Free Link Popularity Software - Back Link Analyzer

you just saved me $$$ dude i was gonna pay for a linking check program and now i even this is even better because well its free and i like 'Add key word' and easy summary results There is no error margin% right? Peace out and i owe you a big one for this program hehe:OP Bye

I love this TOOL!!! It's great for quickly checking backlinks!

Would be nice if...
Sometimes it hangs when there are some sites that it has trouble connecting to. Would be nice if you could just stop a certain connection (right-click?). Otherwise, the Stop button doesn't work too well when there are only a few connections it's waiting on.

Sometimes I've found that if I click the Stop button before it connects to a bunch, it will stop.

Otherwise, Great! Fabulous! FREE!!

Has Google stopped issuing API keys? What would be a workaround for that? Nice tool btw.

Great tool. But since 2 weeks the Google PR shows 0 for every result. NE ideas?

I too have downloaded the back link analyzer twice. The first time it ran fine and I was very excited about the program. Now when I try to use it there is a line of text added to the URLs that is being found and that is rendering the results useless. Can anyone help?

This is a fantastic tool. Very simple to use and fun. I can't wait to see the developments to this product. It's excellent as it is, yet it still has a lot of potential.
Congrats and thanks.

I too have downloaded the back link analyzer twice. The first time it ran fine and I was very excited about the program. Now when I try to use it there is a line of text added to the URLs that is being found and that is rendering the results useless. Can anyone help?

I too have downloaded the back link analyzer twice. The first time it ran fine and I was very excited about the program. Now when I try to use it there is a line of text added to the URLs that is being found and that is rendering the results useless. Can anyone help?

hi,
Screenshots looking nice and interesting, regretably I can't find the window where I could enter a google API or an Yahoo :(
I pressed the optionn icon but only the proxy infos pops up.

What could it be?

Many thanks for any hint.

Aaron,
I love the Back Link Tool and use it all the time.
I tried to use it today and all the google pagerank values come up 0???

Has somthing changed with google? I ver 2.0 (the latest, I think) and I tried it on several computers and know sites

Any thoughts...
thanks
pat

Aaron,
I love the Back Link Tool and use it all the time.
I tried to use it today and all the google pagerank values come up 0???

Has somthing changed with google? I ver 2.0 (the latest, I think) and I tried it on several computers and know sites

Any thoughts...
thanks
pat

Aaron,
I love the Back Link Tool and use it all the time.
I tried to use it today and all the google pagerank values come up 0???

Has somthing changed with google? I ver 2.0 (the latest, I think) and I tried it on several computers and know sites

Any thoughts...
thanks
pat

Aaron,
I love the Back Link Tool and use it all the time.
I tried to use it today and all the google pagerank values come up 0???

Has somthing changed with google? I ver 2.0 (the latest, I think) and I tried it on several computers and know sites

Any thoughts...
thanks
pat

Hi there - it doesn't seem to pull results from Google? I put in my API link and it doesn't display any. I only get results if I put in another engine? I'm running the latest version.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

So THIS is what you were talking about at Studio8! Cool. Am definitely going to check it out.

Yeah...it's not amazing yet (although probably cool for free), but over time I hope to add a few other features to it to make it really cool.

With your profession, and the direction technology is going, why in the world did you make this a Windows-based application? This leaves Mac, Linux, and Unix users out, and by all appearances, this should have been a web-based service.

Not only that, with a web-based service, you wouldn't have to worry about tech-support questions or having people download new versions, because you can control everything from the server that processes everything.

I'm sure you had your reasons, but it seems like a strange choice on the surface.

in my opinion most open source apps are downloadable and not server-side/web-based because that would force the developer/distributor of the open source app to incur the bandwidth cost. this allows the bandwidth cost to be decentralized. plus maybe there's a paid version to come that will be hosted and web-based?

Looks great so far! :D

web based means the API queries get ate up really quickly... look at my other two tools which people complained about API usage on (hence I am making downloadable versions of those as well - although I think Konfabulator is operating system independant?).

on this tool over time I may make stuff that works on other systems as well, but I need to start where most of the people are.

Well done Aaron!

so far, so good... we are just giving it a test spin as I write this.

I usually use SEO Elite and so far this is looking as good or better.

My only complaint... It took me about 5 seconds to figure out where to enter the API's... five whole seconds... ;-)

It isn't obvious to me what a Class C link is and I'm not a novice to SEO.

This is an excellent tool, I find it easy to work with and very effective. I have outside tools that allow me to track progress and external links so this software mixed with my other software makes for an incredible combination. Thanks for the outstanding product.

Class C Block IP Address

sites are hosted on like
aa.bb.ccc.ddd

if any number in a b or c is different than it is a different c block. It's importance is likely not so great in some of the smaller regional areas (as outside the US there is a much more limited number of IP ranges available), but links from a wide spread of IPs is often a sign of natural linkage data.

Aaron,

After a quick first pass at this it looks pretty cool. A a SEO Elite user, I'd say this has some real potential. It's clean and easy to paint a mental picture of what's going on. The keyword stuff at the bottom needs some work, but I don't have anything specific yet...Friday night and I've had a beer.
Since you seem to have all the routines to collect the data a c class ratio like the C Class Backlink Analyzer Tool at webuildpages.com might be cool. I'm still not convinced on the ratio deal but it's fun to look at.
Looking forward to the finished product.

Thanks Aaron!

Just some minor problems that I experienced during my test of the beta.

1. The exclude doesn't work (for instance I would like to exclude my own inbound links).
2. The options selected at "Check the link type" and "select one or more search engines" aren't remembered the next time I start the program.
3. The program doesn't answer when pressing "Stop back link analyze" during backlink analyze.

Just tried the exclude and it seemed to work fine.

any idea why I don't see any link texts?

I had a problem with the exclude filter too. Suggestions for improvements include a deep link %, and display % for incoming anchor text.

i try to use your Back Link Analyzer but it is not working .
At the left coner , it show Thread Running from 5 to 0 . But nothing show to me.
Why ?
I think this the tool that i want but i can not use on my computer . why ?
please answer to me.

Hello Aaron,

Just struggling with backlink and anchor text issues nice. This is a great first program.

I have to say the latest version of SEO Book works fabulously in Mac OS X Preview Application (I'm running 10.3.8). It is really speedy and the links fly open and all the text jumps to the appropriate cross-references.

It doesn't seem to be filled with affiliate links or any of those sorts of things. Did buy the copywriting book you suggested. For those outside the US, the Amazon.com link can be converted to France, Canada, UK or Germany by just changing the suffix for the domain - it will open directly to the article in question if it is in stock in that Amazon.

For the Link Analysis Tool, I would urge you to create a version that we can install on our own servers (it would be faster to query via the fast pipeline from the host than via our DSL/cable lines for most of us). Word of warning though. It may be dangerous to run this on the same IP as a core SEO client's website!

Anyway thanks a million.

Cheers,

Alec

I try to use many time , but it is not working for me. Can anyone say why?
please help me , i want to use this tools.
thank.

Wow, this a really great piece of software.I love the "Search terms" option in the summary section.

I would like to see colapsable groups for the URL though. Also, the summary could be a "Subtotal" at the end.

Overall great software! I am VERY impressed. Especially at the price!

thanks for all the feedback everyone

>Suggestions for improvements include a deep link %, and display % for incoming anchor text.

The % for incoming anchor text does occur on the bottom of the second page (the summary page). After the program is done grabbing link information you have to click the search terms button on the second screen.

That will show a merged index of page copy, anchor text, and page title of linking page. It will then also give counts for each and percentages on the link text and linking page title.

You can also enter in multi word phrases to get their percentages as well, although currently I think that has something like a 23 character limit and I may need to bump that up.

Hi! I had all sort of problems getting this report links. Sometimes it would show NO links, other times just a small quality, and other times again more than 100. I tried this both for yahoo and MSN, but could not get consistant results, and nowhere near as many results as looking at the links in the search engines directly. it's a great idea but seems to have some bugs...

Thanks for the great tool. Have been looking for this sort of thing for some time.

Worked fine for the first few runs and now it seems to hang and get stuck. I might try and reinstall it.

That said, incredible for a free piece of SEO software and very useful information.

Thanks again,
Adam

Hey Aaron, this is great but the Google API isn't working (there's about a hundred to choose from at Google ) and the software kinds looks like it's been abandoned - which is a shame, because it's dead useful!

have a nice day!

> I think that has something like a
> 23 character limit and I may need
> to bump that up.

Oh, yes, please do!

Somewhere around 50 characters would be PERFECT for my use as I hit the maximum amount of characters on my very first input which was ... San Francisco California real estate listings

love the product, but:

- why does it report NO LINK FOUND, when i find one after going to the site in question?

- why are some results blank?

suggestions:

- after saving the data and reopening it, i cannot export the data

- when exporting the data to a HTML file, the page title part can be very very long ... not only is this is not correct as page titles are not as long as reported, but it makes it impractical to print the HTML file

- there is no way to print the data

it's a great program that is extremely useful but it does need some final tweaking

I tested it and think it is good. The problem is google may stop it as google feedback "your computer are influenced by virus or you re enquirying by spyware". See if you can find some solution to tresspass. Let me know if you have new version. Thanks.

Thanks for making this tool it is really great of you. Maybe you could add a field for multiple domain searches. This way you could paste in the entire top 10 at once. The summary page could stay the same but with a section for each domains summary. Then you could easily print out all the data on the top ten or 20 or however many you need/want to wait for. Also, sense you have the data there anyhow it would be nice to see how many unique IP's and unique domain names link to a site. This would be helpful info to go along with the unique class c data already being shown. If possible would be cool to see the average age of the domains that link to each site. I think that could be usefull as well although the whois guys may not like it if you go crazy on their data...but if you use a proxy maybe it could be an option. Just a few thoughts. PS i try to read your blog daily and enjoy it very much keep up the good work.

A great tool while it works

Had it lock up on me (win 2k) swallowing up all 2.4ghz of my xeon power when i clicked on a link. Even limited to 1000 results from one SE.

maybe make architecture open so people can contribute. someone can add a PR plugin if they wanted. others can build plugs as they see fit.

something like age of domain tool at webuildpages would be cool. again, plugin based so you don't assume liability for hitting whois dbase.

nice job.

Hi Aaron,
Looks cool I will try it. Always looking for ways to improve relevant traffic from merchants and webmasters. Btw, I learned about this tool in SitePoint Tribune #327,which just landed in my inbox.

Regards,
Peter
www.affiliate-software-review.com

I love this program!

I am yet to use it for any real link building, but you can be sure I'm going to.

Two questions.

In the results page, what does the columns O/B and N/F stand for?

Excellent work Aaron, thanks for sharing this with us. I have two suggestions tho - the first is the same as Mike's above - could we please have an option to check the number of incoming links to the pages Backlink Analyzer returns in its results? That's be really handy.

Also, would it be possible to add a feature to run something like the alexa counts retrospectively?

Other than that its a great little tool, thanks!

Looks like a great tool - cant seem to get working on my machine though. Sorry to post support Q here, but could not find an email address to contact you on. Would appreciate some suggestions to help get it working. Have tried the advice listed on your website.

Where is the GNU/Linux version? :(

Just a small spelling thing ;) when going to add an API key for Google, the link says "Click Hear" rather than "Click Here".

Great tool, thanks! :)

http://www.homegranite.com

Now all we need is one for those of us who use Macs...

Hi Aaron
Great little tool to start with but now, everytime i start it up, it just seems to hang.
It comes up with the Collecting External Links please wait bit and then nothing happens at all.

I have tried it with no other software running and it still happens, i have reinstalled it a couple of times, ensured it's not blocked by my firewall etc

Any ideas?

Cheers

Webecho

Hi !
It will be cool to make possible excluding all subdomains of a website. For example, if I'm checking www.domain.tld, I would like to enter in the exclude box : *.domain.tld so I won't see my domain in the results (I've got a lot of subdomains :D so I can't write them one by one...)
Thanks for your tool, it's great !

Why does it write "Back Link Analyzer v2.0" in my Windows Taskbar? Very annoying. Otherwise seems a useful tool.

one-way / recip check isn't working here.

cranked spider settings way up and tested on site with simple static links page one click off homepage.

confirmed by running xenu on same site and comparing external links found.

appears Back Link Analyzer isn't spidering past first page. is the feature live?

maybe add a log feature to aid in debugging

Great concept, however, implementation is poor.

I ran the software to anyalyze backlinks of a site using the Yahoo search engine/directory and it returned no anchor text data and, subsequently, I could not analyze keywords in anchor text.

Please let me know if you get this problem fixed.

John

Tnanks Aaron,

Thanks for suggestion with backlink and anchor text. This is a great first program nice.

Thanks Aaron...

Nice tool, good start. May I ask why there is a limit? I really would like to be able to track my websites progress month to month, see the links grow over time, but since you cap the results at 1k, I can't get that result.

Thanks Aaron, this is a really great tool that I've been using for several months.

I am a bit confused about what to take away from the "Total Link Popularity" and the "total class c links" listed in the summary tab.

What exactly does total link popularity represent?

Is "total class c links" the number of unique class c ip addresses obtained from the backlink analysis

Thanks Aaron, this is a really great tool that I've been using for several months.

I am a bit confused about what to take away from the "Total Link Popularity" and the "total class c links" listed in the summary tab.

What exactly does total link popularity represent?

Is "total class c links" the number of unique class c ip addresses obtained from the backlink analysis

Hi Jason
I am trying to work harder with the programmers to make the labels more intuitive.

I am hoping to have a new version soon
Cheers
Aaron

I thought about writing a similar tool for my own use, and this one looks like a great code to base on... any hints, when the source will be avaliable for download?

I wanted to add two features:

1) that would allow me to see, whether a specific page or domain that links to my competitor also links to me
2) the ability to group results that are from a specific domain/subdomain/C class IP into one result (in an expandable tree for example, with a summary information ie. "15 backlinks from this domain")

Hi Aaron!

This is a great tool. I'm testing it out as I write this.

Some features I would love to see in it:

The ability to display outbound links for the site analysed which are not being reciprocated (I'd like to see when someone takes down my link)

Could we be able to select a row by clicking on it? With all the columns it can be hard to see which numbers are attributed to which site, a visual guide would be great.

Also the Alexa rank isn't working for me.

Overall a really great tool! I'm eagerly anticipating the next version :)

Ohh! It is not working for me. Can anyone say why? I have been runnig the program about 15 times, only once it worked. The rest, no data at all. Is this being fixed? I hope yes.

Hi Aaron,

Cool tool!

I will post a couple of feature suggestions out of the gazillion I am thinking of. If you like those two I'll be glad to post the rest.

1. Add a filter mechanism so that the user can filter all the links that come from 'edu' sites or filter out all the pages that have more then 50 outbound links

2. Make summary lines for edu, gov and mil links. Double clicking those summary lines will show the main window with the appropriate filter.

Hope this helps
Joe

I have installed it a couple of times but kept getting a runtime error. Might be that my windows is very particular but unfortunately can't try it out. Reading all the great reviews I hope a new version will be released some day that may fix this.

Can Back Link Analyzer just check a directory of a website? For example, I want to know all the backlinks for http://www.apple.com/itunes/ but not any other directories on Apples site. Will BA do this? If so, how can I set it up?

Thanks

So I have tried to use this software, and the data seems flawed.

I did a backlinks analysis for apple and it returned 133 links... I'm almost certain that apple has more links than that.

What am I doing wrong?

Oh, and one quick suggestion to get around page rank, and i realize that this would take a long time, and might overhaul the yahoo api with a single search, but, what if you gave the number of inbound links for each link. This would be a great figure for those that really want to size up how valuable their links are, or where they stand with the competition.

Hello,

Looks like this software is dead. This is beta and no new version for a LONG time. Anyone got anything better?

Roger

Is there something that needs to be done to get the tool working. I downloaded the backlink analyser on two different computers and ran them. It runs for 3-5 seconds, no results gets displayed and then the program stops.
I am in a class with Dan Thies so he showed how to use the tool. And I believe I am using it correctly. Please let me know if there are any additional settings that needs to be changed before the s/w will work.

The API key is entered in the box that opens by first selecting a search engine and then the second button after the search engine. The first button is "HTTP", the second "Web" or somesuch --> it's the second one.

Hi,

I love the BackLink Analyzer, but there is no help file.

What does it mean when it says "No Link Found" in the link text column?

Thanks

Hi there,

I downloaded the programme today and ran it on a site with approx 500 backlinks. The results which were returned had no anchor text at all. It's a simple programme so I'm not sure where I could be going wrong!

Hello Aaron!

This is Manish. Well it said runtime error for me!!

Not worked though... I am looking forward to analyze it.

Any solutions??

Thanks

Manish
mp176@rediffmail.com

Out of the blue I'm getting a runtime error whenever doing a query. Anybody else getting this? I tried reinstalling too, to no avail.

Aaron -

Great back link analysis software, really appreciate you giving this away free!!! Here are a couple problems I ran into. Sometimes the software runs and the status appears to be complete on all back links except 1 or 2 of the links which get stuck downloading or they appear timed out. This normally happens when running google, yahoo, and msn all at the same time.

When this happens the back link analysis software totally locks up. The only option is to stop or pause it. If you pause the software then you CAN NOT export the results but it frees up the software so that the links can be clicked on. However if you stop the software, it totally locks up with a message stating that 0 threads left to complete and please wait. But you can wait forever and the software never gets out of this frozen mode. You eventually have to ctrl alt delete and end task.

Secondly when the software exports to excel it puts an extra space after the url which makes it difficult if you want to make the url a excel hyperlink. It would be very nice if the urls were hyperlinks when they export to excel or a least the space is removed so they can be converted and copied easily.

Again, thank you for the great back link analysis software.

Daren

Aaron,

Great software! I can get the result on everything but google. It starts the process..then when it is going to show the results. I get this....(ScreenShot)
http://www.vwracingnews.com/junk/backlink.jpg

Any ideas?

AlanF

Hi, Great Idea - I would really like to get this working. I have not used Google APIs - so this is new to me. When I clicked on your link to Google I did not know which API to register for - there are lots to choose from - please could you help?

I'm a retired academic scientist interested in improving
Back Link Analysis specifically related to scientific papers.

I have posted some of my ideas on:
http://scientific-compendia.net/rationale/

If any of you have comments or ideas about this use of Back Link Analyzers, and want to make me aware of them, please contact me (email addresses are on the above site).

Also, anyone who is interested in developing open source
or proprietary software along the lines I describe, OR FOR THE PURPOSES I DESCRIBE, please contact me. I am applying for a grant for support as a combined open source/proprietary project.

Thanks, Don Jewett

I just installed the program, and the features look fantastic, but I can't get it to work. The controls change to color when I click START, but then they go back to grey right away.

I've opened an exception in the Windows Firewall (I am running XP), but no change.

I tried it on a second computer on my home network and got the same result.

I can't see that anyone else is having trouble. Any ideas?

Thanks

Dave Roberts

Did you watch the video on the download page Dave?

One way to go would be to represent each website as a globe with connectors between the globes that represent the back links. The target domain being in the middle and linked to by the other globes. The size of the globe reflecting the relative nuumber of backlinks found. Visually you would then have what would look a bit like one of those 3d chemical formulas that were used at school. Each globe can be tagged with the domain name.

Hi Aaron, been trying to get this to work like Dave above, but no joy. Video is also broken. :(

Does anybody still have this working, or do I have to shell out for OptiLink to get backlink anchor text reports?

In our tool PageRank does not work, but the anchor text stuff works great with the yahoo API and microsoft API options...both are labeled as web service.

Hey Aaron can look into making your applications ready via adobe air (cross platform)? You wouldn't have to change anything within your code, you simple add them as is but you would make it available to everyone running Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Here's an faq about the product http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Apollo:developerfaq

Also, now that Google and Yahoo have better indexing capabilities on flash I'm guessing that flash developers will take a closer look into seo which gives you a chance to grow your followers, not to mention just making it available to Mac and Linux user should help in that respect also!

This is probably a great idea. Though our code needs a version 2 soon anyhow, so maybe we will do that soon.

I have been testing this software with a site that has 1090 backlinks reported in yahoo. I set the software to use Yahoo services, domain links (not page)and limit to 0 (also tried 1000). The problem is i can only get 20 links to show up. Also Tried with other sites and search engines.

I just tested it on a site and got over 100 backlinks to show up.

I had a comment/question on backlinks in general. Every piece of advise I read tells me that a link from a "dodgey" location on the web is worse than no link at all, and will actually send you backwards. However looking at some of my competitors who are ranked above me makes me wonder how accurate this advise is.

I run the website Promotional Products by Global Advertising Products, for me the main keyword is "promotional products" I am trying to optimise for. We are currently on page three of google.com.au, when I look at the backlinks of some competitors above me they have a large number, closer inspection tells me they are in many cases from pretty dodgey linkfarm type websites. I'd like people's opinions - how much does the quality of the links matter compared to the number? Is it really so bad to collect bulk links from dodgey corners of the web?. Not something I want to do, but I do want to compete!

For that sort of question I usually recommend people read this great article by Stuntdubl.

Hi, sorry i am new and i speack english a little bit
Do you have some link for have many free backlinks for my website ?
regard
Chris

This looks like a great tool, but I'm getting inconsistent results for total links.

- I ran this on a competitor site last night, and it showed 619 total links.
- I reran the same check today, only changing the "Levels deep" from 4 to 10. It returned 199 total links.
- I changed the "Levels deep" back to 4, in case that was making a difference. Now it showed 49 total links.
- I ran it one more time, not changing anything, and now it showed 80 total links.

Do you know why this would happen, and how I can avoid the problem? I'm just not sure what results to trust at this point. Thanks a bunch!

I view this tool as more of a tool to get a representative sample rather than giving you exact counts. You can get more accurate count data directly from Yahoo! Site Explorer.

Hi Aaron,

Do you welcome others to re-code this excellent tool for other local search engines in other languages like Chinese, Thai or Indonesian?

If yes, how can others help?

I would probably want to recode and update it before having it recoded by others.

Hi Aaron,

When are you recoding and updating it?

Not sure to be honest. I have a couple other tool ideas I want to roll out first.

Hi Aaron,
First, thanks for a great blog, set of tools, professional information, etc. etc.
Now to backlink analyzer.
I'm having a problem running it more than once ... after that it stops giving any results for quite a while (can't say exactly, but at least an hour or so). I tried using the API key, to see whether that helped, but nada.
Any suggestions?
Many thanks,
Debi

I think the yahoo web service api works well, but the other versions of data grabbing do not work so well. We have not maintained that tool as well as we would have liked to for a variety of reasons.

Majestic SEO is quite affordable and quite easy to use.

Isn't it possible to use an ip country database to identify what country the links are coming from? It will be really useful in identifying why some websites rank well in one country but not so well in another.

Looking at the IP addresses is a good idea. And looking at the domain name extensions (.co.uk, .de, .fr, etc.) should also give you an idea of their overall link profile as well...in some countries (I think like Australia) many companies still host in the US because US hosting costs are cheaper.

Hey Aaron - just one thing missing for me - the language of the page originating the link.

I've noticed a big difference in SERPS between, say english and portuguese rendering of the same set of results::

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=(english query)

and

http://www.google.co.uk/search?pt=en&q=(same english query)

I'm guessing that G weights the value of the incoming link based on the language of the source page - but it would be nice to be test that theory

Hi Aaron,

I have problems with running the tool..downloaded tool yesterday. I entered all the required stuff and I can't get results - backlinks. I set that I want to see 1000 backlinks. I get nothing! What is the problem? I've set that I want backlinks from Yahoo and Msn. I don't use proxy.
I would like to use this tool because it seems very good, but how to get results?

Hi Zoran
Try setting it to just use yahoo and make sure it is using the API and try to do it for links to domain
cheers
a

Been trying to get this software to work but it seems to stop working after the first few links. Has this software been abandoned?

I just saw the more recent comments. By just selecting yahoo and webservice, then clicking on button next to webservice and selecting domain I have got it to work.

Great piece of software!

I used this tool 2 times and it worked fine then it stopped working. Am I doing something wrong?

You have to ensure you have the domain count set to 1,000, and that you have the Yahoo! API turned on, while Microsoft & Google are turned off...then it should work.

Also note there might be a weird setting with proxies...ensure you have "use proxy" turned off.

there is not enough words to thank for giving me this tool that I had been looking for a long long time. I fell in love with this the first time I generated a report.

You rock, you really rock.... keep up your good work...

I don't know what is the problem but the google rank just give the value of 0 on all backlinks that I get with the software.