Find out about your website with “hidden” tools
Ever wondered if all your website pages are included in the search engines? Or who is linking to your site?
We’ll show you how to use hidden Google and Yahoo search tools to determine what pages from your website they have included in their indexes and who is linking to your site.
Why do you want to know this?
You may want to know if a vital page on your website has been indexed. Or maybe there is a page indexed by search engines that was meant for internal use and not for publication. Read about stopping search engines from indexing certain pages.
It is also a good idea to keep track of other sites linking to yours. Mostly, these will be various directories that you have never heard of before. Since Google ranks sites with more external links than sites with fewer, keep track of the number of sites linking to yours… If you have paid to be listed with a directory, then you can check their linking, as well.
The hidden tools.
Okay, here we go. For each of the two search engines, you need to go to their browser (click on their logos below) and key the below bold text into their search bar, replacing “domain” with your domain name.
site:domain.com
Displays all pages Google has indexed from your site.
allinurl:domain.com
Displays all pages Google currently is showing from your site.
link:www.domain.com
Shows all links to your website in the Google indexes.
cache:www.domain.com
Shows the latest revision of the URL Google has in its cache and when they last indexed it.
site:domain.com
Displays all pages Yahoo has indexed from your site.
url:http://www.domain.com
Shows the latest revision of the URL Yahoo has in its cache (Yahoo does not share their cache dates).
link:http://www.domain.com
Shows all links to your website in the Yahoo indexes.