What do you want in a Link Popularity Checker?

I am planning to develop a link popularity checker script that I will offer for free for download. However, I do wish to differentiate this script from others, by offering access to our database consisting of a list of domains along with their link popularity in the major search engines. Let me elaborate.

• User downloads and installs link popularity script (written in php for now)
• User wants to check the link popularity for the following domain names
  - sitepoint.com
  - webhostingtalk.com
  - gamingorb.com
• Script connects to our server via XML-RPC and checks whether we already have a link popularity record for that domain for today. If so, script returns the link pop results (total + each individual engine).
  
  Let's say somebody already searched for sitepoint.com and gamingorb.com, then our server would return the linkpop for those aforementioned domain names.
• If our server does not have any link popularity record for the domain name for today, it checks the link popularity for that domain name and adds the results to our server via XML-RPC.

I hope this gives you a better overview of my idea. So to summarize, the script will basically be a link popularity database with results being contributed by each user.

However, now I do need your input in the features you would like to see.

I greatly appreciate any input. Thank You!

 

google pagerank is always a plus. Other things like ranking w/ keywords is also a plus, but maybe beyond the scope of this tool. Comparison of other sites ranking in certain keywords would definitely be useful.

 

It's the weight of the domain, the importance of a site that really counts.

 

Thanks for the responses so far.
I have noted Google PageRank and will implement that also.

nevetS, could you perhaps elaborate on "Comparison of other sites ranking in certain keywords would definitely be useful."?

sitetutor, how would you define the weight of a domain in technical terms, i.e. the higher the Google PR/'Link Popularity, the important the domain?

 

Well - I forget the site, but I remember seeing one a while back that would check your backlinks - then it would list comparisons for major sites within your specified category... So if you put in "Health", it would show a listing of backlink counts for 20 major health sites -- from the super encyclopedias to university type sites.

My idea would be to enter your keywords like "Seraphim ProudleDuck", and it would show where your site ranked, your backlinks, and then the backlinks of the sites in the top 10 positions.

 

The first thing I'd want to see (I already have this, but anyway) is a listing (per domain) of:

a: How many indexed pages on GYM
b: BL counts on GYM
c: Does it appear in DMOZ and other dirs
d: How many of the sites linking back to the domain contain the target phrase in the title of the linking page, the home page, and a [site:xyz keyphrase] check for added metrics (I do this to determine a simple thematic 'weight') - you'd be surprised how quickly this pares out the automated networks from the theme managed campaigns. It's not perfect - but it's workable and often identifies active wm's.
e: Check the anchor text used on the top ten backlinking sites. Does it contain the target phrase ? if so - additional theme weight.
f: If you want you can include alexa/whois.sc data, but it's only relevant for UK/US audiences.

Sources:
Google API
Y&M Scrape.
whois.sc xml feed
amazon (for alexa etc)

If you're going to circulate the script, I'd consider the thematic checking, especially as a weighting or x% metric. It's the type of thing that (to my knowledge) isn't available elsewhere (as a compound metric per domain checked) - yet very relevant in terms of SEO. In my view it would make the script quite attractive to the SEO conscious.

PR is nice window dressing, but that's about it. I hope i haven't gone off on too much of a tangent, but in my view, it's not just how many bl's a site has (link pop), but the thematic strength of those links.

Cheers,

JL

 

Thanks for the elaboration, nevetS. That would actually be more useful to the SEO community than merely checking the backlinks of your site.

john_loch, thanks for your input. Am I correct to assume that by GYM you are referring to Google, Yahoo and MSN?
For point d.), are you aware of any direct commands to determine that in google? I did some research and found "allinurl:", "allintitle:", and "allinanchor".
As for "[site:xyz keyphrase]", it merely shows the internal links containing the keywords, correct? How would that be significant?
For point g.), how should the weight be distributed in your opinion? Do you perhaps have any algorithm that you utilize for that?
This would also apply to "thematic checking", if you could elaborate on that.

Thanks once again for the input so far

 

I don't know if it is possilbe but I would love to find out if that website is linking to any known website they shouldn't be such as link farms, etc etc etc..... that will hurt you for linking to that website.

So if you are checking your website for link popularity and you find out that there is a known website on that list or on a blacklist that you should be linking to OR if you are checking out a website that you potentially want to link to.

See what their relevance is for that keyowrd phrase is another nice feature to include. Base it on a scale of 1-100 or so.... the higher the number the more relevant or visa versa.... This would help out when checking the potential link exchanging website for relevancy to yours.

 

That's certainly a good idea Wayne, however, do you know any website that lists link farms?

 

I could not find any on Link Farms however the FFA websites, here is a start:
http://www.hooverwebdesign.com/nospamffa.html

http://www.5starads.com/ffalist.html

ffanet.com
(http://www.internet-tips.net/cgi-bin/lnkinlte.cgi?l=.ffanet multilinks.net)
(http://www.internet-tips.net/cgi-bin/lnkinlte.cgi?l=.multilinks 1stclasslinks.com)
(http://www.internet-tips.net/cgi-bin/lnkinlte.cgi?l=.1stclasslinks FantasticLinks.com)
(http://www.internet-tips.net/cgi-bin/lnkinlte.cgi?l=.fantasticslinks)

Those should help out a bit...

 

Thanks ProductivePC, I suppose I will write a module in the near future for the link farm recognition.

I have released the free version of the Link Popularity Checker.

More information at http://www.checkurl.info/tools/link_popularity_checker.htm

I also put up a demo at http://www.checkurl.info/tools/linkpop/index.php (demo limited to 1 domain)

You can download it for free from the website.
Cheers

 

Currently, you are using the link:www.mydomain.com to provide the Google results. I would like to see the results for the total links pointing to your website.
link|www.mydomain.com. This seems to be a more accurate count as to what Google is using to determine placement within the search engines.

I would also like to be able to put multiple domains in and have it return multiple results.

 

Only the online demo on our web site is restricted to 1 domain so that it does not get abused. It is not intended to be used for any other purpose than evaluating the script before downloading it.

You can download the Link Popularity Checker for free and add search engines yourself via the control panel. You can also change the link, i.e. in this case for Google, change it from "link:" to "link|", in the control panel.
Also, you can add/disable as many search engines as you like. Some users disabled all the search engines and only focused on google. They added Google PR, Google (regular links), then Google links with extension, and Google links without extension. So, the script is designed to be as flexible as possible.