How can I find it?

We discuss several tools that you can use to explore connections among Web sites and, more specifically, from other Web sites to yours.

Class held on 11/05/2008. Student notes are available on this page. Possible questions are available on this page.

Class structure

1. Go through “At beginning of class” information
2. Go through diagram explaining the tools we'll be looking at today
3. Work on exercises

At beginning of class

1. My wife had another MRI last night at 3:40am, this time on her spine. It went fine — just took a long time.
2. No new grades
3. The exam is next Monday (i.e., November 10).
4. I have arranged for a speaker from Google to come to class on Monday, November 24. He is the same speaker I had last year, and he did a fantastic job. I'm very much looking forward to his day in class.
5. Check the class notes page to see who is taking notes today and who is coming up with questions.
6. Go over any other announcements you might have missed since last class.
7. Check the start page for any blogs you might be interested in that you might have missed.
8. There are two more opportunities to write a blog entry.
9. Let's look over the upcoming industry updates.
   • For this class:
     • Yahoo update: Bryan (bryblum)

My notes

What you might want to learn about a Web site

1. Who has created a link to your site (Web site)
   • inlink — a link from another site to your site
2. Who has written about your site (blog)
3. Who has subscribed to your RSS feed
4. How do people find your site (search engine)

What can you learn about your Web site

Yahoo tools

The Yahoo SiteExplorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page.

1. link:http://www.somedomain.com shows what sites link to this particular site
   • Yahoo search for 'link:http://autos.yahoo.com/'
     • 5.5 million pages on this site
     • 7.4 million links coming to this site (i.e. inlinks) — click on the “Inlinks” button
       • This lists all the pages that link to autos.yahoo.com
       • Choices of inlinks
         • From all pages, or from all pages except this domain (i.e., not from yahoo.com), or from all pages except this subdomain (i.e., not from autos.yahoo.com)
         • To only this specific URL or to any page within this entire site
       • Outcomes
         • Inlinks From All Pages to Entire Site: 14.15 million links
         • Inlinks from all pages Except from this subdomain autos.yahoo.com to Entire Site: 11.04 million inlinks
         • Inlinks From All Pages to Only this URL: 7.37 million inlinks
         • Inlinks from all pages Except from this subdomain autos.yahoo.com to Only this URL: 4.27 million inlinks
         • Inlinks from all pages Except from this domain yahoo.com to Entire Site: 460,649 inlinks
         • Inlinks from all pages Except from this domain yahoo.com to Only this URL: 51,580 inlinks
2. Yahoo search for 'link:http://autos.yahoo.com/ -site:yahoo.com' — 18,600 documents
   • This lists all pages not in yahoo.com that link to autos.yahoo.com.
3. Yahoo: linkdomain:somedomain shows what sites link to any page within this site (note that there's no http)
   • Yahoo search for 'linkdomain:autos.yahoo.com' — this connects to Site Explorer as well; this is short hand for show inlinks from all pages to the entire site.
4. Find a specific page in the database
   • Search Yahoo

Google search tools

1. 'link:http://somedomain' shows what sites link to this site
   • Google search for 'link:http://autos.yahoo.com/' — 350 documents
   • Google search for 'link:http://autos.yahoo.com/ -site:yahoo.com' — 44 documents
2. Find a specific page in the database
   • Search Google for Gregg Easterbrook — finds 4 pages

Google Analytics

Demonstrate Google Analytics.

What you can learn about your blog

1. Search Bloglines
   • Search for citations of 'lifehacker.com'
2. Search through Technorati
   • To search Technorati for posts that link to a page within a specific URL, go to the Technorati advanced search page and look for “URL Search”.
   • Example lifehacker.com
   • You can sort by “freshness” or by “authority”
3. Use Feedburner (now owned by Google)

Resources

1. Searching for a New President: Obama Wins on Search Engine Optimization
2. Yahoo SiteExplorer
3. Linkology — an article from New York Magazine describing how blogs relate to each other.