Incoming Links

This test looks at the number of other sites linking to the organisation's website.

Why do we test for this?

The volume and quality of incoming links to a site is very important. Search engines like Google treat a link to site as a 'vote', ranking it higher in search results. The more relevant the site, the higher weight the vote carries.

The volume of incoming links to a site is also a good measure of the popularity of a site and how well it is marketed online.

How do we test for this?

Google and Yahoo already hold this information which you can easily access by entering 'link:http://www.YOURSITE.com' into the search box. We score you based on the volume of incoming links.

All link counts vary and this is normal. There are several reasons for this:

What can I do about it?

Most incoming links to a site are beneficial. Try and get a website included in relevant directories, or get involved with relevant forums and drop in a mention to the site every now and then (but watch out, it's obvious if you are just spamming to get more back-links and it may backfire if you don't contribute anything useful).

FAQ

Why are no backlinks showing for my site?

Certain links may be omitted from the analysis such as directory websites. Other links can also be hard to find, including those added to a website using JavaScript. As backlinks are based on a representative sample, not every link may be included in the results.