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Google's link command and better ways to do
it
You probably know Google's link command. It's a special search
query that allows you to find web sites that link to another
web site.
For example, if you want to find web pages that link to Microsoft.com,
enter "link:www.microsoft.com"
in Google's search box.
Many links are missing in Google's link search
Unfortunately, Google's link command is not as useful as
it used to be. It doesn't show all pages that are linking
to yours. Actually, Google shows only a small selection.
Google's search results pages show only a sample of the links
that point to a page, so this list is in no way indicative
of the link structure utilized by Google to formulate a page's
PageRank.
PageRank 4 and higher? That used to be.
Many people think that Google's link command only returns
links from web pages that have a PageRank of 4 or higher.
That's not true.
Although many of the returned web pages have a PageRank of
4 and higher, Google doesn't show every web page with a PageRank
of 4 or higher that links to you.
Google also often returns pages with a PageRank below 4.
You can quickly verify this by visiting some of the returned
pages.
There's a better way to find who links to your site
on Google
To obtain a more accurate list of the links that point to
your page, perform a Google search on
your URL.
Click the "Find the web pages that contain the term"
link on the result page and Google will provide you with the
web pages that mention the address.
To remove pages from your own web site from the results,
add the term
"-site:yourURL.com"
to the query in the search box.
You might also get a few sites that just mention your web
site URL without actually having a link. However, the results
are still much better than the results of the standard Google
link command.
How to quickly check the link popularity of many
web sites at once
If you want to check the link popularity of many web sites
at once, take a look at the free software program Link
Popularity Check (LPC). It's now available in version
3.
LPC checks the link popularity on many search engines at
once and it allows you to quickly compare the results for
your web site with the results for your competitors.
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