managing your backlinks

if you like to track them what tool do you use....if any at all

[jakegotmail]

What do you look for in tools to manage the back links to your site or clients sites that you manage?

Main question to answer really is it just me or are there not many tools out there to help manage this sort of thing (purchased links and natural links)?

[edited by: sugarrae at 4:27 am (utc) on Aug. 3, 2006]
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[jakegotmail]

so no one manages links?

[sugarrae]

Well, it might help if you give a bit more detail on what it is you're looking to "manage". Are you simply trying to validate reciprocal links? Are you looking to gain detailed information on the inbound links to a site (PR of linking page, title of linking page, etc)? Are you looking to track the traffic coming in through inbound links (since you mentioned paid)? Are you looking to see which links are indexed in the engines? There are a ton of things you could be looking to manage - from a simple "are these 50 sites linking back to me?" to a more complex "I want the social security numbers of all inbound links". ;-) Being more specific might get you some better answers (we can hope). :-)

[jakegotmail]

lets face it I know google doesnt condone "buying links" but in many industries on the web you really have no choice if you want to compete.

with that being said I was wondering what most people use to manage those "purchased" links. currently I use an excel file its really cumbersome, hard to read, and has no features what so ever that could makes things easier. just trying to get a feel more or less if people use online tools to help with this task or if there really isnt one. or if most people use in house built, proprietary applications.

[sugarrae]

I've never seen an "out of the box" management system for paid links specifically (doesn't mean it doesn't exist), though I have seen severeal homegrown ones.