Do you know how to search the internet for search engine related data about your site?

On the internet you will find many articles on how to search the internet, but many are not related to finding out more about your own site. Do you know things like:

• How many quality links Google thinks you have coming into your site?
• How many pages from your site Google has indexed?

These bits of information can be useful to you in your SEO efforts and can be found by using advanced Google search operators. Let’s look at how to effectively use a search engine to find out more about your site.

Instructions on how to search the internet for the number of quality links coming into your site.

The link: query will tell you how many quality links Google thinks you have coming into your site and what those links are. Note that we said quality links, not all links. The link: query will not show all links to your site, just some of the good ones.

To use the advanced Google search link: query, simply go to Google’s search box and type in link:yoursite.com and hit enter. The list of links will then be displayed.

How to effectively use a search engine to find the number of pages indexed.

To find the number of pages on your site indexed by Google, go to Google’s home page and type in site:yoursite.com. All of the pages that Google has indexed from your site will be displayed.

It is important to check the number of pages that Google reports as being indexed against your own knowledge of the site. If you know your site has roughly 500 pages and a site: query shows that Google only has 100 pages indexed, then Google may be having trouble crawling your site. If the site: query reports 1000 pages indexed, then you may have a duplicate content or a canonical issue on your site. Both of these problems need to be addressed.

There are many other available articles on how to search the internet, to learn more about advanced Google search, and how to effectively use a search engine. Learning more about how search engines work will make using them to enhance your SEO more effective.