Free Link Reputation & Analysis Tools

Overview: Analyze your link profile compared to competing websites, and find pages which would be great sources to get links from. Many modern major search engines consider links to be signs of trust or votes for websites. Great in content links also can send a large stream of targeted high value traffic.

At the bottom of this page I inserted a few free videos as an introduction to link building. We also worked with SEOmoz to offer a free 1-month trial to their service, which gives you access to their Open Site Explorer link data.

Competitive Research Tools With Link Information

• SEO Toolbar - Imports link data from various sources and makes it quite easy to compare sites against each other.
• SEO for Firefox - Import useful marketing data (including link counts, with links to source data) right into Google and Yahoo search results.
• Xinu - free competitive analysis tool which pulls in site age, social bookmarking data, and link data.

Hub Finder

Hub Finder - this tool comes as a bonus when you join our training program. It finds topically related pages by looking at link co-citation. post about tool

• web based
• really fast
• makes finding hub pages easy

Link Research From the Search Engines

• Blekko - upstart search engine which offers far more transparency in link data than Google or Bing does. Their index is not quite as large as Google's or Bing's, but they offer multiple functions to get page links (alt version) and site links (alt version).
• Google Webmaster Central - allows you to sign up for Google Sitemaps, shows some crawling errors, broken links, and a fairly comprehensive view of your backlinks.
  • However, while it offers you a significant catalog of backlinks, it will only give you data for your own websites that you have registered with Google.
  • You can also add anchor text checking to Google Webmaster Central by using this free Greasemonkey script.
• Bing Webmaster Central - similar to Google Webmaster Tools, but recently they also started providing free backlink data for competing websites as well.
• Yandex Webmaster Tools - portal from Russian search leader.
• Exalead - primarily a provider of enterprise search solutions, which still offers a web graph to search against (much like how Fast Search & Transfer offered AllTheWeb many years back).

Google Gadgets, Toolbar Buttons, and Browser Bookmarks

Quick links and browser extensions which make it easy for you to access cool free SEO tools from anywhere on the web.

• iGoogle Link Analysis Gadget - Allows you to query the search engines for a wide variety of link search types. It is as easy as copying and pasting a piece of code.
• Google Toolbar Buttons - Allows you to add quick links to SEO tools and RSS feeds to the Google toolbar. They only works with the new beta Internet Explorer version of the Google Toolbar.
• Firefox Bookmarks - Links to various useful free SEO tools that you can add to your Firefox bookmarks toolbar.

More Free Link Analysis Tools We Offer

• Web Directories Reviewed - editorial post about what directories are the most valuable from an SEO perspective.
• Reciprocal Link Checker - script to help you automate finding out if your reciprocal link partners are still linking back at your site.
• Link Suggest Tool - list of words and phrases like add URL, directory, ezine, etc. where you may be able to add links or buy ads.

Other Free Link Analysis Tools

• Xenu Link Sleuth - Downloadable software which makes it fast and easy to find broken links on your site.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider - similar to Xenu but with many additional analysis features. Free for smaller sites below 500 pages & a paid version is available for larger websites.
• SEO Kicks - free German link graph
• Backlink Watch - shows backlinks and anchor text used in the backlinks

Paid Backlink Analysis Tools

Most of these tools feed off of databases built by crawling the web to create their own proprietary index of link data.

• Ahrefs - newer player to the market similar to OSE & Majestic. Combines strong data depth & a great usabile interface deep in features. (click here for 50% off your first month)
• Open Site Explorer - useful web interface for exploring link data. Also allows you to download link data on a per-page or per-site basis. (click here for a free 1-month trial)
• Majestic SEO - similar to Open Site Explorer, but also offers archived historical data.
• Buzzstream - Buzzstream can be thought of as a project management tool for cataloging link building opportunities & tracking progress with contacts. Here is our Buzzstream review.
• Advanced Link Manager - downloadable software in combination with Advanced Web Ranking for $149. While ALM does not have its own link index, it does allow you to import data from OSE, Blekko & Majestic SEO.
• Some other competitive research tools like SEM Rush & SearchMetrics are working to integrate link data too.

Need Help With Link Building?

• If you are a DIY type, we offer a free guide that shares 101 link building tips. If you need training for your inhouse staff we recommend Debra Mastaler.
• If you are scarce on time & want to hire help, we recommend contacting some of the best link builders in the world, like Jim Boykin (in the US) & Chris Angus (in the UK).

Retired Link Research Tools

These are tools that were offered by search engines, our site, or other webmasters that have fallen by the wayside.

• Yahoo! Site Explorer (retired) - allows you to see what pages you have indexed as well as the backlinks to those pages
• Back Link Analyzer (retired) - free quick downloadable software which does link anchor text analysis
• Link Harvester (retired) - web based tool allows you to quickly & deeply query the Yahoo! database and gives a good amount of link details. Makes sorting out duplicate links easy & highlights .edu links and C block IP addresses, but does not provide link anchor text.
• Link Popularity Comparison Tool (retired) - allows you to quickly and easily compare your link popularity scores to other websites.
• Internal PageRank flow Calculator (retired) - allows you to see how your internal link structure flows PageRank throughout your site.

Background Information on Link Building

These three videos are all short (7 to 15 minutes each), sweet, and done by me. :)

How to Use Web Directories to Build Link Authority

 

How Public Relations Relates to Link Building & SEO

 

How to Build a Self-reinforcing Authority that Keeps Building Free Links

Know Any Other Tools Worth Suggesting?

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