Using More Than One Tool To Find Backlinks

Relying on just one tool to find backlinks to your hubs or websites is a waste of precious resources. Some people say they only use the Yahoo Site Explore because it provides useful information about inlinks, but keep in mind this is only one tool. Personally I prefer backlinkwatch.com because it allows you to see embedded links to your hub that are follow and no-follow. Last year I did a web search to find a backlink checker that would provide useful data, and iwebtool.com was the first one I found. Although I love the information provided by iwebtool.com, it is limited because it only allows to conduct five searches per hour. Backlinkwatch.com allows for unlimited resources, so this has been my go to for checking hyperlinks. However, I use several websites to check for links because no one website can provide all the information. This would be similar to only looking at one of the credit reports from one of the three major US reporting agencies, which means you could be missing some important data. For example, there is a possibility TransUnion will not always report the same data as Experian. The same is true for hyperlink checkers when it comes to finding who is linking to your site. To get a complete picture I believe we should use all of the resources at our disposal, which will give us an idea about how to build stronger and better backlinks.

Yahoo Site Explorer does a good job of telling us which hubs are linking other hubshub. For instance if I write a hub about blankets Yahoo Site Explorer will tell me related hubs where mine is listed. The Yahoo Tool also does a superb job of showing what categories consider my hub about blankets to be a hot or best topic.

However, one major drawback of the Yahoo Site Explorer is that it does not tell me how many sites outside of Hubpages are linking to my hub. For this crucial piece of information I will have to rely on other tools. No one tool will tell all, but using a variety of tools gives a more complete picture of which sites are referring to your hubs.

Iwebtool.com is a great site because not only does it allow you to check how many sites are linking to yours, but it gives other crucial pieces of information such as Google Page Rank Prediction, Multi-Rank Checker, and my favorite Backlink Checker. The iwetbool even allows you to check IP addresses and many other features I would not have even dreamed of before visiting this site.

One of the major drawbacks of the iwebtool is it only allows five lookups per hour, which means you better spread this out. Personally I think five it quite a bit, but what happens if you want to look up more pages than this? However, do not gloss over iwebtool because it chalked full of information that will teach you more about your hubs and websites.

The best feature of Backlinkwatch.com is that is allows you to look up as many pages as you like. It can get pretty addicting and it is fun to see the different ways websites are linking back to you. Also, backlinkwatch shows whether is a link is follow or no-follow, which will tell you whether you want to post your links to this site. Personally I prefer to write wordpress blogs, Windows Live, and my own website posts about my hubs, so do not go posting your links to websites willy nilly.

Create your own websites and blogs where you can share backlinks to your hubs, or share these on websites in an acceptable manner. Another good idea is to have a friend blog about your hubs and to do the same thing in kind. I often blog about hubbers I enjoy reading, so just keep in mind how this good deed will reward you many times over. However, be genuine and only blog about hubbers you know and truly enjoy. Also, do not send out mass emails asking people you barely know to blog about you because this seems a little greedy. I have had people asking me to blog about them or help them that I barely know, and I find this disconcerting because they have not even taken the time to talk to me first.

One of the drawbacks of backlinkwatch.com is that you often have to reload the page for it to work correctly. Also, it often loads slowly even on a high speed connection, so you better be patient if you are going to this site on a dial-up modem. Overall this is my favorite site and my go to choice for learning about who is linking to me, or if my blog posts are registering with backlinks.

I love Google Analytics and it can teach you a great deal about the traffic coming to your hubs and websites. For example if you go under the traffic sources tab you can see find the subcategory that will show you how many websites are referring to your hubs. Google Analytics even allows you to search within a specific date range to see which sites are linking to you. Other features I love about Google Analytics is how you can see the key word searches that are leading to your hubs, which is very useful. I have never done a drop of SEO research, but I have done well with writing online because I look at my Google Analytics. On a montly basis I look to see which key word phrases bring people to my hubs and how people think when they are typing these into the search portal.

One of the drawback of Google Analytics is that you actually have to dig around it to learn how it works. By clicking on the content overview allows you to see how many people are actually visiting each hub. If you click on the entrance sources you can see where they are coming from to get to this particular page. Also, clicking on the entrance keywords allows you to see which phrases are bringing people to your sites. I am the type of person that never actually started reading manuals for computers or cameras until a few years ago, so my modus operi is to dig around and dig some more.

Do not let Google Analytics scare you because it provides some interesting information about where traffic come from on the Internet. My favorite feature of Analytics is the map overlay that shows which countries and cities people are coming from. Okay, I am a geography buff and I like to look at maps, so maybe I get more of a kick out of this tool than some.  Today I noticed the city that was searching for my hubs the most was London, which tend to be the case for me most of the time. Today London was followed by Birmingham, New York, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and Sydney. Glossing over Google Analytics means that you could miss out on some interesting information, so make it your pal! All of these tools can be your friends for different purposes when it comes to researching how people are finding your hubs.