Anchor text is a major ranking factor - it is hard to manipulate (at least it is getting harder now after Google started its anti-paid-links war and got really good at spotting link schemes). Thus by exploring the anchor text of the site backlinks, you will:
- get an idea of the competitors’ link building strategy;
- understand what people think of your site;
- get help with your keyword research (webmasters usually focus on their most important keywords when building links).
As usual, here is a short overview of four backlink checkers followed by the screenshots:
| Options/Tools | BacklinkWatch | Smart backlinks |
Analyze Back Links |
Link Diagnosis |
| Anchor Text | Y E S | |||
| PR | - | + | - | + |
| Linking page outbound links | + | - | inaccurate | + |
| Nofollow highlight | inaccurate | + | - | + |
| Firefox Extension | - | + | - | + |
| Sorting options | - | - | - | + |
| Interface | messed up | user-friendly | simple | user-frindly |
| Set Preferences | - | + | + | - |
1. BacklinkWatch is a bit stuffed with advertisements and slow but it’s free but it will take time visiting each page linking to your site and find the anchor text.
2. Smart backlinks tool offers a handy FireFox extension and viewing options (anchor text on/off; nofollow on/off) speeding up the checking process.
3. Analyze Back Links - a very new but promising tool also allowing for a number of useful settings (anchor text being one of them). Some figures however (total backlinks, for examples) seems inaccurate (or I didn’t understand what they stand for).
4. Link Diagnosis tool takes a lot of time but that’s worth it. The utility offers the widest variety of sorting options (anchor text is one of them) enabling you to quickly find any page you need.
Comments
35 responses so far ↓
Gidseo on Jun 2, 2008 at 8:28 am
Hi Ann
Link analysis by Joost de Valk used to work well but seems to have stopped working.
Do you or anybody else know what happened or is it just me!
In the meantime I’m off to look at Smart Links and Link Diagnosis.
Thank you for the info…
Joost de Valk on Jun 2, 2008 at 8:38 am
I know, working on it :)
Gidseo on Jun 2, 2008 at 9:18 am
Sorry Joost - should have emailed you rather than discuss it publicly - my apologies.
Ann, why didn’t you mention Joost’s fantastic tool in your post?!
:)
BottomTurn on Jun 2, 2008 at 9:36 am
great tools Ann. Thx for sharing.
Loren Baker, Editor on Jun 2, 2008 at 9:54 am
@Gidseo I have a feeling once Joost gets his fantastic tool working 100%, you’ll be seeing it on Search Engine Journal :)
Ann Smarty on Jun 2, 2008 at 11:42 am
Absolutely :) Once it’s up, I’ll review it here.
Uri on Jun 2, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Once again, Ann, a GREAT post. Thanks for sharing.
avi on Jun 2, 2008 at 5:17 pm
good stuff, just what ive been looking for. any non web based solutions?
@lorenbaker miss you bro
Loren Baker, Editor on Jun 2, 2008 at 5:25 pm
@avi same dude. you in seattle? give me an excuse to come up to NY :)
Forest Parks on Jun 2, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Thanks I am bookmarking this to check them out… I have been becoming obsessed over back links as have only just started to understand them. I used to link swap all the time but realized that was not that great.
Ann Smarty on Jun 3, 2008 at 2:37 am
“any non web based solutions?”
Looks like a topic for a new post. Thank you, Avi! Working on it…
Hugo on Jun 3, 2008 at 7:50 am
Great post, Ann! Pulling anchor text is a crucial activity, and I’m curious to see how these four tools perform.
avi on Jun 3, 2008 at 9:13 am
@lorenbaker - couldn’t make it to seattle - always something going on here - this week is internetweekny.com
@annsmarty- start with awall’s backlink analyzer. been looking for one that runs on a mac if you can find one!
Gabe Gayhart on Jun 3, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Nice post - I appreciate the insight. It’s refreshing to hear a review of 4 less talked about tools. Which tool is your tool of preference? Is it a paid tool or free tool ?
Thanks again Ann
Arnie on Jun 3, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Ann,
Would be interested to learn about any non-web based tools too.
And I did not know about Link Diagnosis so thanks!
Arnie
Arnie on Jun 3, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I take that back — I just went to bookmark Link diagnosis an low and behold I had it in my favs already. This would indicate either brain damage or too darn many tools :)
Ann Smarty on Jun 4, 2008 at 3:45 am
@Gabe : Link diagnosis is my favorite now and it’s free.
Jeff Woelker on Jun 4, 2008 at 12:10 pm
This is great. Thanks!
jay paul on Jun 6, 2008 at 7:57 am
Yes Ann, I must have to agreed.
if we compare back link watch and Linkdiagnosis
so now linkdiagnosis is better with accuracy, speed and some features with firefox.
i am always eager to check my back links every week so we can get some ideas about our campaign and quality work.
Thanks
Jay
Joost de Valk on Jun 6, 2008 at 7:58 am
For the record: I fixed my plugin.
Ruben Zevallos Jr. on Jun 11, 2008 at 5:35 am
Thank you for the tips
Dale Leanhardt on Jun 11, 2008 at 9:08 am
Why don’t you list Google Analytics? I believe they also provide a list of all the backlinks to your site and it is free.
Ann Smarty on Jun 11, 2008 at 9:13 am
Actually Google Analytics tracks referrals, not backlinks and it also doesn’t show you anchor text…
Loose Diamonds on Jun 11, 2008 at 11:48 am
A very good read, thanks for the information. Will check out these tools.
Enrique Armand on Jun 11, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Great stuff here - as sales manager for LinkWorth, we’re always looking for tools that will help us see what our clients and their competitors have done in the past and what their current link profiles look like. Having that information allows us to craft and launch better text link ad campaigns that produce results time and time again.
brian on Jun 14, 2008 at 11:01 am
great post will try it out on my find a probate attorney website.
seo4success on Jun 17, 2008 at 10:28 am
Great post. Great tools.
Thank you!
SEOGuy on Jul 27, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Thanks for the references of the tools above. While I certainly cannot disagree with the value of analytics in growing our Internet Marketing dreams; I can say that (for now at least) I’m just focusing on getting highly relevant content and backlinks out to the Internet while giving much less time to analytics.
Firgures though, as I hated statistics more than any other class in my College days. Again, that’s not to say it isn’t important because it certainly is. However, I do think we can get so bogged down by attempting to figure out where are site is compared to everyone else’s that we lose the valuable time for the art of actually growing our websites.
What do you think?
Vhic Hufana on Aug 1, 2008 at 2:39 am
Cool tools. I will try to use each of them and see which of them are useful.Thanks for the list.
World of Warcraft Guide on Aug 11, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Wow… great article and very helpful. The free tools listed are great. Thanks
Ed Sexton on Aug 19, 2008 at 9:13 am
Helpful post, thanks. I’ve used Link Diagnosis and it is good and comprehensive but the only problem with it is that it only does site wide links.
If you have a specific page on your site that you want link information for you can’t get it with Link Diagnosis. Put in a specific URL and it will just default to the entire site.
If anyone knows of a reliable backlink checker that does allow single pages and exportable results leave a comment as i’m trying to analyise individual pages at the mo on my site… Or if i’ve completely missed this on Link Diagnosis please correct me!
Eddie on Oct 17, 2008 at 1:10 pm
it seems that at some point google webmaster central DID report on inbound link’s anchor text :
http://tinyurl.com/5vnoke
also, seomoz’s linkscape tool, along with anchor text distribution tool are very powerful.
warhammer on Oct 31, 2008 at 8:15 am
Thanks for the tools. I like link diagnosis the most even though there is quite a wait time. good results is better than crap.
Link building Services on Nov 8, 2008 at 6:50 am
This is really good site and rich with content.
Mark Nunney on Nov 9, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Thanks for the research. Showing ability to do both page and site level analysis would be great.
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