How to Analyze Incoming Links to Your Site or a Competitor's Site
Dr. Ralph F. Wilson,
Wilson Internet Rocklin, CA
Mar 31, 2004, 06:51
Incoming links to your website make a great deal of difference on how high you are ranked for important keywords. How can you find out how many sites are linking to your site and competitors sites? The quick and dirty way is to ask Google. Here's the syntax:
link:www.domain.com
But the amount of time to analyze the data obtained this way can be daunting. The software tool that does by far the best job of analyzing links is OptiLink Link Reputation Analyzer, a Windows program developed by Portland programmer Leslie Rohde. OptiLink queries Google and other search engines to find links to your site (or competitors' sites) and tells you a great deal of information about the linking patterns.
- What keywords are on the target page you select.
- What keywords are contained in links to your target page.
- What keywords are contained in the titles of pages that link to your target page.
- What domains and IP addresses link to your target page.
- How many incoming links to and outgoing links from every webpage that links to your target page.
Sort on "incoming links" and you find the "authorities" for your industry or field. Sort on the "outgoing links" and you find the "hubs" for your industry or field. OptiLink makes it easy to contact appropriate sites with a right-click which gives you "whois" data.
OptiLink will help you clarify and refine your own linking strategy by:
- Checking interlinking between your own sites.
- Adding and modifying keywords on your own webpages to make the best use of existing incoming links.
- Finding undesirable links and seeking to have them removed or changed.
- Identifying hubs and authorities in your subject area so you can ask for appropriate links.
- Narrowing the focus of each of your webpages to get more effective linking.
- Analyzing the links and strategies that your competitors are using.
For example, by analyzing links to my site I dramatically changed my linking strategy. Here's an analysis of the words found in links to my homepage:
|
wilson |
54% |
|
web |
34% |
|
internet |
32% |
|
wilsonweb |
26% |
|
com |
20% |
|
marketing |
17% |
|
www |
17% |
|
services |
14% |
|
http:// |
10% |
|
commerce |
9% |
|
ralph |
9% |
|
and |
7% |
|
today |
4% |
It would be handier if OptiLink analyzed whole phrases rather than individual words, but I'm told that it can't be done for technical reasons.
Nevertheless, looking at the pattern displayed in the chart above, most sites are obviously linking to my company name or my personal name. But I don't care if I score high for "Wilson." Fewer sites are linking to important keywords or keyphrases such as "Internet marketing," "web marketing," or "e-commerce." After seeing OptiLink's analysis, now I make a point of specifying the wording in links to my site in giveaway articles, etc., using the keywords that will help me with my most important search terms.
If you are struggling to rank higher than your competitors, use OptiLink to analyze which important sites with high PageRanks (that is, lots of incoming links) link to your competitors and not to you. Then seek links from those sites.
OptiLink isn't perfect. For cross-platform capability it uses Java, which makes installation more complex. But at present, it's the only tool of its kind to help marketers analyze a site's pattern of incoming links and learn enough to plan a more effective strategy. Strongly recommended for SEO professionals and marketing consultants. $149. (A crippled demo version is available free.)
(This is a brief excerpt of an 3,600 word article sent to my paid Web Marketing Today Premium subscribers this week entitled, "How to Increase Search Engine Rankings through Links to Your Site.")
