Find Back-Links for Multiple URLs
I’ve been using this query format for checking back-links on yahoo and msn:
link:http://v1.magicbeandip.com/ -site:magicbeandip.com
Try it at: MSN Search and Yahoo!
It’s nice because it excludes all pages at Magic Bean Dip that link to http://v1.magicbeandip.com, so all I see are links from other websites. The thing I dislike about this method of finding back-links is that it only finds back-links to one page.
After a little experimentation, I found a query format that will find back-links to more than one page at a time. Simply add an OR between two separate queries. It doesn’t save any typing, but is handy to use in my automated scripts.
link:http://v1.magicbeandip.com/ -site:magicbeandip.com OR link:http://v1.magicbeandip.com/store/browse_books_1000 -site:magicbeandip.com
Try it at: MSN Search and Yahoo!
Logically, I expected to only need one -site:magicbeandip.com but it doesn’t work without one for each link: statement. Be sure to capitalize the OR so MSN and Yahoo! recognize it as a boolean operator instead of one of the words you are searching for.
Watch the query length for MSN. It truncates the query at 128 characters. In my example, the end of the domain name gets cut off, but it appears to still be enough for it to work. Yahoo! took this 575 character query that simultaneously checks the back-links for 6 URLs without problem.