Quick Google trick keeps you alert of links to your content
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A shortfall of some web analytics programs at news sites is they don’t always report the metrics producers need - a key measure being referrers .
Why you should pay attention to referrers (people who link to your site and send traffic)?
Knowing referrers gives a news site producer insight into who is scanning your content and also who is promoting your content! Engaging referrers, whether they be bloggers, social network profiles or other websites, can help you find news consumer evangelists who can help you spread the word on new projects and stories that could help increase your traffic.
It’s also great to know just who is linking to your content.
So here’s the tip (via WebProNews - see their video on the tip!)
Use Google Alerts to get email updates on links to your content!
Google Alerts allows you to sign up for emails updates on topics within Google Search Results. Every time new content appears in a search result on a specific term/topic, Google files it into the list for you and sends subscribers an email with the links.
Reporters use Google Alerts to stay updated on a developing story or to stay current on industry news. News site producers can use it to stay updated on who’s linking to your content!
How to use Google Alerts for backlink notification
- Choose a page/section you want information on
- Visit Google Alerts
- In the search term box, enter - link:www.yoursite.com
- Set the other details and you’ll start getting email updates on who is linking to your content
Note : Google doesn’t report all links, but it does reveal a fair number. Any producer with a good analytics program won’t likely need this tip, but if you don’t have access to your sites’ metrics reports, using Google Alerts might be a good way to keep tabs on who’s linking to your content.
If you want to check out more link-checking tools, see my post on Yahoo!’s Site Explorer tool to find out who’s linking to you .
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April 21st, 2008 at 10:16 am
That’s interesting, I hadn’t thought about using google alerts like that.