On your WordPress blog in the Dashboard, or on your WordPress.com blog on your Blog Stats panel, you will find Incoming Links. If you aren’t using WordPress, you can find your incoming links through Technorati with:
http://technorati.com/search/example.wordpress.com
And through Google Blog Search with:
http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?q=link:http://example.wordpress.com/
So what is so magical and fun about incoming links?
Incoming links tell you who is linking to your blog and blog posts. If someone links to your blog post, and both of you have trackbacks enabled, then you should see the incoming trackback link in your blog comments panel. But if they link to your blog, then the only place you will know is in your incoming links list.
Your incoming links list is your link to the outside world and what others are saying about you and your blog. The fun part is when the things they say are fun and appreciative, honoring the great work you do. The downside is when those incoming links poke fun and say unkind things. That’s just part of the process.
I love it when people have nice things to say about my blog. It makes me feel good and gives me the encouragement to keep going on. Don’t you? This is the fun part of incoming links.
It’s also about gossip! What are they saying about me and my blog? Hmmm?
It’s also about detective work. Incoming links can tell you a lot about who is ripping off your blog content and using it in their scrapers and splogs. Die! Kill! Die! Or at least send them an email to cease and desist abusing the content you worked so hard on.
The magical and fun part about incoming links is finding new blogs. I love digging through my incoming links once in a while to find out who is saying what about the topics I blog about. I discover a wide range of new blogs and bloggers and often find things to blog about, since their topics and mine usually have a lot in common.
The most wonderful and magical part of incoming links is finding new friends. When you link to my blog, you are sending a letter of recommendation out to your readers telling them you found something of value here. That’s a pretty nice way of introducing yourself. When I visit, I may find something in common with you and we’ll trade comments or links as I write about you and your blog. If the relationship builds, we’ll become friends, supporting each other as we blog on to our readers. I’ve found some of my dearest friends this way. Have you?
Take time weekly or monthly to checkout your incoming links and maybe you’ll find some magic and fun in them, too.
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Site Search Tags: incoming links, link backs, trackbacks, whose linking, links, link popularity, blog links, link recommendations, link love
Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network
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10 Comments
You are so right, Lorelle!
Let the friendship begin!
There’s something to that word “magic,” Lorelle. That someone could become your friend without ever meeting you in person … or that they could talk about you thousands of miles away and you could know about it almost instantly … just feels magical!
I have had your site bookmarked for some time, knowing that I was going to make the move from blogger to WP. I’ve now officially switched and am in the process of importing my template. I see on my dashboard tonight that WordPress 2.2 is now available. I think I remember you saying not to download new versions as soon as they are released. What are your thoughts?
Thank you!
Dawn
Regard from Indonesia,
Incoming Links is my favorit tab. This tab is the first things I show when enter into Dashboard.
I’m really happy if you also link to my ugly blog.
I’ve linked to you in the past Lorelle as you know, but I could probably link to you in every post. Your writing covers a vast area, and most of it is top notch!
Easton: I’m glad someone got my “magical” reference. It is magic indeed.
Mommy Dearest: My personal policy is to upgrade the security patches immediately, but let full version updates go a week or two unless you are REALLY determined to have the latest features. And there are some really nice new features with this version, so it’s a personal choice.
And to everyone, thank you for your support and kind words. It helps fuel this blog.
So, there is no link for me?
Hiks..hiks…
My site is small but linked on a few other web sites that I know of. Those are not links in blog posts, but direct links on static web pages. It’s also linked in a few comment threads that are on blogs.
However, my wp dashboard stats panel shows no incoming links.
Is that as it should be? Are incoming links only shown on the stats panel when the link is in an original blog post, not on a traditional web site, or in the comment s of a blog?
Two issues here. A trackback is created by sites, blogs or other dynamically generated (non-static) web pages which offer trackback abilities. If they don’t have it, it won’t trackback. Second issue is whether or not Google Blog Search has found the other sites with your link in it. Since this service tends to focus on blogs, probably not.
The incoming links list includes only links found through the Google Blog Search. You can also check Technorati as they monitor which blogs and sites are linking to your blog, too. WordPress started with Technorati but ran into some difficulties as Technorati struggled with early days development and switched to Google Blog Search as it was more stable at the time.
The limits of this is if these other sites are listed with search engines.
And the key to getting those incoming links is to consistently create content worth linking to.
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