If you are concerned about organic search placement, then you need to keep an eye on your website’s backlinks or more commonly known as inbound links. I’ve found an easy to use free tool that allows you to check your link numbers quickly and even review links that are follow and nofollow. The tool is called the Open Site Explorer and can give you a snapshot picture of link on the Web being pointed back to a page or domain.
As you review your statistics and numbers you may wonder what a nofollow or follow link are. A nofollow link is one that a search engine robot will not be following to discover your site. You receive no search engine “juice” from this link. You may still get site traffic, but no organic placement benefit. On the other had follow links are goldmines. That means that the search spider will follow the link all the way to your website from the original website. You may get an authority rank benefit as well as a link number benefit that may raise your own organic search placement. Follow links are good as long as they are from legitimate non-spammy sources.
Try the tool out for yourself and see what you think. I think it is pretty cool!
I am not receiving any compensation for writing this blog post from the site owner. I just found the tool, like it, and wanted to let you know about it.