[joliett89]

I want to check the number of backlinks for some websites and generally there is a lot of tools / websites / programs available, but the most popular would be:

- Majestic SEO (paid)
- SEOmoz's Open Site Explorer (paid)

- ahrefs.com (paid)

- backlinkwatch.com (this one is free, but it looks like you get what you pay for in this case)

- Seospyglass (software, looks good, but I am not sure if it is not to advanced for what I need etc)

I looked at all the programs above, and at the end I installed Webrank Toolbar for Firefox. It is showing the number of backlings for Google, and Bing (also Yahoo, but it is always 0, because they are merged), and Google infromation is not available for the most part (it is showing 0, while Bing might have 120,000 for particular website etc; sometimes Google shows like 42, 60 links, and Bing has always a lot more and this info seems to be the most reliable). Information comes directly from what's available in search engines after entering "link:website_name. I think)

Since there is no info from Google available on their own website and through Webrank Toolbar, how do all the companies that I mentioned above get that information? Is it coming from their own databases etc (like they would have their own bots crawling the Internet and indexing that information in the same way the search engines do)? Are there any other good sources of free backlink information out there (not necessarily addresses, but just the number)?

Thank you.

[pentawebexperts]

Yes they have their own bots that crawl to search the number of backlinks as well as the domains that are linked to your sites.