept of measuring link
popularity is not all that meaningful. You can type in link:mysite.com to
measure the number of links to the domain mysite.com. In this case, Netscape
will simply take its results from Google.
This article may
be re-published as long as the following resource box is included at the end
of the article and as long as you link to the email address and the URL
mentioned in the resource box:
Article
by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and recognized search
engine positioning specialists on the Internet. For more articles on search
engine placement, subscribe to his 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending
a blank email to mailto:1stSearchRanking.999.99@optinpro.com
or by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.net