A free, hidden link database in the Bing Webmaster Tools

Say what you want about Bing but they have really taken the webmaster tools to another level.

Say what you want about Bing but they have really taken the webmaster tools to another level.

They created an indexing API wordpress plugin.

They build a freakin keyword research tool into BWT...

The freakin' keyword research tool

... including data you don't get from Google. I mean, look at the impressions (think: search volume) by device in the screenshot below.

Remember that Google Ads, the source of keyword search volume, is literally built for ads. Plus, Google doesn't give you search volume for many longtail keywords, values. are often aggregated, and average across the year.

And that brings me to the backlinks section...

Bing Webmaster Tool Backlinks

Just like the Google Search Console, Bing gives you an overview of the links it found pointing at your site.

The first edge this backlink database provides is anchor text.

When you click on one, you actually see a list of the backlinks that have that anchor text.

That's pretty neat. Oh, and you can export all of that.

Let's get to the core of this post: Similar Sites. It's a feature of the Backlinks tool that shows you top referring domains and top anchor text for... any site you want.

You can check out any domain that comes to mind on top of your own one. Yes, even Wikipedia. No, subdirectories or pages don't work. It has to be a subdomain (www is technically also a subdomain).

Check out how I compare two other domains next to my own in the Bing Webmaster Tools below.

When you click through the detailed report, you can blend a domain out (say, your own when you want to check out any other domain on the web) and identify link gaps. It's basically a free link analysis tool Bing provides.

Even more so, you can change to the "Anchor texts" view compare what link texts different domains receive.

That's especially powerful when you compare your backlink profile to a competitor and find that you don't get links with a specific anchor text for a keyword you're trying to rank for.

Taking it a step further, you can export your keyword rankings from the "Search Performance" section in the Bing Webmaster Tools and use a simple VLOOKUP formula to match it to the anchor text links you received (see example below). This could help inform your link profile and potentially decisions.

With a 3rd party rank tracker, you could run the same analysis for competitors.

It's quite interesting to observe Bing's recent push into the webmaster community. Of course, their search engine doesn't deliver the same type of traffic as Google but it's worth a look.

Btw, I'm not sponsored by Bing (maybe I should be).