I had a chat a few days ago with a fellow SEO counterpart who let me know a quick trick when using Yahoo! Site Explorer. This method allows you to filter the number of referring domains from the total number of backlinks pointing to a web site.

I’ll use www.confused.com as an example.

Method 1

Go to http://uk.yahoo.com and type in the search bar site:www.confused.com, when it forwards to the Yahoo! Site Explorer tool make sure you select the inlinks tab and the Except from this domain and Entire site drop down options - the result should state approximately 66,000 inlinks (this result shows you the approximate number of referring domains pointing to the www.confused.com, also the most relevant backlinks).

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/uk/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.confused.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=s

Method 2 (this is the most common way to use Yahoo! Site Explorer)

This time use https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ and not http://uk.yahoo.com (use a new tab in Firefox or Explorer and paste in the address). Enter http://www.confused.com into the Yahoo! Site Explorer search box and select the same settings as mentioned in Method 1. The end result will show a big difference, approximately 192,000 inlinks (this counts all back-links even if there are multiple links on the same domain).

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.confused.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=s

There you go, now you can find out the number of referring domains vs the total number of backlinks pointing to a site when using Yahoo! Site Explorer. This is really useful when you want to find out exactly how diverse the sites are that link to you. Ideally you want a wide range of websites, each having only one link to your site to have the highest value in terms of link juice. Explore your site - and let us know what you find.

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Link Building, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO Tools, Yahoo!