Link Checkers

Are they of value or waste of time?

[The_Banker]

I need a really good way of checking number of links to websites. Found a couple but am unsure about how accurate they are.

Trouble is the one I use seems to raise and lower the amount of links I have to my sites, so I no longer trust it, but the tool in question seems to be an authority for this type of service. Are there any trustworthy backlink checkers?

A point in the right direction would be appreciated.

[oceandragon]

You can use <snip> to check backlink or google with keyword "yourdomain".

[edited by: trillianjedi at 7:27 pm (utc) on April 23, 2006]
[edit reason] No tool drops please - as per TOS [/edit]

[trillianjedi]

The only true way of doing this accurately is to crawl the web. In the absence of that overhead, I find Yahoo! to be quite reasonable....

TJ

[The_Banker]

ye, but that really cuts into time - so it's not an option. Under 100 links, and it might be doable, but realistically who's got the time to keep monitoring backlinks.

If anyone has the time to do this then I'd wonder about how bad business is. Usually I have better things to do than to check who's linking and who isn't.

What if you have 6'000 links to check - you going to keep going through Yahoo and check every single one - every month?

[sugarrae]

>>>What if you have 6'000 links to check - you going to keep going through Yahoo and check every single one - every month?

Most people with more than a basic need would hire their programmer to build them something, IMHO.

[The_Banker]

I assume you mean either some kind of robot to fetch back the results of whoever still links to your site or a viral tool that's connected to an internal database that keeps track of those links. But the 'results' still have to be sifted through by a human, so the endless rechecking hasn't really disappeared.

I actually have such a system in place right now, and it records everything it's programmed to, except it still has to be reviewed by me on a constant basis. So the work is still around.

[martinibuster]

Need a reliable Link checker
How do I count my links?
[webmasterworld.com...]

[trillianjedi]

whoever still links to your site

If you're only checking your own site it's easy - logfile.

TJ

[The_Banker]

Sorry, what do you mean by log file? List of urls who link to you?

[trillianjedi]

No, your webserver can be configured to generate a logfile of visitors which can include referrer data.

There is a dedicated forum on this over here:-

[webmasterworld.com...]

TJ

[The_Banker]

Thanks

[sugarrae]

>>>But the 'results' still have to be sifted through by a human

Not if you make the program detailed enough. You can have it cross check with the last run and create one file of only "new" links or whatever other properties you specify. It boils down to how intuitive you are when designing the program - as far as what your specific needs are when checking backlinks. If you want it to show you a listing of only new results, or only show one result when there are multiple results from the same domain, etc you just need to program it to do so.

[The_Banker]

It doesn't matter what the program cross-checks or lists , the results that it records still have to be read by the human eye. You cannot avoid the painstaking effort of checking every link by 'clever' web design. Web design can record stuff, but those results still need monitoring manually.

Physical checking will always be required - computers can't accomplish that as well as us humans, as 'seeing' with one's own eyes is more satisfying and accurate than a computer generated result.

Computers chuck up information - yes, but it can't monitor to see if every webmaster is still linking to you.

Not automatically it can't as it requires human intervention to manually check each link.

[trillianjedi]

but it can't monitor to see if every webmaster is still linking to you.

Yes it can - just parse your logfile and check each one off from a database...

TJ

[The_Banker]

"check each one off from a database" - what do you mean by that - in lamens terms please.

[trillianjedi]

Laymens terms

Check to see that every domain in your "should be linking to me" database is in the logfile as a referrer.

[The_Banker]

Well, I still have to do this manually.

[trillianjedi]

No you don't.

Talk to a coder - 30 minute job to build a script or app that automates it.

TJ

[The_Banker]

Thanks, but as I said earlier, I've already done this so I know the score.

Thanks anyway

[sugarrae]

>>>I need a really good way of checking number of links to websites

Well, if you think you've already done this and think it is impossible and think that a programmer can't custom build you something then there is no point to this thread. If you believe it is undoable with custom programming, you're certainly not going to find a free or "available to the public for a charge" one on the net. Because, if a programmer is "incapable" of coding it (whatever it is you want) - then it can't exist.

[martinibuster]

Rae, that pretty much sums it up. I guess this discussion is over.