One of the best SEO assets any site can have is a profusion or quality backlinks and their value is so obvious it makes them a prime target for negative SEO attacks. Practitioners of negative SEO tactics are usually as clever as they are devious; they can find a site’s best backlinks and then destroy them—usually by contacting the owners of the sites providing the links, passing themselves off as the owner of the site they wish to attack, and then requesting the link be removed.
The owner of the attacked site would normally be oblivious to any of this and when their ranking and traffic began to drop a long and cumbersome investigation would be required to try and get to the root of the problem. It’s much better to monitor backlinks and deal with problems as and when they arise.
How to Automatically Monitor Backlinks
The best way to monitor backlinks is to subscribe to MonitorBacklinks.com and link their system to the Google Analytics account that corresponds to the site that requires monitoring.
The Monitor Backlinks website provides a free search box that allows visitors to check their backlinks, but while this can be handy it is of little use to webmasters who require automatic monitoring of their links.
Although the site offers a free 30 day trial, continued use of their tools will require users to take out a paid subscription. Various price plans are available, but the cheapest package may be sufficient for many webmaster’s needs.
For a payment of $19.90 each month webmasters can:
- Monitor two of their domains
- 500 unique links
- 50 keywords
The whole process is fully automated and webmasters are informed via email whenever new links appear or if existing links are removed. Subscribers are also allowed to choose two competing domains and monitor their backlinks as well. Subscriptions also provide access to a variety of other features and refinements but it is beyond the scope of this article to go into further details here. Further information on features and pricing are available on the Monitor Backlinks website.
John Brennan is director of ePresence Internet Marketing. He is an experienced management consultant, specialising in Digital Marketing, Business Development, Product Development and Innovation Management.
Owner/director of ePresence, John also lectures in Digital Advertising and Analytics at Cork Institute of Technology.
John has an Electronic Engineering Degree from Cork Institute of Technology, MBA from University College Cork and Executive Training at Kellogg Business School, Chicago.
Before setting up ePresence, John held various roles such as Software Engineer, Director of Engineering, Director of Product and Program Management, Vice President of Product Development and General Manager in world leading organisations such as Apple, IBM, Snap-on Inc. and FMC.
John combines his technology know-how, management experience and customer focus to help his clients achieve online success.
