Hey there, I've just taken over the SEO of a number of sites, each of which has got hundreds of paid links linking to them from relevant sites and blogs. I want to go through these links and find out which ones are actually giving me any benefit, but how do I do this? I'm thinking of using Yahoo Site Explorer over link:*** on Google, because I've heard that it shows me the links in order of importance/usefulness, but is there any truth in this? I would simply test each current link using a niche keyword phrase, but the majority of sites linking to me demand to be paid each time I change the link text. Has anyone got any advice? Thanks v much!
I suggest you try http://www.seo-forensics.com The links on the first 4 or so pages of results are the ones giving value. Any link with a PR 0 could be replaced with article marketing or directory submissions.
How do you read the OBL section, squadron? It shows 100/1 for instance, the 100 in green, 1 in red. I thought OBL was outbound backlink?
I don't know how the OBL thing works as I never use it (slows it down too much). I only ever switch on PageRank and anchor text. It's a great tool for finding out why competitors rank so well.