Are other blogs linking to your blog?

I have often discussed the value of link exchanges in this column.



While there are some concens in some quarters, about trading links and their effect on your Google rankings, I still believe they are a good thing for bloggers.



Bloggers trade links, ljust like any other traditional websites, but bloggers add links without swaps too. Every day, bloggers link to interesting articles and blog posts all over the internet. Bloggers add other blogs to their blogrolls and links sections, often without requesting any link in return.



Because of that generous free linking, bloggers were not caught up in the concerns about link trades, expressed by other websites. Blogs didn't seem to be penalized by Google, in the recent Florida update, for trading links.



For those who haven't already heard, here's the speculation.



One of the possible reasons, for many sites losing search engine rankings in Google's recent update, was the practice link trading. While that theory remains unproven, I don't think blogs suffered any setbacks at all for swapping links.



In fact, I think blogs were rewarded.



The more links to your blog, the better, in the eyes of the search engines.



How can you find out who is linking to your blog?



One way to find your incoming blog links is to check Technorati.



If you want to know what blogs are linking to yours, simply enter your blg URL in the search box at Technorati. The incoming linked blogs will appear, in order of most recent linking to you first. If you prefer, you can check the list by "blog authority", meaning the most heavily linked blog will rank first on the list.



For a more thorough list of incoming links, click on http://www.google.com.



In the search box, enter the following:



link: yourblogtitle.com ....and press search.



There will appear in the results, a list of all the mentions of your blog, all over the internet. The links are all taken into account by Google, in its calculation of where your blog ranks in its search results, whether they are major links or not. Many will not appear in Google's other lists of your backlinks.



Note that not all of the listings will be links from blogs and websites. Many will be from forums, message boards, and any other places your blog is mentioned.



Another method to check your links is to visit Marketleap.



You simply enter your blog's URL (and a couple of others too, if you like) into the search box. Your blog's backlinks will appear from several noted search engines, including Google/AOL (which lists only PageRank 4 or higher links), Alltheweb (which gives a more complete number), AltaVista, HotBot/Inktomi, and MSN.



By looking at the results of each search engine (and note the results will all be different), you can get a fuller picture of who is linking to you.



Knowing your backlinks will help you gain an idea, of how widely spread your blog is, across the internet.



Or not.



Armed with this knowledge, you can decide if a major linking program is needed, to increase your blog's web presence.



The more places your blog can be found, the higher your blog will appear on the search engines, for people looking for your blog's topics.



The higher you appear in search engines, and the more places your blog appears, the more visitor traffic you will have.



Get those links coming to your blog today!