Posts Tagged ‘Yahoo’

Another Useful Free Online Backlink Checker!

I thought I’d write a quick post to let you know about another free backlink analysis tool I just discovered (even though it’s been around for awhile) over at AnalyzeBacklinks.com.This tool is especially helpful for anyone who regularly uses Yahoo! Site Explorer or Backlink Watch. It uses the same data as those two but allows you to tweak your settings for even better results.

<img src="http://www.SEOrankings.com/wp-content/uploads/analyze-backlinks.jpg” alt=”free backlink checker – analyzebacklinks.com” title=”free backlink checker – analyzebacklinks.com” width=”600″ height=”332″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-9469″ />

If you didn’t catch my previous post, I recently did a detailed comparison of the <a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/best-free-online-tools-to-check-backlinks”>best free online backlink checkers. This website definitely would have been one of the top ones on the list! In any case, I am very surprised it’s such a secret. It gets only a fraction of the <a href="http://f019f51vaby49z23ust2v-t99u.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SEORANK”>traffic and doesn’t have nearly as many backlinks as Backlink Watch does. And it’s a much better tool.

Key Features & Settings:

• Check Up to 1000 Back Links
• Show 1 Back Link Per Domain
• Show Homepage Backlinks
• Display Anchor Text
• Total Links on Linking Page
• Total Outbound Links On Linking Page
• Text Field to Search Attributes Like Nofollow

Just be sure to include http:// as part of your URL for it to work.

Final Thoughts

I’d say this is one of top free backlink checker tools for checking yours and your competitors’ backlinks, but not the overall best. It definitely tops Backlink Watch and Yahoo! Site Explorer if you don’t like having to create an account. But, if you don’t mind logging in, <a href="http://www.SEOrankings.com/open_site_explorer” rel=”nofollow”>Open Site Explorer also reports up to 1000 backlinks for free and certainly has it beat.

P.S. There’s another cool backlink tool that seems a bit buggy at times, but it too can report back some pretty helpful data. In addition to a typical analysis it allows you generate exportable reports and sort the data by: URL, Google PageRank, nofollow, link type, anchor text, outbound links, link strength and history. You can find that nifty tool at LinkDiagnosis.com. The only reason I didn’t mention it in my previous comparison was because it only works with Firefox and requires you to install a plug-in.

Connect on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/SEO-Rankings/304796450787″>Facebook and <a href="http://www.twitter.com/SEOrankings”>Twitter!

<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SEOrankings/~4/RkBdqXIyHBQ” height=”1″ width=”1″ />

Meta Descriptions do affect Your Google Rankings.

Meta Descriptions do affect Your Google Rankings.

Meta descriptions are the text snippets of the webpage you see in search results. Officially Google and Yahoo announced they no longer used Meta-descriptions in their search algorithms. But Google’s new personalized search is making Meta description a ranking factor again.

Google is tailoring everyone’s search results based on their search history even when users are not signed into Google. It use to be that when you signed into Google you got personalized results based on you search history. Now it happens whether your signed in or not, you will get personalized results.

This means that the sites you visit more often will be pushed higher in the search results on related queries. For example if you search for ‘SEO ranking’ and visit seoranking/trafficsecretz.com, next time when you search for ‘SEO advice’ you may see seoranking/trafficsecretz.com in top 10 results even if it doesn’t rank there in the general impersonalized search. You can tell that your search results have been personalized by the ‘View customization’ link in the upper right hand corner of the search box.

The personalized search results can differ significantly from the general SERPs. The more you search a keyword and click on a site the higher it will move up your personalized search result page.

So how do Meta descriptions affect your Google ranking?

Although Meta descriptions are no longer part of the ranking algorithm they can affect your website position in the personalized search results. Your Meta description is a crucial factor in determining the CTR (click-through-rate) of your site in search results. The more compelling your description is, the more searchers will click it. When they click through to your site from search results this is recorded in their Web History. Next time they search for a product or service related to your site, it may appear higher up in their personalized search results.

Since everyone gets personalized results, the effect your Meta descriptions have on your rankings can be really huge. That’s another reason why you should invest some time into testing and optimizing your Meta descriptions.

So write a compelling title and description, one that will get the searcher to click on your site. Now Google doesn’t always show the Meta description you provide. Sometimes it just
compiles a random text snippet from your page that contains the keywords used in the query.