Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How can I verify who links to me?
-
I need to verify all the inbound links I have coming in to my site. I've tried using OSE but have been told it does not scrape many smaller sites so cannot be sure of it's accuracy (especially since when I ran it, it returned a small % of the link i know are out there).
Is there a way to do this in Analytics? Or another way?
Thanks
-
There has to be a way to see all links pointing to your site...
Actually, there is not.
Any tool which provides a report of links to your site has to collect the data somehow. The most common means is to crawl the internet, collecting data on each page that is encountered. There are very few organizations which have sufficient resources to crawl billions of web pages and process the data in a timely manner. Google is by far the most efficient.
Even so, web pages can be blocked by various methods:
-
the page could be on a member-only part of the site which requires a username and password to view. Such a page cannot be discovered by crawlers.
-
the page could be tagged with noindex, nofollow to where the link is not discovered. It can also be blocked with robots.txt
-
the link may be presented in an iframe, flash or other means which the crawler does not capture.
-
the page may be buried so deeply on a site, or on an island page, where the crawler does not ever reach it.
In the above cases, a link to your site may exist but not be found. An excellent means to capture undiscovered links is using Google Analytics to determine the source of any traffic. This method can help you discover links to your site which otherwise were not discovered via a crawler.
If a link does exist but is not captured by OSE and is not sending you any traffic, the link likely has no value at all.
-
-
Looking for a complete list. There has to be a way to see all links pointing to your site...
-
in analytics you can actually see the links that send you visitors. You can have a look at them under traffic sources and linking sites. However this is not a complete set of sites linking to you.
-
And how do I do this in Analytics?
-
Open site expolorer here by seomoz, or you can try open site explorer by yahoo. Here you can find a list of some more if you would like to try multiple ones: http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/11/1-seo-tools-for-tracking-inbound-links/
-
Other than Open site Explorer, Google analytic would be your best bet.
Good luck friend
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Value of Links? What is each link worth?
Morning Everyone, I just had this thought and wondered what everyone's opinions were in terms of link value in monetary terms. We'll assume for the purposes of this that the links come from contextually relevant sites and that the sites in question have got the Moz DA from being high quality and have a good quality incoming link profile. Its a bit of a theoretical question, but i guess imagine if the only way you could get links was to pay for them, what would they be worth to you. This is link value for SEO purposes, they will have in addition value from traffic from good sites, that no doubt varies wildly depending on topic. I assume everyone also agrees on: The first link from a domain is the most valuable High DA sites are worth more than low ones. So could anyone who has an opinion on the link value suggest a monetary value for links. Its really just using a monetary amount to see how best to target my time. Here is my example of what might be expected, but I am hoping people with more knowledge will perhaps correct it. DA Rating First Link 2nd-5th Link 5th-10th Link 10Plus Links 5 $5 $2 $1 $0 15 $7 $3 $2 $1 25 $25 $10 $5 $2 35 $45 $20 $7 $3 45 $65 $30 $11 $4 55 $95 $45 $19 $5 65 $200 $100 $45 $6 75 $350 $120 $65 $9 85 $700 $240 $95 $15 95 $1100 $450 $200 $30
Link Building | | wellandpower1 -
Disavowing Links
I need some advice... I've noticed our link profile has increased with many comments links --- something I certainly have not pursued manually. I'm new to disavowing links. However, before I go ahead and disavow them, I'd like to ask how harmful these links are and would you recommend this is something I can do myself (relatively novice SEO) or if you'd recommend someone who could do this for a reasonable cost. In one instance, the link from this comment thread is with the anchor text, "porn"... Certainly not something we want to rank for, haha! I look forward to your advice
Link Building | | LukeBTDT0 -
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | | Happy-SEO1 -
How can I find the best sites to guest post on while linking back to my article?
Whats the best way to find sites to guest blog on. There are just so many and I don't want to make bad choices so my current rankings don't get hurt
Link Building | | aronwp0 -
Are links with space considered to be the same as links with %20?
I wonder if Google would consider those three links to be the same? http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test+page.html
Link Building | | lucek0 -
Footer Links And Link Juice
I'm starting to learn about link juice and notice in GWMT > Traffic > Internal Links, that the list is in this order by the links counted on each page. Some are in the footer and some are in the header, with some being more important than others commercially i.e. /register /privacy /terms /search /sitemap /disclaimer /blog /register So I am wondering if I should add a 'no-follow' attribute to the footer links i.e. privacy, terms, disclaimer and leave the others as they are? Does this help retain link juice on each page where the links appear? Or am I missing the point all together? This is my website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
Link Building | | Ubique0 -
Reciprocal links
Are they worth anything, if they are from relevant sites? I'm I better off avoiding linking back wherever possible?
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0