Backlink Analyzer

Overview

How Backlink Analyzer Works:
Backlink Analyzer is similar to Link Harvester, with the exception that it is downloadable software, and also does anchor text analysis. You can grab backlink data from Google, Yahoo!, or MSN. It analyzes / grabs anchor text, IP addresses, Alexa data, page title, number of links on page, and number of outbound links on a page. It basically is a big spreadsheet which makes it quick and easy to view linkage data for a paticular site. Google link: information:

• Google's link command is link:http://www.site.com/ (for links pointing at the home page) &
• link:http://www.site.com/filepath/pagename.extension (for links pointing at an internal page)
• Google has only ever showed a small sample of linkage data. They know of many many links that they do not display using the link: command. In addition Google does not allow the use of the link: function at the same time as using other advanced search operators.
• Back Link Analyzer automatically allows you to extract the backlinks available from Google using the Google API. The Google API is quick and free to sign up for. You only have to enter your API value into Back Link Analyzer once.
• The Google API limit is 1,000 queries per day.
• To extract linkage data from Google using Back Link Analyzer you must enter your Google API key under the settings button, which looKs like the the following on the main analysis page:
• Since Google's only link function is link: Back Link Analyzer defaults to that.
• Since Google shows limited linkage data (a small percentage of the inbound links) I only have the API access to query Google. The risk of my site getting banned for me doing direct access does not offer a logical risk vs reward. Additionally recently Google has been working hard to block some automated queries (outside of those using the API).

• Yahoo! Search's linkage data functions are different than Google's. They allow you to look at links pointing at just any specific page or links pointing into any domain. Yahoo! also allows you to do link searches in conjuntion with other advanced search operators.
• Although Yahoo! does not show 100% of the data they know of, they typically show a large portion of their known linkage data, and they tend to place most of the more important links near the top of their backlinks results.
• Yahoo! will soon be adding a subdomain called Site Explorer, which allows you to do linkage queries from that subdomain.
• linkdomain:www.site.com shows a fairly large sample of links pointing anywhere in a site.
• link:http://www.site.com/folder/filename.extension shows links pointing at a specific page.
• to find just the links pointing at a home page you would use link:http://www.site.com/, and may have to specify the full filepath, like /index.html at the end of it.
• Since Yahoo! is one of the most aggressive SEO companies in the world I believe they are a bit more tolerant of SEO related products than Google is. Thus Back Link Analyzer offers direct access to Yahoo! as well as API access. Having said that, I suggest just using the API access. After they come out with the Site Explorer subdomain they are probably going to be a bit more aggressive with blocking direct queries that do not use their API.
• With Yahoo! you do not need to sign up for an API to use the API function. Yahoo! APIs are application based. I already signed up for one, and all you need to do is enter Backlink-Analyzer for the Yahoo! API code on the settings page, and that will give you 5,000 queries per day.
• Yahoo! has also been working a bit harder at blocking automated queries (that do not come from the API), recently accidentally even blocking Googlebot.
• in backlink analyzer you can set the tool to check links pointing at a site (linkdomain:) or links pointing at a specific page (link:)

• MSN Search provides linkage data details similar to Yahoo!, offering both a link: and linkdomain: function. From my limited tests MSN Search appears to usually show significantly more link results than Google does, and significantly less than Yahoo! Search does.
• linkdomain:www.site.com will show pages linking into a site.
• link:www.site.com will show pages linking at a specific page.
• I forgot to add linkdomain function for MSN into Back Link Analyzer and will add it to the next revision.
• Back Link Analyzer allows you to grab information direct from MSN or via RSS feeds of the search results.