SEO Tools

This page introduces you to tools useful for your search engine optimization efforts.

1. Find how many sites are linking to you (or your competitors)
Yahoo: Use Site Explorer to find the number of incoming links to a site.
Google: Not available. The "link:" command in Google is known to be broken.
MSN: Type 'link:www.mysite.com' in the search box.

2. Find how many pages from a site is indexed
Yahoo: Type 'site:www.mysite.com'.
Google: Type 'site:www.mysite.com "term"' where term is any text that repeats on every page of that site.*
MSN: Type 'site:www.mysite.com'.

*The 'site:' command by itself will show two types of URL's in Google: The pages that have been indexed, and the pages that Google knows about, but has not indexed. Adding a term that appears on every page of that site ensures that only the indexed pages are counted.

3. Track the PageRank of your pages
The easiest way to find out about the PageRank is to download the Google Toolbar and enable PageRank display.

4. Track your keyword ranking
One site I have used is GoRank.com. It uses the Google API to track the rankings of a web site by keywords.