Search Engine Link Commands
by Randall McCarley
December 15th, 2006
When it comes to detecting links the search engines use the same concepts but implement them a bit differently.
Yahoo! link:
Yahoo! will transfer you to their Site Explorer for investigating inlinks. The link: command will show you the links specific to the URL you enter. Example: link:http://www.14thc.com/get-free-backlinks.html
Note there is no space between the command and the URL. Also note the “http://” part of the URL is mandatory.
Yahoo! linkdomain:
The linkdomain: command has the same syntax as the link: command (no space, include http://) but instead of displaying links to a particular page it will display all links going to a domain. Note you can only list the domain and not a page within the site for this to work (you’ll get an error). Example: linkdomain:http://linkersunion.com
Live link:
Formerly MSN, Microsoft’s relaunched Live search engine will display links to a specific page. Note the lack of a space between the command and the URL but unlike Yahoo!, Live does not want the http:// prefix. Example: link:www.14thc.com/get-free-backlinks.html
Live linkdomain:
Following the same syntax as the link: command, Live will also show you all the links pointing at a domain. Example: linkdomain:linkersunion.com
Narrowing Live’s Focus
You can exclude sites (like your own) from appearing in the results by adding -site: and the domain to the query. Example: linkdomain:linkersunion.com -site:linkersunion.com There is no limit to the number of sites to exclude so if you are an active forum poster this may be especially useful to you.
Live linkfromdomain:
A fun twist to link research is the linkfromdomain: command that shows all the links going out of a site. Example: linkfromdomain:linkersunion.com
Google link:
A word of caution: Google deliberately manipulates the results of the link: command. They hide some of the links in their index. They did this to prevent people from gaming the system with link development but it uh… didn’t work. I guess Google forgot there were other search engines out there that know how to share. Just don’t freak out if a link you know is out there isn’t showing up in Google’s results. Chances are they know about it and have counted it in their ranking factors, especially if it shows up in the other search engines.
Google’s link: command works like Live’s: link:www.14thc.com/get-free-backlinks.html
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