If you blog you'll know which other websites you link to, but you may not know which other websites link to you. Which is of course far more interesting. Here are six ways to find out.
• Technorati - This is a great site which keeps track of two-thirds-of-a-million blogs (yes, there really are that many) and then works out who's linking to who. You merely type in a web address and it tells you which bloggers are linking to it. Easy. So, for example, here are the 63 blogs it reckons link to me here at diamond geezer. Fascinating stuff, and a regular treat.
(I'd never have spotted this astute post without it - 50 observations on English life by an American who's just moved over here)
• Daypop - Much like Technorati, but they only search 30,000 blogs so they find a lot fewer links. Just 17 for me at the moment, but different to the list above. One of Daypop's other fine services is to suggest blogs which are similar to your own, based on content. In my case I'm pleased to see that list includes Troubled Diva and Swish Cottage (presumably pre-battery).
• Blogstreet - Thanks to Scott for this one. Blogstreet checks out nearly 150,000 sites and provides a ranked list of blogs linking to you. The ranking is interesting but potentially obsessive (what do you mean, I'm only 2392nd?!). There are lots of other options including a clever visual map to show how your links link which is pretty but, as Scott says, pretty useless.
• Google - You type "link:" in the search box, then you stick your blog's web address on the end, then you press return. Simple. Works with any other web address too. At the last count 152 pages out there link to mine, even though there are tons of repeats on the list. Maybe Google search results really are all blogged up.
• Downhill - You'll remember that a few months ago I wrote a piece about six degrees of separation for blogs. How many links does it take to get from your blog to another, or from another blog back to yours? Here's an astonishing site that can tell you exactly that. For example, Star Trek's Wesley Crusher links to me in 3, from his excellent Wil Wheaton page via Movable Type and then Samizdata here to diamond geezer. Go play, but beware, it is dangerously addictive.
• Trackback - This is a way of telling someone else you've blogged about something they've written. It's a bit complicated. This explains it quite well. This explains it in rather more detail. I can't trackback on this blog. So I'd better stop there.
