How do I find out who links to my site?

I need an easy way to find out who links to my site(s).

[rsleavitt]

A couple years ago, I was working with one of our lead developers and he showed me how to ping for specific Web addresses (and pages) using the MSDOS prompt. Note: these are my Web addresses, not anybody else's.

I'm now in the process of weeding out old pages from my site and rather than setting up redirect-er pages, I'd rather just blow away the ones I don't need anymore.

Can anybody out there give me the step-by-step method of pinging deep URLs?

[jimbeetle]

Hi rsleavitt,

Welcome to Webmaster World [webmasterworld.com]

I've never pinged to check incoming links so somebody else will have to help you there. But as a starting point to find who links to your site try a search on alltheweb.com with this syntax:

link.all:www.yoursite.com -site:www.yoursite.com

This will return all pages that link to pages on your site minus your own pages.

Jim

[seoRank]

A good way to start would be to find out all the pages indexed in various search engines. I would not suggest you ‘removing’ those pages as you still might be getting some traffic on those. Better thing to do would be place a redirector on your individual higher traffic pages (see your log report). For the pages with negligible traffic either place a custom 404 redirector page or place simple redirector script on all the pages.

To check the deep page index of your site in various search engines, here is a reference (from an old sheet of mine) please check for any latest syntax changes on search engines if these do not work.

Type in the following URL in search engines -

Google: site:www.yoursite.com www.yoursite.com

HotBot/Inktomi: www.yoursite.com

AltaVista: host:www.yoursite.com

AllTheWeb: +url.all:http://www.yoursite.com +site:www.yoursite.com

Most search engines have syntax guidelines in their ‘Advance Search’ section to search for indexed pages of a single domain.

[Kieron]

Hi rsleavitt
Some one can correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not a techie), but I don't think pinging will help you.

Pinging to my knowledge just tells you if the domain/IP address is alive by sending a signal (ping) back to you and only addresses the issue of a live or dead domain/IP -- not individual pages.

You can ping your main domain (and find out your IP address) by doing the following: Go to the Start menu in windows (bottom left), select "Run" and type
"ping www.yoursite.com" in the input box then "OK" it.

Note: Don't include the "http://" or "/" (or page names) at the end of the domain name.

If the site is alive, the IP details will show for a couple of seconds before closing. If the site is dead (or you haven't input the domain/IP correctly), it will flash open and then close within a fraction of a second... just enough to see a blank black window open and close.
I hope this is what you meant?
Kieron