Traffic Flow SEO

Backlinks are very important to your search engine optimization efforts. Many people assume a link, is a link, is a link, but that thought process is completely untrue. All backlinks have different values. For instance you may get a backlink from a site that has a Google PageRank (PR) of 8, thousands of backlinks, great tags (title, meta, etc.) - essentially what would appear to be the perfect backlink (assuming your site the the backlink site have content that is relevant to each other) - compared to a site that has say a Google PR of 3, hundreds of backlinks and just okay tags. The knee jerk reaction is that the first backlink is better, but in reality the second may actually be better because of many reasons. If the first backlink is on a page that has many outbound links, which all have to share the 'link juice' then the actual value of the backlink is greatly diminished. Also, the 'anchor text' (the text used in the backlink to your site) may not be keyword rich. So, on the first backlink your anchor text may be "click here to learn more" and in the seond backlink it may be something like this, "xyz company that provides xyz service". In the second backlink the 'anchor text' may contain important keywords with which you want to rank for and by having them in the 'anchor text' greatly increases the value of that backlink regardless of the PR value. This can all get confusing fast, so below is a list of free backlink tools to help you sort through the value of your backlinks and hopefully help you build a better roadmap for your SEO efforts.

Analyze Backlinks - good tool that lets you see all backlinks (appears to be up to the top 1,000), anchor text, total links, outbound links and the title of the page - all great for better insight.

SmartPageRank | Backlink Checker - great tool that lets you see all backlinks, anchor text, PageRank (PR) and best of all nofollow (this is essential to see if the link is passing any 'link juice').

Link Diagnosis (requires FireFox with a plugin) - great tool with incredible visuals (when it works properly, sometimes you may have to re-run your reports to get them to work). This tools is by far the most advanced including a unique 'strength' number. Here is a sample of one of the reports this tool can create - click here.

Backlink Watch - Good tool with a lot of potential, but way too much advertising! Lets you see backlinks, PR, outbound links and anchor text.

iWebTool | Backlink Checker - very basic offering from a site that offers some incredible tools. Limited results and information, possibly use as a secondary source of data.

Domain-Pop | Free Backlink Checker - great tool that offers all the basics, but also allows you to analyze (and sort by) IP addresses which is also very helpful as it can identify different sites that are bunched up on a single IP (not as much value in their backlinks).

Domain Inbound Links Checker - basic level tool with minimal amount of data available, but one stand out is that the backlinks can be sorted by extension (.edu, .gov., .mil).

UPDATE!!!! (6/19/08)

I think I just found one of the best and most accurate online backlink analyzers ever! It is located here - SEOPRO - Backlink Checker