Major SEO Research Tool (Yahoo Site Explorer) NOW Debunked!
Have you tried doing a backlink search lately on Yahoo?
Guess what?
It doesn't work! :-(
Sometime over the weekend one of my staff members who does a LOT of research for me EVERYDAY, emails me to say, "Dori, something is wrong with Yahoo!, it is not giving me backlink detail for my research!"
And sure enough, I checked it out, and what I got was tragic!
It's not a total surprise since they did announce back in July (Bing Blog on Site Explorer Closer) they were going to close it down, but now that it is gone, well, makes me kind of sad. So now along with Yahoo! search..Yahoo! Site Explorer has gone totally Bing!
And the worst part is, is that Bing is pulling a Google and NOT showing us all link data. They have redirected SEO's to their webmaster tools, but that isn't looking promising either. When asked about competitive data Duane Forrester of Bing says..
"..So, I will tell you about what I have about your website, and you can have hundreds of websites and I'll tell you about all of those individually through the tool set. I won't give you the facility to simply enter another domain of your choosing and get similar data back. " - from SEOMoz 10/20/11 White Board Interview
And they aren't, for example, I just did a search on www.About.com, a site we all know that has a gazillion links going into it, and while OpenSiteExplorer.com and MajesticSEO.com are reporting hundreds of thousands of backlinks, Yahoo! ala Bing, is reporting a measly 112! (And yes, Bing reports the same thing)
So, what does this mean?
1) Bing now has 30% search share and that is something to pay attention too.
2) SEO's will have to resort to 1 of 2 paid services for competive data (OpenSiteExplorer and MajesticSEO).
So for me, who uses this type of data everyday, it isn't that big a deal, and I belong to both. But, for the newbie or the person who needs the data only once in a while, the debunkness of Yahoo's Site Explorer Tool will be sorely missed.
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TO COMMENT.. please click on the "Continue" button below! :-)
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Solid stuff. Will miss the spytool for sure. -
Yahoo! Site Explorer gives you best sites available!! -
Arhhhhh.... its a conspriracy I tell you. Not sure what Bing stands to gain from hiding data like this. Oh well, hello SEO Majest...
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Well, Today is the day it is all over! lol, Guess I was just a couple days premature with my announcement, but the writing was on ...
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Thanks guys! I have ALWAYS just used the link: search parameter in Yahoo! to get to Site Explorer, strange that they would disco...
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No problemo! The link popularity tool at marketleap.com is another alternative. Hat tip Andy Jenkins.
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Its working fine for me to Doris...
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Yahoo Site Explorer is not dead... You just used the wrong tool. http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/...
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Yahoo! Site Explorer works for me as well. I have to go to siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com and log in to my Yahoo! account, but when...
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Yah Kurt link:about.com but didn't linkdomain: url.com bring you to that page? I didn't usually use that I would use Quirk in Fir...
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Tim - I could be wrong, but I believe that it used to be that link:domainname.com at the "Web" search box at Yahoo.com would bring...
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Ooops... that second link should have been http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=about.com&bwm=i&bwmo=d&bwmf=s Sorry!...
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Yahoo and Bing -- Needs more cowbell!
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It's not dead yet. Yahoo! search has been pulling results from Bing for quite some time. No surprise there. For Yahoo! Site Explo...
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Yup, I agree - still see it as well. Yahoo! Site Explorer still works fine. It's not the only tool out there, but it is still fu...
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We all know it is coming but finally it happened. Great post! Thank you.
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Yea i totally agree with you. BTW its very informative Thanks