Manual query to search for backlinks?

[Modbargains]

Hello,

I've been using open site explorer, dabbled with seo spy glass, and other back linking sites, but I was wondering if there was a manual way of searching for back links? Such as site.www.widgets.com +keyword -widgets.com to show me results of all the sites pointing to www.widgets.com, or pointing to the keywords linking to widgets.com. I do enjoy Open Site Explorer, but it takes a few months index the back links ive done.

[DRSearchEngOpt]

Well I am not sure exactly what you need but if you want to use Google to get an idea of who is linking to you than use the following:

link:www.yoursitehere.com

[Modbargains]

Thank you Thomas.

I just used that search query, and I received only 3 results. I am 100% sure we have more than 3 sites linking to us..lol. We are back linked to 1,000s of sites. Is there another search query.

Basically, I want to see our competitor's backlinks. I have used open site explorer, but they only pull up back links that are months to years old. I want to see if they have any fresh back links, and also to check if the back links we have provided are index and searchable on open site explorer(which i've only seen 1 new back link that's 2 months old).

Any ideas?

[DRSearchEngOpt]

If you don't mind what is the site...also if you don't normally use www before your url then try the command without that in the URL.

[SamAllen]

I think this tool is what you are looking for:

http://www.linkstant.com/

It gives you instant notifications when you get new links. I haven't tried it yet.

[Cyrus-Shepard]

The Google link; command is notoriously inaccurate, to the point of being worthless. Rand wrote a piece on it a couple years back.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-link-command-busting-the-myths

Unfortunately, as for manually checking for backlinks, your options are limited.

The good news is that OSE is getting much quicker at indexing new links. Other good ways of discovering links include checking your referring sites in Google Analytics. I could be wrong, but I believe this is the principal behind Linkstat.com

Moz is releasing a new update to Blogscape soon that should solve some of these problems. Majestic SEO sometimes has good backlink information.