How to check your Backlinks

Backlinks are links on other websites pointing to your blog/site. The number of backlinks are taken into account when calculating the Page Rank for your site/blog. Higher your Page Rank, higher is your site position in the Search Results returned by Google. This is important because if your blog/site is listed in the first few pages of the results returned by search engines then it has a better chance of being visited by the searcher. Hence the higher you are in Search Engine Results Page (SERP) there is increase in blog traffic. Monitoring the number of backlinks is hence important and here are the methods to check them.......

Google Webmasters Tools

To use this method first you will have to add a sitemap to your site and verify it. After doing this head over to Google Webmaster Tools and click on the link of your blog. You will get a tabbed interface. Click on the Statistics tab. Then click on Index stats link in the sidebar. You will get a table of Samples of your pages in Google. Click on the Result link. Example :
link:betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com

Google Method

This is the same method as the above but you need not go through Google Webmasters Tools. Instead enter this directly in the address bar of your browser and press Enter :
http://www.google.com/search?q=link:YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com&hl=en
Instead of YOURBLOGNAME enter the actual name of your blog. The actual name of your blog is 'YOURBLOGNAME' in the link to your blog which is : http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com. You will get the number of backlinks in the blue bar at the top of the page :
Web Results 1 - 10 of about xxxx linking to betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com. (0.39 seconds)
XXXX shows the number of backlinks to your blog.

Technorati Method

Technorati is a search engine specializing in Blogs.
First claim your blog at Technorati. Then copy and paste your blog url in the Search For box at the top. In the adjoining box click the down arrow and choose Blog Posts. Then click the Search button. You can also paste this directly in address bar of your browser and press Enter :
http://technorati.com/search/YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com
Instead of YOURBLOGNAME enter the actual name of your blog. The actual name of your blog is 'YOURBLOFNAME' in the link to your blog which is : http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com. You will get your Technorati Rank and the number of links and the number of blogs linking to you.

OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

For Yahoo, AOL, Excite and WiseNut Backlinks enter this in search box of that search engine and press Enter :

link:http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com

For MSN SEARCH and Overture enter this in search box of that search engine and press Enter :

linkdomain:http://YOURBLOGNAME.blogspot.com

For the Open directory Project simply enter the URL of your blog in the search box provided and press Enter.

QUALITY OF BACKLINKS

Your PageRank increases with the quality of your backlinks. Higher quality backlinks are :
1. Backlinks from Higher PageRank sites.
2. One-way backlinks are rated higher than reciprocal exchanged links.
3. Backlinks from sites with relevant content. If yoursite is on cars a backlink from a wildlife site is considered lower in quality than one from a car manufacturer site.
4. A backlink where the anchor text is the keyword (keyphrase) that you are trying to optimize for.
5. Too many links from one URL is considered spamming and low quality. Beware of firms trying to sell you backlinks from "link farms".
6. Getting a lot of links in a short time span is suspicious and low quality.
7. Links from Article Directories. Hence submit articles to them and put in a link to your blog at the bottom.

Check which post has most Backlinks

You can check which page in your blog is most linked to. For this go to Google Webmaster Tools and click on the link of your blog. Then click on the Links tab at the top. You will get a list of your posts with the number of links to each next to it. At the bottom of the table click on the Download this table link. You will get a Excel file which you can load in Excel and examine to see which of your posts is
most linked to.

You can also check who is linking to a single page on your blog. Click the 'Find a Page' link on the same page (Google Webmasters Tools----->Sitemaps----->Click blog link------>Links tab) :


Click on image to enlarge it.
Then in the blank provided enter the URL and click the See Details button.

Read more: http://www.blogdoctor.me/2007/04/how-to-check-your-backlinks.html#ixzz13EPPo6Mm