[LINK] RFI: Backtracking Links

Roger Clarke Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Fri Jan 28 08:55:50 AEDT 2011


As per the note below, it's easy to get a list of URLs that contain 
links to a nominated web-page.

But is anyone aware of a way to do either of the following things, 
using Google or any other search-engine?

(1)  identify all links to all pathnames within a given domain-name

      The obvious way to express the request would be with a wild-card:
      link=<domain-name>/*

(2)  identify all links to a specific URL, but excluding those
      that are from within the same domain-name

_________________________________________________________________________


Using http://www.google.com.au/advanced_search
and using the expand [+] option at the bottom
you get the option to:  'Find pages that link to the page: ...'.

The same thing can be achieved by keying into the Google search-bar:

link:<URL>
e.g. link:{www.}privacy.org.au/bba/

Both approaches generate:
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=link:<URL>...
e.g.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=link:privacy.org.au/bba/...

[You then need to click on one of the high-numbered pages, which 
appears to force it to remove whatever it infers to be duplicates. 
What a bunch of unreliable kludge-merchants Google programmers are!]


I found nothing relevant to my question in the Search Help pages:
http://www.google.com.au/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=134479
http://www.google.com.au/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861
http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=30275&topic=1051770
http://www.google.com/landing/searchtips/#helpcenter


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University



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