You could probably just search with Google to check on your backlinks. But experience itself has taught me that Google isn’t always the right place to go to when you need to check up on your site. Checking on your backlinks with Google will not bring you the search results you need. Personally, the <site:[url]> and the <link:[url]> commands only brought up irrelevant searches for me when I’m checking up on my sites.
Through my SEO projects, I’ve discovered two helpful tools that have been very useful for me when checking up on the backlinks of my sites.
1. Yahoo! Site Explorer
This is no bomb for the SEO masters of the net. I’ve only discovered this myself but Yahoo! Site Explorer has been a great help to SEOers and link builders for a long time now. Compared to Google, Yahoo! Site Explorer shows you more of your back links and gives you more details on them.
When using Yahoo! Site Explorer, just enter in you URL. To see only your backlinks and disregard your deep links, choose these options: Inlinks > Show Inlinks: Except From This Domain.
When using Yahoo! Site Explorer, it is also recommended that you install the SEO Link Analysis tool from Yoast.com. This tool goes perfectly well with Firefox. It helps you determine which of your backlinks are dofollow and which are basically useless in your link building efforts.
2. BacklinkWatch.com
I have also only discovered this recently (with the help of forums) and I found the site to be extremely detailed in listing all the backlinks of my sites. I haven’t done an extensive search about this website yet. But one try at it made me see that it is indeed worthy of its name. A site that I was working on had a lot of backlinks from forums and blog posts, and Backlinkwatch.com listed them all.
